Jonathan Ashworth, Labour MP in Leicester, asks whether Sri Lanka was discussed in the meetings. Hague says they look to Sri Lanka's government to prevent ethnic conflict.

Tory Robert Halfon says the removal of Saddam Hussein is not the sole cause of the current crisis - rather it is the Syria civil war and the "weakness and inadequacy" of the current Iraqi president.

Hague reiterates that the US is "examining all options". Action is much more likely to be taken by the US than by Nato.

Recent events in Syria and the failure in Iraq to develop a fully inclusive politics have contributed.

Labour's Tom Blenkinsop asks about Turkish diplomats captured in Mosul. Hague says he has been consulting Turkey about the whole situation in Iraq.

Hague says the west is trying to engage Iran, but a change in Iranian policy is needed. Iran has supported sectarian or terrorist groups elsewhere, and it must stop doing that.

Labour's Paul Flynn asks about the much-delayed Chilcot report.

Hague says the vote on Syria last year was influenced by the Iraq war. The government now has to rebuild trust, he says.

Labour's John Denham asks why the UK government does not "speak truth to power" by challenging Saudi Arabia over its role in fostering sectarianism.

Hague says there is a responsibility on all Gulf states to promote stability.

Labour's Ann Clwyd says even as Hague and Jolie were addressing the issue of sexual violence in conflict at the summit in London, women were being raped in Iraq.

Hague says the actions of Isis are grave breaches of the Geneva convention. This is at the very top of his priorities, he says.

Responding to Labour's Keith Vaz, Hague says the UK is the second biggest donor to refugee programmes in the region and will continue to support them.

Hague says the issue of sexual violence is intrinsic to the current situation in the Middle East because extremist forces also use sexual violence as a weapon. There is a great deal of ignorance about the importance of these matters, Hague adds.

MPs from all sides – Rifkind, Lib Dem Julian Huppert and Labour's Jeremy Corbyn among them – have brought up the 2003 invasion. Hague is steadfastly sticking to the current situation. We will have to await the report of the inquiry into the 2003 invasion, Hague says, but he adds that if Assad had not decided to "wage war" on his own people in Syria, the situation in Iraq now would be very different, notwithstanding the 2003 conflict.

Penny Mourdant says it is a shame that the work of Angelina Jolie on sexual violence in conflict has been belittled. Hague says her involvement has ensured that people who would not even have heard of the problem are now engaged with it.

Tory MP John Glen asks about the 400 British or UK-related individuals thought to be fighting in Syria.

Hague says it can be hard to monitor because some travel to Syria via third-party countries. We are being extremely vigilant, he adds.

Angus Robertson, SNP leader in the Commons, says Tony Blair should surely step down as a Middle East envoy.

Hague says this session should not become a proxy debate on Tony Blair.

Hague says the UK government is discussing "a whole range of issues" with the Iranian authorities; he says there are several matters they must address before Iran can be thought of as a source of stability, rather than instability, in the region.

Glenda Jackson asks if the UK government should urge Maliki to stand down.

Hague says it is not our place to do that. Iraq needs to choose its own leaders.

Sir Menzies Campbell, former Lib Dem leader, who opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, says it is wrong to see that conflict as the sole cause of the current crisis.

He asks about covert cooperation with Iran – which Hague declines to address, for obvious, covert-related reasons.

Jack Straw, a former Labour foreign secretary, asks about Iran. There is an opportunity to build more positive relations here, he says.

Hague says the UK government has an "important common interest with Iran" over Iraq, Afghanistan and the narcotics trade.

We do have to deal with the issue of Iran's nuclear programme, he adds.

Iran needs to cease support for sectarian groups in other parts of the region, Hague says.

Now on to questions. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former Conservative defence and foreign secretary, says the roots of the current conflict lie in the events of 2003.

On the Ending Sexual Violence summit, Hague says if everyone who attended now did what they promised to do, the effects would be huge.

The full social and political emancipation of women around the world is something the government is committed to, he says.

The UK had the first field team in place for humanitarian assistance, Hague says, and the government is aware that further support and funds will probably be necessary.

If there were to be a substantial change to the UK's current stance that there will be no military intervention in Iraq, Hague says, he's sure he will be back in front of MPs to explain or ask for permission.

Hague is speaking again. We must not think that everything that happens in the middle east is down to western action or inaction, he says.

He agrees with Alexander that Maliki's government needs to make drastic changes and the UK government is acting to influence that.

Events on the ground demonstrate the need for this, he adds.

Alexander now turns to the Ending Sexual Violence summit. He commends the summit and Hague's involvement in it.

Shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander is talking about the long history of instability and sectarian tensions in the region.

Prime minister Maliki's government in Iraq has been a sectarian one, he says. It has failed to move the country forward. What will the UK government do to change that and to urge Maliki to make reforms?

He asks Hague to assure the Commons that no further military assistance will be given without MPs being given the chance to debate it.

Hague says this acute crisis does not mean we should turn our attentions away from long-term, chronic problems. Last week he attended the global summit against sexual violence in conflict in London. These crimes are "among the worst committed in the world today".

