A number of written ministerial statements are due to be made in the House of Commons today, including two from Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.

Mr Gove will give a statement on the meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee and an update on the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement.

The full list of statements expected today can be found below:

• Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office: Meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee.
• Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office: UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: update on provisional application.
• Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs: GuarantCo: Callable Capital Agreement.
• Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs: Remedial order to address State Immunity Act 1978 – European Convention on Human Rights incompatibility.
• Chancellor of the Exchequer: Double Taxation Convention between the United Kingdom and Sweden.
• Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government: Extension to Bailiff Enforcement Regulations.

The UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1 per cent last month – a five-year high – as the coronavirus pandemic continued to inflict economic damage, new figures have shown.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday morning that the jobless rate was up 0.4 percentage points on the previous quarter and up 1.3 percentage points on a year earlier.

Our reporter, Tom Batchelor, has the full story below:

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will urge the government to back British farming by encouraging people to buy more British food, as part of his speech to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) today.

Sir Keir is expected to seek to highlight Labour’s support for high food and farming standards, which the NFU has fought to maintain after Brexit, and argue that 10 years of Conservative government has weakened rural communities.

“No party can claim to represent the country if we don’t represent the countryside,” he is expected to say.

“Farming matters to Labour, the British people and to the families and communities that make farming possible.”

The Labour leader will also call on the government to look at whether more of the £2.4bn public spending on catering could be spent with British producers, addressing concerns that the post-Brexit farm funding scheme will not keep farmers afloat.

In addition, he will say that Labour’s proposed British Recovery Bond to boost investment in the aftermath of the pandemic will tackle the “permanent insecurity” faced by businesses and landowners in flood-hit communities.

Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond has claimed that there was a “malicious and concerted” attempt to remove him from the public life in relation to the handling of harassment allegations against him.

In his submission to a Scottish parliament inquiry, Mr Salmond alleged that members of the SNP were involved in efforts to damage his reputation.

Our Whitehall editor, Kate Devlin, has the full story below:

The Northern Ireland Protocol could cause “political instability” and the government must work to restore the nation’s ability to trade freely with the rest of the UK following the end of the Brexit transition period, a senior DUP MP has said.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told MPs on Monday evening that Northern Irish businesses were experiencing “enormous difficulties” with their supply chains, adding that there was enormous strength of feeling on the issue.

“This is the UK internal market, the difficulties are within that market,” Sir Jeffrey said.

“It is the responsibility of the UK government to act and that is why we are calling on them to use their powers under the protocol to take the necessary action through Article 16 to resolve the diversion of trade, the disruption in trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to restore the citizenship rights of the people of Northern Ireland to trade freely with the rest of the UK, a freedom they have enjoyed for 200 years.”

He added: “In this, the centenary year of Northern Ireland, we expect the government and the prime minister to act to address and resolve these issues and to replace the protocol with arrangements that respect Northern Ireland’s place within the UK.”

In response, Robin Walker, minister of state for Northern Ireland, said work was “underway at pace” with the EU “with the shared objective of finding workable solutions on the ground”.

“A meeting of the UK EU withdrawal agreement joint committee will be convened this Wednesday to provide the necessary political steer, and approval for this work,” Mr Walker said.

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of UK politics today.