The Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, is expected to update MPs on the state of the negotiations with the EU after Labour accused the government of ducking parliamentary scrutiny over the rocky Salzburg summit.

Sources in Raab’s department signalled that the minister hoped to make a statement in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Earlier, Labour had accused Theresa May of “trying to avoid public scrutiny and duck her responsibilities,” after Downing Street suggested there would be no Commons statement on Salzburg, which was an “informal” EU summit.

May delivered a combative televised statement after EU27 leaders rejected key aspects of her Chequers plan last month, but MPs have not yet had the opportunity to question her about it, because parliament has been in recess for the party conferences.

A Labour source said: “How is the country meant to have confidence in the prime minister’s Brexit plan when she isn’t even willing to come to parliament to defend it? Sending the Brexit secretary to take the flak simply isn’t good enough.”

Parliamentarians on both sides of the Brexit divide are keen to influence the government’s approach to the negotiations as they enter their final, crucial phase and the government is keen to avoid opportunities for disgruntled backbenchers to make trouble.

Brexiters in May’s party – including inside her cabinet – are on the alert for fresh concessions emanating from the intensive negotiations taking place in Brussels this week and next. They are expected to seek the opportunity for a show of parliamentary strength.

Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister who resigned in the wake of the July Chequers summit, launched a fresh offensive against the government’s approach on Monday, warning that British politics was “starting to resemble the closing scene of a Tarantino movie”.

In a series of short videos filmed in front of an agricultural field, Baker said: “The government’s Chequers plan does not deliver a meaningful Brexit and the EU says it doesn’t work.” Britain must pursue Brexit, he said, because “freedom is the fountainhead of prosperity, virtue and dignity”.

He claimed the government’s proposals for the Northern Ireland backstop would remove any incentive for the EU to negotiate a Brexit deal – and could therefore end up being extended indefinitely. “The UK would be a rule taker for ever, locked in a decaying orbit as a regulatory satellite around the EU,” he said.

Some Tories were infuriated by news at the weekend that the government was reaching out to Labour MPs in the hope they would defy their party whips to back May’s deal.

Lisa Nandy, the MP for Wigan, told the BBC last month she could back a deal based on Chequers if the alternative was no deal, saying her priority was “pragmatism”.



Meanwhile, the government is yet to schedule the next stage of the trade bill in the House of Lords, which Labour had expected before parliament breaks for another mini-recess in November.

Angela Smith, Labour’s leader in the upper house, has cooperated with peers from other parties to table amendments to the key piece of Brexit legislation, including one aimed at giving parliament another chance to push May towards pursuing a customs union. If they win a majority at the legislation’s report stage, the amendments would be passed back to the House of Commons to give MPs another chance to vote on the issue.

The customs union amendment has been signed by the former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Patten and the crossbencher Lord Kerr, who drafted the article 50 process for leaving the EU. The prime minister scraped through a vote on the customs union in July.

Some MPs hope that the issue can yet be revisited when the Brexit deal is brought to the Commons for a “meaningful vote”.

Stephen Kinnock, the Labour MP for Aberavon, has begun talks with backbench Tories about the possibility of a reasoned amendment to be tabled when the final Brexit deal is put to parliament which would aim to keep Britain in the European Economic Area (EEA) as well as in a customs union.

Kinnock, who opposes a second referendum, said he could not back the Chequers deal as it stood. “What is clear, the only form of Brexit that gets anywhere near the six tests is EEA, plus a customs union,” he said. “The only form of Brexit I would vote for is a specific commitment to the EEA.”

Kinnock pointed to the language in the motion passed by delegates at Labour conference, which said the party should support “full participation in the single market”.

The Labour frontbench has insisted that this is not a commitment to remain in the single market, and MPs were whipped to abstain on a previous backbench amendment that sought an EEA deal.