(Some in the media have dismissed his involvement – alongside Angelina Jolie – claiming he was "starstruck".)

Hague says he will continue to take action on rape as a weapon of war until the "scourge of sexual violence is defeated".

His statements is finished now. Douglas Alexander will respond for Labour.

We will continue to support the moderate opposition in Syria, as they have opposed Isis, Hague says. The UK is providing security support to Lebanon and Jordan to try to promote stability in the region.

The UK has already pledged £3m in humanitarian aid and will consider what more it can give, Hague says.

The UK has sent a team of counter-terror experts.

Hague says a specially deployed group from the MoD is helping the "small number" of British nationals affected in Iraq.

The Iraqi government must take action to address sectarian issues, Hague says. There must be "rapid formation" of a new government in Baghdad involving both Sunni and Shia representatives.

Last Friday, Hague held talks with John Kerry. They agreed responsibility to resolve this lies with the Iraqi government.

The UK is taking action to assist the Iraqi government "where appropriate and possible", and is also offering humanitarian assistance.

Hague says approximately 400 British nationals "and other UK-linked individuals" are fighting in Syria. Some of these are fighting with Isis, he says.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, will shortly make a statement to the Commons on the situation in Iraq.

He gave an indication of what he might say when he appeared on the Today programme this morning; you can read the highlights of that here.

In summary:

• Hague said that Britain would not send troops to Iraq, but he said Britain might help the Iraqis with counter-terrorism. Britain is providing humanitarian assistance.

• He said that he did not think the Iraq war was a mistake, but that mistakes occurred in its aftermath.

• He said last year's Commons vote against military intervention in Syria did not mean MPs would never authorise military action.

I'm expecting the statement to begin at around 4pm. I'll cover it live here.

You can read the latest on the unfolding situation in Iraq on our live blog here.

Some background on this urgent question on prison overcrowding here. At the weekend, the chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, issued a stark warning that cuts had left the system so stretched that more inmates were killing or injuring themselves, or deliberately getting sent to punishment blocks to escape crowded conditions.

Education questions have now concluded, and Sadiq Khan is asking an urgent question for Labour on prison overcrowding.

Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, says we do not have a prison overcrowding crisis.

Labour's Lisa Nandy asks whether Dominic Cummings, former special adviser to Gove, has lost his pass for access to the DfE (Cummings has made some rather pithy criticisms of David Cameron today and was only last week pictured leaving the DfE building, although he stopped working for Gove at the end of last year).

Gove tells Nandy he is not responsible for the allocation of DfE passes but would welcome her for a cup of tea there in the future. She doesn't look entirely thrilled at either the answer or the invitation.

Hello, Claire Phipps here, taking over from Andrew.

Michael Gove is currently taking education questions in the Commons; shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has just asked about Trojan horse and what the government will do to raise standards in local oversight.

This should be on UKTV Gold, says Gove, as it's a repeat of questions Hunt asked last week. Hunt is in favour of autonomy and local authority oversight, he says:

Inconsistency, thy name is Tristram.

I'm heading off for the day now.

A colleague will be taking over to cover the William Hague statement.

Here is some Twitter comment on Piketty's Q&A.

That's it. The session is over.

There was one question I did not cover. It was from Len McCluskey, who asked Stewart Wood if Labour should be adopting a bolder stance on these issues. But McCluskey opened it with a reference to football, saying Wood was an Arsenal fan. Of course, Lord Wood of Anfield is a Liverpool fan.

Wood said that McCluskey had got his allegiance wrong, but, with Piketty's answers going on for quite a while, he managed to avoid answering McCluskey's question.

Q: Are unscrupulous employers in the EU using the free movement of labour to drive down wages? What role does this play in inequality?

Piketty says you cannot have free trade, and free movement of labour and capital, without further integration. The current system is "crazy", he says.

The Swiss have free movement of capital without any reporting. In France the president did not know his finance minister had a Swiss bank account. That's crazy.

It is the same with free movement of labour. We are on the wrong track. There is an increased risk that a growing proportion of voters will think the system is not working well for them, he says.

Piketty says he strongly believes in globalisation. But we need some common regulation in the fiscal and social domain.

Look at the EU/US free trade treaty, he says. It would be crazy to have that without an agreement on tax havens, and some agreement on information sharing.

Rising inequality is also a concern in the US, he says.

The US has a quarter of world GDP. And so does the EU. If you add them together, it is crazy to think they won't be large enough to address tax competition problems.

Q: What should governments do about international tax competition and tax evasion?

Piketty says there is a lot national governments can do on their own. A tax rate of more than 50p would not damage national economic performance in any measurable way, he says.

He says we have not seen the end of tax competition. There is a real danger that, in 20 years, you could have corporate tax rates of zero in Europe, he says.

And you could have multinationals paying no tax, but small and medium sized businesses paying taxes. That would be a "crazy", he says. It would be very disadvantageous for innovation.

We over-tax labour, as opposed to capital, he says.

Tax competition in Europe is not just bad on the grounds of fairness. It is bad in terms of productivity, he says.

