Brexit news - live: Trade issues not ‘teething problem’, warns Cameron as PM branded ‘unrepentant liar’

Shadow international secretary Emily Thornberry has said the government is not doing enough to address human rights abuses in Cambodia.

In the Commons on Thursday, she asked her Conservative counterpart Liz Truss why she had not suspended Cambodia’s trade preferences as a result of the abuses.

The minister responded by saying she shared Ms Thornberry’s concerns and that the government had raised the issue with the Cambodian government.

Ms Thornberry then pointed out the government’s advice to UK businesses working in Cambodia. Published last week, it said ‘while political disputes could trigger protests, these will be broken up rapidly by the security forces’.

“That sounds to me like her department doesn’t care. How does (Ms Truss) think that it sounds in Cambodia?” she added.

Liz Truss has said the government is working “flat out” to get US tariffs on Scottish goods lifted.

Under the Trump administration, duties were placed on items including Scotch whisky.

In answer to questions on the topic, Ms Truss said the tariffs “are damaging on both sides of the Atlantic” and promised to speak to the new US trade representative as soon as she is officially confirmed in the post.

“I can assure you that the prime minister is exercised about this issue as am I and we are working flat out to get an agreement to make sure that these tariffs are removed,” the minister added.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Louise Haigh has hit out at the ERG, after it released a report calling for the Northern Ireland protocol to be abandoned.

The Labour MP pointed out that this was the Brexit the Eurosceptic group of Tory MPs had wanted.

“Now they would rather tear things down, and provoke further instability, than show even a hint of responsibility,” she added.

Mark Francois, the ERG chairman, has said the protocol has to go or “we will not let matters rest there”.

Boris Johnson has been accused of “agressively undermining” devolution in Wales and Scotland through his government’s levelling up programme.

This comes after the government revealed on Wednesday that the whole of the UK would be covered by the scheme, which was initially planned for England alone.

The devolved administrations are angry that Westminister will have control over this levelling up fund and how it is spent.

My colleague Tom Batchelor reports:

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that teachers will assign students their exam grades this year.

Speaking in the Commons on Thursday morning, the minister said there was “wide support” for the approach the government was taking.

Last year, the government faced fierce criticism over an algorithm used to issue exam results.

Gavin Williamson has claimed students’ progress has been protected by govenrment policy.

Giving a statement in the Commons, the minister told MPs that young people had paid “a considerable price” for the disruption during the pandemic.

He highlighted the government’s catch-up schemes for pupils, including tutoring programmes and summer schools.

“Our approach in the face of the worst disruption to education since the Second World War has been to protect the progress of pupils and students,” Mr Williamson said.

The legal aid provision for immigration detainees held in prisons is unlawful, the High Court has ruled.

The judgment comes after one man was unable to access a lawyer for nine months and had to represent himself.

Our social affairs correspondent May Bulman reports:

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he is “appalled” that MPs’ staff have wasted 650 hours responding to spoof emails from King’s College London.

“I am absolutely appalled by [Mr Green] telling me 650 hours of time have been wasted. It shows how deeply foolish the behaviour of King’s College has been, especially in the context of the pandemic, and this is clearly being taken up Mr Speaker by you,” he said in the Commons earlier.

“But I hope the condemnation of the House rings out in the ears of this unethical ethics committee.”

On Wednesday, ministers and unions criticised academics from King’s College London (KCL) and the London School of Economics (LSE) after they sent out over 1,000 emails to MPs, pretending to be made-up people who calimed to be concerned about their financial situation during the pandemic.

The emails included fake job descriptions, including a lawyer and a cleaner, and in some cases claimed to support a specific political party - they were part of a research project to see whether these factors had an  impact on MPs’ responses.

But the study, which was conducted alongside academics from other European universities where academics sent similar emails to their national parliaments, has been described as “unethical”.

Professor Rosie Campbell, professor of politics at KCL, said in a statement it was “absolutely not our intention” to waste MPs’ time, adding that the group wanted to “sincerely apologise if we misjudged the imposition this would place on MPs and their staff”.

A man accused of sending abusive emails to a number of current and former MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn and Amber Rudd, has had his case sent to the crown court.

Paul William Maciver Ritchie appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by video-link on Thursday for a brief administrative hearing. He spoke only to state his name, address and date of birth.

The 34-year-old, from Lanarkshire, is accused of 28 counts of sending a letter, communication or article conveying a threatening message against a series of politicians.

Alleged victims included former Commons Speaker John Bercow, former attorney general Dominic Grieve QC, ex-Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, former home secretary Amber Rudd, one-time London mayoral candidate and Cabinet minister Rory Stewart, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, and current Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey.

Court documents show Mr Ritchie is accused of sending former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn an email in March 2019 containing the message “You should be hung for treason you f****** terrorist”.

In an email on May 2019 to former politician Chuka Umunna, who represented several parties, Mr Ritchie is alleged to have written: “You have been warned... shut your f****** mouth boy”.

In July that year, he is said to have followed up with: “If you kill brexit... (w)e will kill you and your entire family.”

Mr Ritchie was released on bail.

Previously classified documents from the start of the Gulf War reveal Margaret Thatcher compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler following the Iraqi dictator’s invasion of Kuwait.

The former prime minister and her foreign secretary privately agreed that Hussein was “behaving like Hitler” in 1990 after his military attack on the neighbouring country.

Thirty years on from Operation Desert Storm, which ended 30 years ago this week, the documents, which were first made public in 2017,  underline how Mrs Thatcher viewed Hussein – as a “selfish, despotic dictator” who engaged in “psychological warfare”.

My colleague Clea Skopeliti reports: