The Foreign Office has put out a statement about the claim that, by wrongly telling a committee last week that the British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “teaching people journalism” when she was arrested in Iran, Boris Johnson risked adding five years to her sentence.

Johnson has not retracted his comment, but the Foreign Office is claiming it was misinterpreted. A Foreign Office spokesman said:

Last week’s remarks by the foreign secretary provide no justifiable basis on which to bring any additional charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

While criticising the Iranian case against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the foreign secretary sought to explain that even the most extreme set of unproven Iranian allegations against her were insufficient reason for her detention and treatment.

The UK will continue to do all it can to secure her release on humanitarian grounds and the foreign secretary will be calling the Iranian foreign minister to raise again his serious concerns about the case and ensure his remarks are not misrepresented.

Giving evidence to the foreign affairs committee last week, Johnson said:

If you look at what Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing, she was simply teaching people journalism as I understand it, at the very limit.

Here is a link to the statement from the Thomson Reuters Foundation earlier today urging Johnson to correct his mistake.

Brexit secretary David Davis has said it may not be in the “public interest” to publish the government’s analysis of the impact of Brexit on 58 sectors including pharmaceuticals, road haulage and retail.

He was responding to an urgent request last week from the chairman of the Brexit select committee, Hilary Benn, to publish the assessments sooner than the three months allowable under government technical rules.

In his letter, Davis makes a clear distinction between matters which “may be confidential or commercially sensitive” and those that are in “the public interest”. He says:

There are a number of reasons why we believe that it would not be in the public interest for elements of the analysis, at least, to find their way into the public domain.

He adds that “it is important to recognise” that some of the analysis may be commercially sensitive and “that in many cases this analysis has been developed to underpin advice” to ministers in the Brexit negotiations.

He does not offer a definition of public interest, an omission which may prompt questions as to who defines the public interest.

His letter is the latest salvo in the row over the papers, with the government arguing releasing them would undermine its negotiating position and the opposition accusing them of a cover up.

The sectors include: aerospace, agriculture, architecture, aviation, broadcasting, bus and coach transport, business services, catering, chemicals, construction, defence, electricity market, film,gas market, insurance, medical devices, museums, oil, payment services and systems, pharma, real estate, road haulage, telecoms and wholesale markets and investment banking.

Davis says the work does not constitute 58 “discrete” assessments and the work “is constantly evolving”.

It is a wide mix of qualitative and quantative analysis, contained in a range of documents .. since the referendum.

Davis has offered a private meeting with Benn on 13 November to discuss the matter.

Kate Osamor, the shadow international development secretary, says Priti Patel should resign for breaching the ministerial code. The code says that “ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise”.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said the Queen’s tax affairs should be subject to the inquiry his party has called for into tax avoidance in the wake of the Paradise Papers revelations.

“There should be a review,” Corbyn said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “An inquiry into all the revelations about the Paradise Papers.”

Asked if that included the Queen, Corbyn replied:

Everybody. The Royal Household are subject to taxation. I don’t know what has happened in that case. These issues all must be part of that.

This is what Number 10 is saying about the Priti Patel story. This is from a Downing Street spokesman.

The prime minister welcomes the secretary of state’s clarification about her trip to Israel and has accepted her apology for her handling of the matter.

The prime minister met the secretary of state this morning to remind her of the obligations which exist under the ministerial code.

Translated from Whitehallese into English, this means Priti Patel was summed to Number 10 this morning for a face to face bollocking from the prime minister. This happens from time to time, but the fact that Number 10 have decided to tell us about it shows that they really are furious with Patel.

Priti Patel, the international development secretary, has issued a remarkable apology and correction in relation to her trip to Israel in the summer. She has been engaged in a briefing war with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the FCO has beaten her hands down. It is rare to see a cabinet minister humbled in quite this way.

The spate started on Friday when the BBC reported that Patel had had undisclosed meetings in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, accompanied by an influential pro-Israeli Conservative lobbyist, during the summer.

Patel angrily hit back, accusing the Foreign Office of briefing against her and giving comments to the Guardian that implied Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, knew about the visit in advance and that that all the information about her trip was in the public domain.

