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Welcome back. Before Christmas, the Labour leader had intended to use the initial days back after the parliamentary break to focus on government actions to bring down the living expenses. He outlined this argument recently in a piece where he cited measures including proposals to cut utility costs. However, Starmer’s cost of living PR blitz has been overshadowed of the headlines by Donald Trump, and his entirely different strategy to ensuring his voters get access to cheap energy.

Not a single figure in British political life seems particularly eager on embracing the Trump approach – which is likely good news for Norway.

But there is an intense debate ongoing about what the UK government should be prepared to say about Trump’s decision to extradite Nicolás Maduro, and replace him with someone expected to be more compliant with US demands, especially in regarding the nation's petroleum sector.

Keir Starmer has refused to censure the US action, and the administration has avoided questions about whether or not it considered what happened as lawful. Last night, all EU states except one nation issued a collective declaration which, while not explicitly condemning, did stress the importance of global rules, and by inference suggest Trump of disregarding it. It said:

The European Union call for restraint and caution by all parties, to prevent a worsening and to secure a peaceful solution to the crisis.

The Union recalls that, under any conditions, the tenets of the rules-based order and the UN Charter must be respected. Members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a pillar of the international security architecture.

The migration minister, was conducting an series of media appearances this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Maduro extradition broke global statutes because he was afraid of antagonising Trump, the minister replied:

Absolutely not. UK ministers is, and will, be in conversations with the US administration. And it’s for the United States to lay out the legal basis for the action that they’ve taken. And we’re also consulting with close allies looking at the juridical dimension of this.

But last night, in an interview on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a ex- shadow attorney general), said she was very concerned about the way Trump seems to think, like the Russian leader and China’s Xi Jinping, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.

Questioned about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in breach of global rules, she said, because the PM was in government, he had to balance “a number of considerations”. But she was in a separate situation because she was not a minister, she said. She added:

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

[Starmer] may well want to listen to what the reasoning is from the US administration. I can get in front of everyone and say I literally think of anything that could be a proper justification.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: The Scottish first minister, gives a speech in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Tory leader, are also giving speeches, at mid-morning and lunchtime in turn. All the party heads are gearing up to the Holyrood elections in May.

Morning: The Prime Minister is on a visit in Berkshire where he is scheduled to make comments to the press.

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

2.30pm: The home secretary, takes queries in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Yvette Cooper, is anticipated to give a update to MPs about Venezuela.