Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen, including Ed Miliband's "Made in Britain" speech and David Cameron being grilled by MPs on public service reform
For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures.
Labour: 41% (up 2 from YouGov in the Sunday Times)
Conservatives: 36% (down 4)
Lib Dems: 11% (up 2)
Labour lead: 5 points
Government approval: -28
Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has announced plans to put former prisoners straight onto the work programme if they leave jail without a job to go to. Firms will get £5,600 every time they get one of those former offenders into a job which he or she keeps for at least two years.
Yesterday the World at One ran an interesting package suggesting that backbench 1922 Committee was becoming less influential in Conservative politics and that new organisations, like the Free Enterprise Group, were increasingly important. On cue, the Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng (left) has written an article for PoliticsHome explaining why he helped set it up.
In setting up the Free Enterprise Group, we were mindful of a number of facts: in 1997, public spending constituted 37% of GDP. Today that figure is 49.4%, an increase of almost a third. Whereas the budget was balanced at £315bn in 1997, last year spending reached £710bn. Even with inflation this is a doubling of expenditure. And, of course, our tax receipts were only about £590bn. We still have a large deficit.
These dry statistics, we felt, concealed a deeper truth about the nature of the British economy and society. A massive increase in government spending has naturally led to a Britain in which people look to the government to provide the answers, to give employment and to drive prosperity ...
Members of the Free Enterprise Group happen to think he was completely wrong. The greatest innovations of the modern era- the invention of the airplane, the development of personal computers, mobile phones, Facebook, Google- were not the products of government planning or state directed spending. The most innovatively developing economies, like Singapore and Hong Kong, are driven by private enterprise. Even in China, which is often held as a model of state controlled economic development, public spending is only responsible for 20% of GDP. In modern Britain, this figure is, as I have observed, just under 50%.
Ed Miliband and Vince Cable are both speaking at the Engineering Employers' Federation conference today. Earlier, in the Today programme's crack-of-dawn slot, Terry Scuoler, the EEF's chief executive, said the government should be doing more to promote growth. I've taken the quote from PoliticsHome.
If we look at just the focus and the energy government has put into managing the fiscal deficit and the day-to-day detail and discipline behind that. Do we have that same discipline and focus behind a growth plan for the British economy? No, I don't think we do and I think we'd like to see more effort going into that.
Andrew Lansley is still getting a rough ride from people campaigning against his health bill. This is what happened when he visited the Royal Free Hospital in London yesterday.
George Galloway, the former Labour MP, is expected to announce today that he will stand in the Bradford West byelection. Here's what the Press Association have filed.
Galloway is due to make an announcement about whether he will stand in the Bradford West by-election.
The former Glasgow Labour MP returned to the Commons in 2005 when he won the Bethnal Green seat for his Respect party.
But he failed to get elected when he stood in Poplar and Limehouse in the 2010 general election ...
He is expected to make an announcement about the Bradford West by-election in the West Yorkshire town later today.
Galloway posted on Facebook that he is visiting Bradford "for consultations about standing for parliament in the forthcoming by-election".
He added: "If I stand we will need money and men and women to rally the voters behind the banner of justice, equality and peace.
"It may be that this is the moment when we can all be together, to stop the wars abroad and the ruthless attrition being conducted against our own people at home. Watch this space. GG."
Last week, Mr Galloway Tweeted: "A by-election for the Parliamentary vacancy in Bradford West. Hmmm. Now THAT'S interesting ..."
It is not clear whether Mr Galloway would stand for Respect or as an independent.
No date has yet been fixed for the Bradford West poll.
The by-election has been triggered because Labour backbencher Marsha Singh announced last week he is to step down as an MP.
Vince Cable (pictured), the business secretary, was on the Today programme earlier. He said there was "broad agreement" in the cabinet that if the 50p top rate of tax were to go, it would have to be replaced by another tax on the wealthy. Here's his quote, which I've taken from PoliticsHome.
If the 50p rate were to go, it should be replaced by taxation of wealth because the wealthy people of the country have to pay their share.The mansion tax is actually a very economically sensible way of doing it.
We've got plenty to keep us busy today. Ed Miliband on the case for buying British in the morning, David Cameron on public service reform and foreign policy in the afternoon and much else in between. Here's the diary for the day.
9am: The cabinet meets.
10am: Former Scotland Yard commissioners Lord Condon and Lord Stevens and Lynne Owens, chief constable of Surry police, give evidence to the Leveson inquiry.
10.40am: Ed Miliband gives a speech entitled "Made in Britain: The Case for Patriotism not Protectionism." As Patrick Wintour reports, Miliband will call for a more prominent standard Made in Britain label on all British products.
11.20am: Miliband takes questions from listeners on Victoria Derbyshire's show on Radio 5 Live.
2pm: Vince Cable, the business secretary, speaks to the Engineering Employers Federation.
2.20pm: Kenneth Clarke, the justice secretary, gives evidence to the joint committee on human rights about his plan to allow the courts to take evidence from the intelligence services in private. The committee is reportedly very sceptical about his proposals.
2.30pm: George Osborne takes questions in the Commons.
After 3pm: Peers resume their debate on the health bill.
4pm: David Cameron gives evidence to the Commons liaison committee. The committee will ask him about public service reform, Syria and Iran in a session lasting 90 minutes. I'll be covering it in detail.
As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another after Cameron has finished his session with the liaison committee.
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