The department for international development has now put out a remarkable “clarification” saying that Johnson did not know about the trip in advance and that Patel’s meetings were more extensive than revealed by the BBC. She even met Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

Patel has issued this statement apologising. She says:

This summer I travelled to Israel, on a family holiday paid for myself.

While away I had the opportunity to meet a number of people and organisations. I am publishing a list of who I met.‎ The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was aware of my visit while it was underway‎.

In hindsight, I can see how my enthusiasm to engage in this way could be mis-read, and how meetings were set up and reported in a way which did not accord with the usual procedures. I am sorry for this and I apologise for it.

And here is the “clarification” in the DfID statement. (Bold type from me, for clarity.)

On Friday 3rd November, the secretary of state was quoted in the Guardian newspaper as follows:

“Boris knew about the visit. The point is that the Foreign Office did know about this, Boris knew about [the trip].”

This quote may have given the impression that the secretary of state had informed the foreign secretary about the visit in advance. The secretary of state would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case. The foreign secretary did become aware of the visit, but not in advance of it.

“The stuff that is out there is it, as far as I am concerned. I went on holiday and met with people and organisations. As far as I am concerned, the Foreign Office have known about this. It is not about who else I met, I have friends out there.”

This quote may be read as implying that the secretary of state was saying that the meetings that had so far been publicly reported were the only ones which took place on her visit. The secretary of state would like to take the opportunity to correct this impression: she is clear that other meetings also took place on her visit, in addition to those which had been publicly reported at the time of her making these statements. These meetings are outlined below.

The secretary of state regrets the lack of precision in the wording she used in these statements, and is taking this opportunity to clarify the position.

The DfID statement also includes a full list of people Patel met in Israel. It is very extensive, almost what you would expect from an official ministerial visit, and includes two government ministers.

Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, has said that he hopes the UK and the US will be able to agree a post-Brexit free trade in less than a decade. As the Press Association reports, Ross was speaking at the end of a visit to the UK. He described an FTA with the UK as a priority for Washington, but admitted that it would be “very complex” to complete.

Asked whether a UK FTA could take as long as 10 years, he said:

I hesitate to put an exact parameter of dates on it. Hopefully not a decade.

It isn’t that I’m forecasting that it will take a decade ... It’ll take whatever time it takes, but given the good relationship between the two countries and assuming that the scoping exercise turns out to be fruitful and further assuming that there are no big landmines in the exit agreement between the UK and the EC, then it shouldn’t take terribly long.

Ross said the US was hoping to renegotiate its Nafta free trade deal with Canada and Mexico in less than a year.

But he said that some of the sanitary restrictions imposed on food imports by the EU, covering products such as GM crops and chlorine-washed chicken, were “really not science-based”. If the UK wanted to continue with these rules after Brexit,“it potentially could create problems with us,” he said.

Here are the main points from Jeremy Corbyn’s Q&A.

• Corbyn said he was “very sceptical” about the idea of building housing on the green belt. Asked if Labour would review the green belt, he said:

I feel very strongly about the principle of the green belt, because if you take away this cordon of green space and cleaner air around big cities, I think you have the danger of massive ribbon development. So I am somebody that is very sceptical about building on the green belt. I see that in some cases there are land swaps that go on, where a piece of open space is created somewhere else in return for it. That obviously is a trade off that can be looked at.

But I just think as a society we all need a bit of open space around us. We all value our parks. You don’t go to them every day, but it’s good for you to know they are there and good for everybody else if they want to go and use them. So I am concerned about encroaching on the green belt.

• He said that anyone making offshore investments to avoid tax in Britain should apologise. He made the comment when asked if he thought the Queen should apologise for having offshore investments. He replied:

Anyone that is putting money into tax havens in order to avoid taxation in Britain, and obviously investigations have to take place, should do two things: not just apologise for it but also recognise what it does to our society, because if a very wealthy person wants to avoid taxation in Britain and therefore put money into a tax haven somewhere, who loses? Schools, hospitals, housing, all those public services lose and the rest of the population have to pay to cover up the deficit created by that ...

We simply have to challenge the culture that there is something clever about avoiding taxation. Taxation is what gives us ambulances, gives us fire tenders, gives us safety in our lives and we all have a responsibility to pay for it.

