PPS: The Institute of Directors are particularly scathing of our political leaders.

Edwin Morgan, Interim Director General of the Institute of Directors, says:

“Few in business will be stepping forward to thank Parliament for its efforts this week. We know a tiny, tiny amount more about the next steps than we did a couple of days ago, but the problem is that the clock is still ticking and no deal is still the default.

“It may be folly to hope that Parliament can agree on anything more than what it doesn’t want, but the Brexit process parted company with reason a long time ago, so what choice do business leaders have?”

PS: Here’s a bit more reaction to MPs voting to extend Article 50 tonight.

Andrew Gray, Head of Brexit at PwC, says firms should keep preparing for a no-deal:

“Some businesses may see today’s news as a reason to slow down on their preparations for the imminent threat of no-deal, but an extension is not yet a done deal.”

“The legal default remains that the UK leaves on 29 March, with or without a deal, and that is what businesses need to prepare for.”

“Businesses must not take their foot off the gas, and we urge all organisations to keep preparing for both a deal and no-deal scenario.”

Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, says the UK needs political leadership:

“Seeking an extension to Article 50 is welcome as an alternative to leaving the EU with no deal. But it will only be meaningful if the time is used to agree a realistic way ahead that can win the support of Parliament and the EU27. Political leadership is long overdue.

“The urgent and overriding priority of the Government and all MPs must now be to agree a clear plan to put an end to the uncertainty over Brexit that is blighting investment decisions and development activity across the country.”

Food and Drink Federation CEO Ian Wright CBE welcomed the vote:

“Tonight the House of Commons has begun to indicate its preferred way forward to break the Brexit logjam. Clarity on that has been long awaited and is welcome. However, as the focus moves away from a 29 March 2019 exit date towards a later date, we must not overlook that 29 March is still the date in the Withdrawal Act.

It is critical that MPs now follow-through on their intentions with actions. The government must swiftly agree the length of delay with the EU and table a statutory instrument to change that date. Only then can the diversion of time, effort and money towards no-deal planning be halted.”

Theresa May will be breathing a sigh of relief, as MPs very narrowly vote against taking control of the Brexit process by holding a series of indicative votes.

Again, the pound takes the news calmly -- it’s still down around 0.8 of a cent at $1.325 tonight (having hit a nine-month high yesterday).

Reminder: Our Politics Live blog is tracking all the Brexit action:

Over in parliament, MPs voted against holding a second referendum on Brexit by 334 votes to 85 (Labour told its MPs to abstain).

The pound hasn’t reacted, though...

European stock markets have closer higher tonight.

The FTSE 100 gained 0.4%, on hopes that a no-deal Brexit can be avoided.

However, Germany’s DAX index lagged behind, as concerns over its economy cast a shadow.

Fiona Cincotta of City Index explains:

The FTSE extended its winning streak into a fourth session. Financials cheered the House of Commons voting to take a no deal Brexit off the table, whilst oils majors rallied on the back of stronger oil prices. The pound easing off 9-month highs, reached in the previous session, also offered support to the FTSE.

The Dax was a noticeable laggard within Europe, with investors unable to shake off growing concerns over the health of the German economy. German industrial production figures earlier in the week disappointed and today, German inflation also surprised to the downside, ticking lower to 1.4%. Rather than anomalies, softer data is becoming a trend for Germany as more evidence points to slowing growth.

Another example of how the rich are getting rich just landed.

Sir Martin Sorrell will earn £2.13m from the WPP long-term incentive plan this year, nin months after he left the company last summer amid allegations of staff bullying, which he denies.

The Financial Times explains that WPP has decided not to challenge Sorrell’s right to benefit from the scheme.

The advertising company said that its executive performance share plan for the period between 2014 and 2018 would result in a vesting of 33.3 per cent of the maximum.

Sir Martin would be entitled to around 250,000 shares under the terms of the plan and will be paid dividends on top of the value of the stock, according to WPP.

During his long tenure at WPP, Sorrell regularly received large pay packets including £70.4m in 2014, and £13.9m in 2017.

After its best day in almost two years yesterday, sterling has dipped back today as the Brexit crisis rumbles on.

Against the US dollar, the pound has lost around 0.5% to $1.328. down from $1.3340 - a nine-month high.

MPs will be voting on a motion to seek an extension of Article 50 in a little over an hour’s time, plus an amendment on whether to hold a second referendum (which the People’s Vote campaign thinks isn’t a question for today)

City traders continue to worry that Britain could crash out without a deal, on 29th March.

Ken Odeluga, analyst at City Group, says:

Some senior EU officials are dropping barely veiled signals about a “long extension”. The type that could pave the way for the UK to remain within the union

Such comments could deter pro-Brexit MPs from opting for a short A50 delay tonight

Newsflash: As if Theresa May didn’t have enough problems, Donald Trump has just weighed in - saying a second Brexit referendum would be ‘unfair’.

He’s speaking in the Oval Office, with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar.

Trump also says he’s surprised how badly Brexit is going, and that May didn’t take his advice on how to handle negotiations:

[It’s worth remembering that a trade deal with China is still on Trump’s to-do list].

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell have given a timely example of surging wages at the top, by doubling their CEO’s pay packet.

Ben van Beurden’s pay package more than double to €20.1m (£17m) in 2018, the oil company said on Thursday.

That included a €1.5m base salary, a £2.5m annual bonuses, and €15m from a long-term incentive plan.

Astonishing, this only van Beurden’s second highest pay cheque - he picked up €24m in 2014 (due to pension changes when he joined Shell).

