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Good morning. Before Christmas, the Labour leader had intended to use the first week back after the parliamentary break to highlight ministers' efforts to reduce the living expenses. He set out this case yesterday in a piece where he referenced steps including proposals to reduce energy bills. Unfortunately, Starmer’s cost of living PR blitz has been blown out of the headlines by the former US president, and his entirely different approach to ensuring his voters receive cheap energy.

Not a single figure in mainstream UK politics seems particularly eager on embracing the American method – which is probably good news for Norway.

But there is an intense debate under way about what the UK government should be willing to say about the American action to extradite Nicolás Maduro, and install a successor with someone expected to be more compliant with American interests, particularly in relation to the country’s oil industry.

Keir Starmer has declined to criticise the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it considered what happened as legal. Recently, European Union members apart from one nation issued a joint statement which, while not overtly critical, did stress the value of international law, and by implication suggest Trump of ignoring it. It said:

EU members call for restraint and restraint by all parties, to avoid escalation and to secure a peaceful resolution to the situation.

The EU reiterates that, under any conditions, the principles of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be upheld. Members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those principles, as a pillar of the global security framework.

The migration minister, was doing an interview round this morning and, when asked if Starmer was declining to say the Maduro extradition broke international law because he was afraid of antagonising Trump, Tapp replied:

Not at all. The British government are and will remain in conversations with the US administration. And it’s for the United States to lay out the juridical rationale for the steps that they’ve taken. And we’re also consulting with key partners examining the juridical dimension of this.

But recently, in an appearance on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a ex- shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.

Questioned about Starmer refusing to say that Trump was in violation of global rules, Thornberry said, because the PM was in office, he had to balance “a number of considerations”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a minister, she said. She went on:

In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is not a legal action.

[Starmer] may well want to hear what the reasoning is from the US administration. I can state before us and say I cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: John Swinney, gives a address in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Conservative leader, are also giving talks, at 10.30am and 1pm respectively. All the party heads are gearing up to the Scottish parliament vote in May.

Morning: The Prime Minister is on a visit in Berkshire where he is due to speak to the press.

11.30am: The Prime Minister's office holds a press briefing.

2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, is expected to give a statement to MPs about the ongoing situation.