But it was not clear whether Corbyn was suggesting that the Queen invested offshore to avoid paying tax in the UK; the Duchy of Lancaster, which manages her estate, says it did not invest offshore to avoid tax.

• He called for an immediate public inquiry into tax avoidance and evasion.

Corbyn is now taking questions.

He says the UK is into a fourth industrial revolution. The profits from new technology must be shared fairly, he says.

He says he does not see robot technology particularly as a threat. It is an opportunity, he says.

And Corbyn turns to the sexual harassment scandal.

And there’s another area where we have we all have a duty to act - and act now.

Faced with the ongoing revelations about sexual harassment we should make this a turning point and a moment of real change. We must no longer allow anyone to be abused in the workplace.

Such abuse, sexism and misogyny is, sadly, very far from being confined to Hollywood and the corridors of power, but is also widespread in our schools and universities, in our businesses and workplaces, in our newspapers and on our TV screens. It is all around us.

That must change and business has an essential role to play. All of you need to look hard at yourselves, as we in the Labour Party are doing ourselves, to see how your processes and procedures can be improved. How it can be made easier for women to speak out and for victims to get the support they have a right to expect.

Businesses can have a vital partner in rooting out injustice in the workplace - trade unions. They are crucial to taking on and rooting out sexual harassment and discrimination. And I would encourage each and every business serious about improving your workplace culture and tackling sexual discrimination at work to engage with trade unions.

Corbyn turns to Brexit.

Watching chaos and confusion grow at the heart of government and Brexit negotiations stuck in a stalemate, many of you probably feel that the situation is more uncertain and more precarious than ever. Time is running out ...

A few weeks ago, you joined forces with Britain’s other major business organisations – the Engineering Employers Federation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Business – to ask the Government to heed the needs of business as they negotiate our exit from the European Union.

We agree. We need a Brexit that puts jobs and living standards first – it is Labour that has common ground with you on putting the needs of the economy front and centre stage.

We have common ground on the need for transitional arrangements to be agreed immediately, so that businesses know they won’t face a cliff-edge Brexit when the two year negotiating period is up.

Because, let me be clear, to delay a transition deal until a final deal is agreed, as the prime minister says she wants to do, is simply not good enough. The prospect of sudden changes in the legal and regulatory environment in which people do business is affecting your decisions right now.

Corbyn says the wealth have been getting wealthier. Labour did better than expected at the election because it offered real change, he says.

He says since June the political establishment has caught up. People on all sides are calling for change. Sajid Javid is calling for more borrowing, and Jeremy Hunt is calling the public sector pay cap to be lifted, he says.

We have seen the terms of economic debate shift dramatically. It is a measure of the essential pragmatism of business people that so many have changed their outlook too. Business people across the country have expressed to me a growing awareness - and acceptance - that things need to change. The London Chamber of Commerce recently called for councils to be allowed to borrow freely to build housing.

We all know an economic model that allows a few to grow very rich while the majority face falling incomes and rising indebtedness, that leaves too many people in unfulfilling and insecure work, that is overly reliant on one sector in one region of our country, is neither stable nor sustainable.

Paul Drechsler, the CBI president, has just welcomed Jeremy Corbyn to the stage. He said that he was delighted to have Corbyn speaking. Once that might have sounded diplomatic, but today Drechsler sounds very authentic. And Corbyn gets a warm round of applause as he takes to the stage.

This is what Theresa May said about the Westminster sexual harassment scandal in her speech. The extract is worth quoting in full.

Parliament and Whitehall are special places in our democracy. But they are also places of work too, and exactly the same standards and norms should govern them as any other workplace.

What has been revealed over the last few weeks has been deeply troubling, and has understandably led to significant public unease.

Women and men should be able to work free from the threat or fear of harassment, bullying or intimidation. But for too long the powerful have been able to abuse their power and their victims have not been able to speak out.

And let me be very frank: political parties have not always got this right in the past. But I am determined to get it right for the future.

So I have already published a new code of conduct and grievance procedure for the Conservative party which will apply to all Conservative office holders and representatives. It sets out the high standards we expect and the procedure we will follow to deal with complaints.

And later today I will convene a meeting with my fellow party leaders to discuss establishing a new common, robust and independent grievance procedure for parliament. Because those working for members of parliament should not have to navigate different party systems, depending on their employer’s political affiliation.

