• Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has dismissed claims that the coalition has broken its pledge not to give the nuclear industry a subsidy, saying nuclear is getting "no special favours". (See 2.53m.) He has also announced that the National Audit Office will be reviewing the deal to see whether it represents value for money for the taxpayer. (See 4.12pm.)

• The three Police Federation officers criticised for their conduct after a meeting with Andrew Mitchell to discuss "plebgate" have issued a partial apology. They apologised for their "poor judgment" in talking to the media about the meeting. The IPCC and senior politicians have criticised them for giving a misleading account of what was said. In a joint statement, Ken MacKaill, an inspector from West Mercia Police, Stuart Hinton, a detective sergeant from Warwickshire Police, and Chris Jones, a sergeant from West Midlands Police, said they had decided to issue a statement "in response to public concern generated by the widely reported outcome of West Mercia's investigation into matters arising from the meeting".

The reputation of, and public confidence in, the police service is of immense concern to each of us. We acknowledge the investigation's criticism relating to our poor judgement in talking to the media following the meeting with Andrew Mitchell, for which we take this opportunity to apologise. We would like to emphasise (as we did to the investigation) that in no way did any of us ever plan or intend to mislead anyone about what occurred during this meeting or otherwise.

• The Commons standards committee has mounted an attempt to save MPs' dinner, hotel and taxi expenses amid fears they will be curbed in an unreasonable way by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).

• David Cameron has spoken by phone with fellow EU leaders to try to build support behind his drive to cut red tape from Brussels. As the Press Association reports, Cameron aims to use a summit of the European Council in Brussels this week to argue the case for sweeping away bureaucratic rules which he believes threaten economic growth. He today spoke with German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande to set out the findings of a business task force which last week warned the UK Cabinet that "problematic, poorly-understood and burdensome European rules" are slowing production, job creation, sales and innovation and left Europe trailing international trading rivals. The calls followed phone discussions over the weekend with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and on Friday with Italian PM Enrico Letta and Dutch PM Mark Rutte.

• Labour has accused David Cameron of "turning the clock back" on racial equality as it launched a consultation on plans to boost the chances of people from ethnic minorities. As the Press Association reports, Labour is seeking ways to combat racism and improve the representation of people from black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in public life. The measures could include changes to the law to allow police to increase the number of officers recruited from minority groups. The consultation, which forms part of Labour's policy review, said the rise in the English Defence League (EDL) and recent Islamophobic attacks showed "how far we as a society have yet to travel in stamping out racism". The document said: "David Cameron's Government is turning the clock back on racial equality. As a non-white person, you are currently twice as likely to be unemployed as a white person in the UK, and progress on ethnic minority representation in the police has stalled.

That's all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.