Boris Johnson news: John Bercow warns prime minister against disobeying law by not asking for Brexit delay

The number of households living in temporary accommodation in England is higher than at any point in more than a decade, new official figures have revealed.

84,740 households were living in bed and breakfasts, hostels and other forms of temporary accommodation at the end of March 2019 - the highest number since 2007 and a rise of 77 per cent since 2010.

Families living in temporary accommodation include 126,020 children, the figures showed.

A staggering two-thirds of all households in temporary accommodation were in London.

Commenting on the figures, Polly Neate, chief executive of the Shelter charity, said:

"During a year where Brexit negotiations have totally dominated the political agenda, catastrophic numbers of people have become homeless.

"Cripplingly expensive private rents, frozen housing benefits and lengthy waiting lists for social homes are pushing people to the sharp edge of a housing emergency which won't go away without genuinely affordable homes."

Police officers from all over the country should be drafted in to help handle traffic in Kent in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the chairman of the county council has said.

Paul Carter told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he wants “boots on the ground”, and assurances that arrangements are in place for police officers and Highways England staff nationwide to be ready to “man the pumps”.

“I want assurance from Highways England and Kent Police that they have got the reciprocal arrangements with other police forces and Highways England officers around the country to make sure that they come into Kent in sufficiency to be able to man the pumps.”

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the title or categorising description of Yellowhammer document seen by her government at Holyrood was changed before its public release on Wednesday night.

“What we have seen in the Scottish government is what was published last night. The only difference I can confirm is in the title of the document. The version we had, had the title “base scenario” rather than “reasonable worst case scenario”, as appeared on the document that was published last night.

Sturgeon added: “It is for the UK government to explain if there is any significance to that.”

There has been a lot of speculation online today that an even more bleak assessment of the possible no-deal impacts – the so-called “black swan” dossier – exists in Whitehall.

Sturgeon’s comments will possibility only raise the level of interest in whether the government is still withholding its worst case scenario from the public.

Here’s our Europe correspondent Jon Stone with more on today’s speech by David Sassoli, president of the European Parliament.

Boris Johnson has said a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland would be “very good” - estimating the project would cost around £15bn.

The PM revealed his thoughts on the ambitious proposal as he spoke to schoolchildren playing with a model container ship onboard lighthouse tender NLV Pharos on the Thames.

Johnson told the children that he had recently been discussing the possibility of constructing a bridge over the Irish Sea. He said: “(I was talking yesterday) about building a bridge from Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland - that would be very good.

“It would only cost about £15bn.”

It follows reports that the PM has asked government officials for advice on the costs and risks of such a project.

Boris Johnson meets schoolchildren on NLV Pharos (Reuters) 

Rosamund Urwin, the Sunday Times journalist who broke the story about the existence of the Yellowhammer dossier, has said the version she got hold of was titled “base scenario”.

Nicola Sturgeon has also said this afternoon that the Scottish Government’s copy, seen in August, was called a “base scenario”.

Alistair Burt – one of the 21 Tory rebels recently expelled from the party – is disturbed by a Brexit Party MEP’s claim we are “entitled” to know the political views of judges.

Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Cabinet minister who had the Tory whip removed for defying Mr Johnson over Brexit, has said the issue must be resolved before a general election.

He told the Evening Standard: “We need to resolve this issue of Brexit before there is a general election so that the election can be about who you want to have govern you, and so the resolution of the Brexit issue is separate."

Here's more comment from MPs on whether the Yellowhammer documents are the "worst-case scenario", as Boris Johnson has claimed.

"So called #Yellowhammer papers are not what the Govt has to publish," Anna Soubry, of the Independent Group for Change, said. "Not the detailed & frank assessments of preparedness or otherwise for #NoDeal nor the detail of the consequences. I know those papers exist because I saw them in March & the updated versions must be published."

Meanwhile, Hilary Benn tweeted: "If the Yellowhammer documents really represent the worst case scenario, then presumably there are other scenarios that have been drawn up. Why doesn't the government publish these so we can all see?"

Labour MP Stephen Doughty told The Independent: “These documents show the shocking impact of a no-deal Brexit on fuel, food prices, medicines and a whole series of other critical parts of national life.

“However, the question must now be asked: where are the rest of the documents? Either the cabinet was taking extraordinarily reckless decisions based on six pages of information, or the government has not provided all the documents on Yellowhammer as specifically required by parliament’s vote on Monday."