We need to establish a new culture of respect at the centre of our public life. One in which everyone can feel confident that they are working in a safe and secure environment, where complaints can be brought forward without prejudice and victims know that these complaints will be investigated properly. And where people’s careers cannot be damaged by unfounded rumours circulated anonymously online.

Of course people can be friends with their colleagues, and consensual relationships can develop at work. This isn’t about prying into private lives. What we are talking about is the use and abuse of power. We must stand up for all the victims of abuse, harassment or discrimination, wherever it has occured.

Now is the time to act decisively, without fear or favour, to guarantee a safe and respectful working environment for everyone in the future.

• May admitted that the Conservatives and other political parties have in the past not always handled sexual harassment complaints well.

• She said she wanted to act “decisively” to establish “a new culture of respect at the centre of our public life”.

• She said that, as well as wanting to protect victims, she also wanted to protect MPs from “unfounded rumours”.

Here are the main points from Theresa May’s Q&A.

• May said that some Westminster sexual misconduct allegations have not surfaced in the press. And she said that action had been taken in response. Replying to a question from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, May said:

Obviously what has happened is over the last week a number of stories have appeared in the press. A number of issues were raised with me that didn’t appear in the press. And, as you have seen, action has been taken. A number of people in my party have been referred to the Conservative party’s grievance procedure, and arrangements that have been put in place. And a number of people have been referred to the cabinet secretary, where they are in ministerial positions and it is appropriate for the cabinet secretary to look at these issues.

What I also want to see, though, is - this is not just for political parties. I believe it is so important that Westminster itself, parliament itself, has a proper process for grievance procedures, has a proper process where people can make complaints and bring allegations. Because I want people working in parliament to have the confidence that they can come forward with those allegations, that they can come forward and report misconduct that has taken place. And I want both sides to have the confidence that those concerns will be properly investigated, will be fairly and properly investigated.

May did not explain in detail what she meant by “action has been taken”. If the party has taken action in the last week or so against individuals not identified in the press, then it has done so in private. We’ve not had any surprise announcements about MPs suddenly being demoted, or losing the whip, with no explanation given.

• May sidestepped a question about whether or not she was aware of some of the Westminster sexual harassment cases before they hit the headlines in the last week or so. That was the question that Kuenssberg asked her. But May did not address this directly in her reply, which is quoted in full above.

• May refused to commit to getting the government to publish a public register showing who owns offshore tax trusts. When my colleague Jessica Elgot asked if May would back this proposal, May claimed the government was already taking steps to improve tax transparency, but did not endorse the call for a public register of offshore tax ownership. May said:

There is already work that has been done to ensure that we see greater transparency in our dependencies and overseas territories. And we continue to work with them. HMRC is already able to see more information about the ownership of shell companies, for example, so that they can ensure people are paying their tax. We want people to pay the tax that is due.

• May refused to back calls for a public inquiry into aggressive tax avoidance. Labour has been demanding this. But when Jessica asked May if she supported the idea, May sidestepped the question.

• May suggested that full details of the Brexit transition may not be available until towards the end of next year. When asked how businesses could make plans for the future on the basis of an outline transition agreement, of the kind the government expects to agree by Christmas or early next year, and not one “set in stone”, May replied:

First of all, as everybody will appreciate, we are in a negotiation with the European Union. What I have been clear about in the Florence speech is the sort of partnership the UK wants to see with EU 27 in the future ...

The implementation period - I believe first of all we need to get full agreement that this is something that will happen. Then we’ll need to negotiate the details. Of course, some of those details, you need to know what the end state is, what that future partnership is, because this is about practical change, moving to that future partnership. But I was clear in Florence that I think businesses should have the comfort of knowing that they will be able to operate on the same basis as they currently can during that implementation period.

May has finished. She is now taking question.

Q: [From my colleague Jessica Elgot] David Cameron said aggressive tax avoidance was not acceptable. Will you create a public register of offshore trust?

May says the government has already been taking steps to introduce more tax transparency. She says she wants people to pay the tax that is due.

May is now talking about the sexual harassment scandal.

She says people should be able to work in an atmosphere where they feel safe. Political parties have not always got this right. But she is determined to get it right now, she says.

