Brexit news – live: UK downplays risk of EU taking business from London amid Universal Credit warning

MPs are calling on the government to ban China and Russia from any involvement in supplying equipment to Britain’s armed forces.

The Commons Defence Sub-Committee said nine companies operating in the UK defence sector had been acquired by Chinese firms in recent years, including a firm printing circuit boards used in the American F-35 fighters operated by both the British and US armed forces.

The committee said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) should publish a list of countries it “considers friendly and from whom investment should be encouraged”.

Tom Batchelor has the story:

Tooting’s MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has condemned Matt Hancock for boasting about the success of the UK’s inoculation programme.

Dr Allin-Khan, of the Labour Party, took to Twitter to say she had “choked on tears while watching patients say goodbye to their loved ones via an iPad”, in response to the health secretary’s claim he had “danced a little jig” over the “joy the jab’s giving” Britons.

Mr Hancock made the comments in an article he wrote for the Daily Mail – Dr Khan included a screenshot of the headline in her post.

It comes as Scotland announced on Sunday it had recorded almost 1,000 more deaths involving Covid-19, bringing the country’s total death toll to 6,715.

A woman who made sexual assault allegations against Alex Salmond has said the ongoing Holyrood inquiry is more traumatic for her than the trial was, the BBC reports.

The woman was one of nine who gave evidence against the former first minister at the High Court last year. Mr Salmond was previously cleared of all 13 of the sexual assault charges against him.

A committee is now investigating the Scottish government’s handling of the original complaints against him.

The woman in question told BBC Scotland political editor Glenn Campbell that she believed the inspection had turned into a “political fight” that made it less likely that other women would report any concerns.

She said the row had “effectively allowed the government to get away with not being properly scrutinised on its procedures”.

SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, who heads the committee, told the BBC she was “really sorry” that the woman felt that way.

Hammersmith Bridge has been lit red in a Valentine’s Day message aimed at highlighting ongoing delays to its repair.

The 133-year-old West London bridge has been closed to traffic since April 2019 when cracks appeared in its pedestals.

Frustrated residents have now projected the “UK’s biggest Valentine’s Day card” onto the bridge to mark the six-month anniversary of its full closure, with the message reading: “Broken Hearts. Broken Promises. Broken Lives. Broken Bridge.”

My colleague Bethany Dawson reports:

A transatlantic trade deal between America and Britain could see UK stores flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham, according to the author of a new book.

Meat in the US is cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, the Observer reports – something not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. It is widely believed such meat will be a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver.

In the US, processed meat is mixed with nitrites from celery juice to keep it “pink” and preserve it so it can stay on supermarket shelves longer. Nitrites are harmless in themselves, the newspaper states, but when they are cooked and ingested, they produce nitrosamines which are carcinogenic.

“The American processed-meat industry acts just like big tobacco,” Guillaume Coudray, author of Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?, told the Observer. “It obscures the truth about nitro-meats and clouds the facts for its own commercial benefit – and they have been at it for decades. They have done this despite clear and overwhelming evidence that nitro-meats cause bowel cancer.”

Ministers have announced the government will extend its eviction ban for another month but loopholes for landlords will stay in place.

Most renters will now be protected from bailiffs until 31 March after another decision made just a week before the lapse of the current period.

But campaigners point to exemptions that are already seeing many of those worst hit by the pandemic summoned to court for possession hearings and facing homelessness.

Jon Stone has the story:

Britain’s government needs to “step up” over promises to hold an inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane, the Irish premier has said.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said Britain must Ireland had investigated terrorist killings where collusion with security forces was suspected, and reiterated calls for Britain to reciprocate.

Mr Finucane was shot dead in his family home in north Belfast in February 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in an attack found to have involved collusion with the state.

NI secretary Brandon Lewis previously said he was not taking a public inquiry off the table but said further examinations of the case by police and a police watchdog should conclude first.

Mr Martin told the Sunday Times: “The Irish government fulfilled its obligations (under the Weston Park agreement), the British government hasn’t fulfilled all its obligations in respect of the murder of Pat Finucane.

“I think the British government needs to step up on that front as well, and I will work with (them) in relation to that.

“I think there’s a vested interest among British security interests and Provisional IRA intelligence interests never to have the truth come out.

“I think the Provos would just as well not want it to come out, so they procrastinate on an awful lot of issues and so (does) British intelligence.

“It’s very clear the Provisional IRA was heavily infiltrated in the end.”

Additional reporting by PA

Dominic Raab has refused to say whether he would have voted to impeach Donald Trump, after the former US president was acquitted in a narrow senate vote on Saturday.

The foreign secretary said he did not want to “get dragged into” in the internal politics of the United States following an impeachment trial over events at the US capitol.

It comes after 57 senators voted to convict Mr Trump and 43 to acquit, but a two-thirds majority is required in the chamber for impeachment.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone has more:

Dominic Raab has downplayed the risk of the EU taking business away from the City of London after Brexit, saying the city’s real challenges come from New York, Tokyo and others.

“If we’re really honest about it, the challenge to London as the global financial centre around the world will come from Tokyo, New York, and other areas, rather than from those European hubs, particularly if they start to erect barriers to trade and investment,” foreign secretary Dominic Raab told the BBC on Sunday.

Children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield said the £20-a-week boost in Universal Credit, which is due to end in April, should be extended.

She told the Sophie Ridge on Sky News programme: “It’s had an important impact and that needs to continue.

“This isn’t the time for families to have that uncertainty or that drop in income.

“What we do know with very young children that are bearing some of the brunt of that increase in poverty, if you fall behind before you get to school you have very few chances to catch up during your school day.”

Additional reporting by PA