It also means the CEO picked up 143 times as much as the median Shell employee.

Shell insists that its pay ratio is consistent with other top UK listed companies, and that van Beurden deserves to be rewarded for his leadership.

But Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, says it’s “ludicrous” to think that the Shell CEO wouldn’t have worked as hard or effectively without these vast incentive payments.

“These very large payouts are indicative of a flawed governance model and warped corporate culture that has made the UK one of the most unequal countries in western Europe. We don’t think remuneration committees are anywhere near brave enough in asking questions about whether such largesse is necessary or proportionate.”

Back in the UK, John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, has warned Britain is still working for the super-rich, but not the poor.

McDonnell says today’s IFS report confirms that the end of austerity is a long way away, particularly for families relying on frozen benefits.

“Despite a windfall from the rapidly rising earnings of the super-rich, there was no new money for schools, social care or the justice system driven into crisis by this Government, and the Chancellor still remains “not currently on course” to meet his balanced budget target.

“The IFS also highlighted that there is ‘no reprieve’ for those who rely on social security, with yet another year of cruel real terms cuts in benefits ahead.

“Austerity has failed on its own terms, as well as for the millions who are paying the price for the Conservatives’ decisions to go ahead with tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

“The Chancellor should stop using the continuation of austerity as a threat to try and force MPs into supporting the Government’s dead Brexit deal.”

Oxford Economics also reckons the US economy is quite sharply this quarter, based on the latest data.

Over to the US... where the number of people signing on for unemployment benefit has risen to its highest level in a month.

The initial claims total jumped by 6,000 people last week, to 229,000 -- still low in historical terms, but perhaps a sign that the US economy is cooling.

Here’s the key chart from the Institute for Fiscal Studies today:

The IFS’s Paul Johnson has told reporters that CEO and bankers’ pay may be returning to pre-crisis levels, explaining why the top 0.1% of earners are becoming so much wealthier.

But in the public sector, pay is at a 30-year low relative to the private sector he adds, creating “challenges to recruitment”, Johnson adds (as well as poverty to some families).

Yesterday, Philip Hammond boasted to parliament that 3.5 million new jobs have been created since the financial crisis.

But the truth is also that many working people are relying on tax credits, child benefit and housing benefit (or have moved to universal credit), because they simply don’t earn enough.

A reminder of Britain’s historically weak pay growth since the 2008 crisis:

The very richest in Britain are getting wealthier faster than everyone else, the IFS says:

Pay of the top 0.1% has been rising considerably faster than the average over the last year or more – something which was not true for most of the period after 2010.

In better news, the IFS also reckon Philip Hammond will be able to raise government spending, and claim that austerity really is over.

Paul Johnson says:

Assuming that Hammond is not fiercely wedded to a target of balancing the books completely by the mid 2020s – and the evidence doesn’t suggest he is – then he probably would have room to find a reasonable amount of extra cash for the spending review period. Even an extra £15 billion a year on top of current plans could keep borrowing within that 2% of GDP limit, and keep debt falling as a fraction of national income – albeit slowly.

Extra spending of that sort would, finally, allow the Chancellor to say with rather more conviction that austerity really was coming to an end. It would mean spending rising not just overall in real terms, but even for “unprotected” departments, and as a fraction of national income.

However, that extra spending would evaporate if Brexit turns sour(er).

And either way, Britain’s finances are worse than expected back in 2016.

As Johnson puts it:

The deficit is lower than forecast a year ago, but still higher than forecast in March 2016: £32 billion higher in 2020–21. There is a consensus that the economy would have been about 2% bigger had the Brexit vote not occurred. In those circumstances the deficit would have been smaller still and the fiscal room for manoeuvre greater. The end of austerity could already have been rather more decisively with us.

If you freeze benefits and cut income tax, then you will make poor families poorer and rich families richer.

After spending the night crunching the Spring Statement, the Resolution Foundation say that the overall effect of government tax and benefit policies put into place since May 2015 is expected to be strongly regressive over the next few years.

Compared to policies that would otherwise have been in place in 2023-24, the poorest fifth of households are expected to be an average of £1,400 a year worse off.

In contrast, the richest fifth are forecast to receive an average gain of £300 a year.

Here’s the proof:

While poor families face another year of frozen benefits, those earning more than £50,000 per year are about to get a tax cut.

That’s because Philip Hammond raised the threshold for higher-rate income tax in last autumn’s budget, starting in April. That ‘bonanza’ is worth £860 per year to a high earner on its own (although changes to national insurance will claw some of the money back).

But still, as this chart shows, those high-earning people are the big winners since 2015, and will cash in again in the next financial year.

Households with low-paid workers and children are set to be hit the hardest.

As Resolution puts it:

Given these policy impacts, it is perhaps unsurprising that we have previously projected significant increases in poverty for children and parents over the rest of this parliament, likely to record highs, and nothing in this Spring Statement has materially changed that outlook.

More key charts from Resolution’s assessment of the UK finances:

Resolution Foundation has more bad news -- Britain’s wages won’t catch up to their pre-crisis levels for another four years.

The thinktank says:

• Weaker growth this year means that by the start of 2021, GDP per capita is set to be £840 lower than the OBR forecast before the 2016 referendum.
• A modest upgrade in the OBR’s outlook for earnings means real pay is now set to return to pre-crisis levels in 2023. That would mean it taking another four years to bring to an end an unprecedented 16-year pay downturn.

These charts show how chancellor Hammond has the ability to end more on public services and benefits....

... but still allowed benefits to be frozen for another year, from April.