She says her party has now published a new complaints system.

And she is convening a meeting with other party leaders later.

We need to establish a new culture of respect at the centre of our public life. One in which everyone can feel confident that they are working in a safe and secure environment, where complaints can be brought forward without prejudice and victims know that those complaints will be investigated properly. And where people’s careers cannot be damaged by unfounded rumours circulated anonymously online.

She says the issue is the use and abuse of power.

Now is the time to act decisively, she says, to provide a safe working environment for everyone.

Theresa May has just started speaking to the CBI conference.

She starts by praising the role played by free markets.

People can live longer under a free market economic system. And they can lead more fulfilled lives, she says.

She says she wants a collaborative relationship between government and business.

The opportunities ahead for the UK are enormous, she says.

According to the extracts from Theresa May’s CBI speech released in advance, she will urge business to face the future as “rational optimists”. She will say:

As we look ahead to the next ten years for Britain’s economy, we should do so as rational optimists. There are huge opportunities ahead. Making the most of them will demand hard work, imagination, and commitment.

But Britain has succeeded in the past when we have been confident in our strengths and bold in our action. When we have backed the ambition of our wealth-creators, who use their talent, hard work and skill to take a chance, to grow a business and to spread economic opportunity to others.

With the right economic foundations, a balanced approach to public spending, the best Brexit deal, the right long-term frameworks and incentives for business and our wealth creators given the freedom and support to thrive, and Government playing a strategic role in support of economic growth right across the United Kingdom, I am convinced that we can and will make the most of those opportunities, and build a better future for everyone in our country.

She will also tell the CBI that the government is publishing an industrial strategy white paper later this month. It will propose a balanced approach, she will say.

We cannot – and will not try – to make a plan for every corner of our economy. We believe in the free market and won’t attempt to shield the economy from market forces. So we will have to make strategic decisions about where the government can – and where it cannot – best support key sectors of our economy.

Such an approach avoids the failed state interventionism of the 1970s. But it also learns from the past failures of governments to give sectors and places across the country the long-term support they need to cope with economic change and compete in a changing global market place.

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are both speaking at the CBI conference in London today and there is a good chance that the event will end up becoming a Brexit beauty parade, with the prime minister and the Labour leader setting out contrasting approaches to leaving the EU. In one of the many ironies of the new era we inhabit, the leftwing Labour leader, whose empathy supplies for the big business corporates represented by the CBI are almost non-existent, could well get a better reception.

As Peter Walker reports in his preview story, based on extracts from both speeches released in advance, May will say that “a strictly time-limited implementation [transition] period will be crucial to our future success”. But Corbyn will go further, saying that transition agreements should be “agreed immediately”.

This is a key issue for the CBI. In an interview with the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the CBI, said business wanted clarity on the transition period by Christmas. She told the programme:

This is an extraordinarily important time for the Brexit negotiations, that run-up to Christmas, where businesses really need more certainty and more clarity and the reason why it has become so urgent is that we’re now in the window of decision making. We’ve just done a survey which shows that 60% of firms will have taken steps to implement contingency plans by the end of next March, now that’s real jobs, real people and real implications for our economy.

The message from us, from business, is more certainty quickly particularly around transition, particularly in the next four weeks …. Three-quarters of firms told us that a transition deal would lead them to put their contingency plans on pause.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, gives a speech about self-driving cars to the Association of British Insurers.

9.30am: Paul Drechsler, president of the CBI, opens the CBI conference with a speech.

9.45am: Theresa May speaks to the CBI.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

11.50am: Jeremy Corbyn speaks to the CBI.

1pm: Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, speaks at an Institute for Government event.

Later in the afternoon, at 5.15pm, Theresa May will hold a meeting with other parties leaders to discuss setting up a new Commons system for dealing with sexual harassment allegations, but the conclusions will probably come out of my time.

If there are any fresh developments in the Westminster sexual harassment scandal, I will be covering them too.

But generally I will not be writing about reaction to the Paradise Papers revelations, because we are covering that on a separate live blog.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I’m not sure yet whether we will be able to turn comments on today. There is still a conversation going on at HQ. There is a worry that, with the sexual harassment scandal still making headline news, people will post libellous comments BTL. But if I can get agreement to turn them on, I will.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.