He says there should be reform in Europe. He has argued for a Eurozone parliament, based on national parliaments.

He says he is in favour of a much stronger political and fiscal European union.

Sometimes Europe is stupidly intrusive on secondary matters, and not powerful enough on major issues, like tax competition.

Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, is asking a question.

Q: Thank you for your book. To me, the central thesis was that we should reject the status quo. Stewart Wood said inequality may be caused by changes in skills. We reject that. We think it has more to do with contracting out, and the drive for profits. Twenty years ago oil tanker drivers (who do a professional, highly-skilled jobs) were the highest paid drivers. Now their salaries have been slashed, because of contracting out. We want to challenge that. The proportion of the economy going into wages has fallen. We believe that collective bargaining is one means of addressing this. What do you think about collective bargaining?

Piketty says the decline in organised labour has been an important factor in rising inequality.

Part of the policy response has been the introdution of minimum wages in countries like the UK and Germany. Minimum wages do a job that unions used to do.

But minimum wages on their own are not enough.

In the US, which has had a minimum wage for much longer, its value has declined, he says.

We need to think about new ways to develop broader worker involvement in companies, he says.

[To Stewart Wood] Q: Is Labour doing enough to address this problem?

Wood says Labour is trying to get a debate going about inequality, so that people recognise the harm it causes.

Labour has proposed a mansion tax and a 50p top rate of tax, he says.

Q: Have centre-left governments done enough to tackle the rise in inequality? Tony Blair said that making David Beckham poorer was not one of his priorities.

Piketty says actors and sportsmen are not especially relevant. Rising inequality has instead been driven by the growing wealth going to people at the top in business and finance.

This might be acceptable if growth performance had been really good. But in countries like the US this has not happened, he says.

Something is going wrong with the economic model of a country when the bottom 50% are not getting any gains.

Q: Would you like to see more forms of common ownership?

Piketty says ideas like this should be seen as complementary to what he says about the need for progressive taxation.

Progressive taxation on its own is not the solution, he says.

Q: Why does economic inequality matter?

Piketty says there is no problem with inequality per se. It can be useful to promote growth.

But when it gets too large, it perpetuates itself.

Stewart Wood is now opening the session up to questions from the audience.

Q: What should Labour be proposing to ensure corporate power can be deployed in the interests of the population as a whole?

Piketty says he does not know a lot about the debate in the Labour party, or the UK situation, so he won't give us a lecture on what should be done.

But education, labour policy (including the minimum wage) and progressive taxation should be priorities, he says.

It is difficult because fiscal resources are rare. But education should be a priority.

On the basis of what is happening in France, he says it is important to be precise about what you want to do in office before you get into power. The French government is in difficulty because it had not thought all these issues through in advance, he suggests.

It is also important to justify higher taxes for the wealthy on the grounds that it will reduce the tax burden on the poor, and allow them to start accumulating capital.

The debate about tax should become "as precise as possible" before election day, he says.

Q: [From my Guardian colleague Owen Jones] Labour would be too frightened to adopt your ideas, even if they agreed. How do we built the intellectual counterweight to persuade them?

Piketty says he believes in the power of ideas, and the power of books. But one book is not going to make all the difference. At the end of the day, we need larger coalitions to affect change, he says.

Look at Milton Friedman's work on capitalism. He published in the 1960s, but we are still living with its consequences. He suggested that all that was needed was a good central bank.

Q: What do you think about hypothecated taxation?

Piketty says he does not have specific views about this.

As an academic, he would not mind hypothecated taxation for higher education, he says.

He says there is quite a lot of this in France. But sometimes it causes rigidity.

LabourList's Mark Ferguson says Thomas Piketty sounds like Tony Blair!

Q: What do you say to critics who argue your proposals would be wealth destroying?

Piketty says he does not mind if people object to some of his ideas. He is trying to contribute to the debate, he says.

These issues sometimes go beyond left and right, he says.

Assets are doing very well. It would be stupid to deny that, he says.

Some newspapers in the UK are trying to deny there is rising inequality, he says. That's a mistake.

Any survey of wealth shows that those at the top are getting richer, he says. Everyone should worry about that.

There is no problem with inequality per se. But at the moment those at the top are getting wealthier at the rate of 6 or 7% per year. Where will that end?

Q: Your proposal for a global tax on capital has attracted most attention. But your book proposes other ideas too. What about one idea not in the book? Shouldn't we link workers' pay to the rise in the value of capital? Like share ownership schemes?

Piketty says he has ideas like this in mind when he proposes better distribution of wealth.

Employee ownership is not only fairer; it gives workers more control.

As for a global wealth tax, it is not an all-or-nothing idea, he says.

The mansion tax is exactly the right kind of approach, he says. There is a lot that can be done at a national level. It is not as if British real estate will cross the channel if taxes go up here.

It is only at the top that you need international cooperation to enforce progressive tax, he says.

Piketty says a lot of progressivity has been introduced in the UK recently with stamp duty.

Is it better to have a high tax rate when you buy a house? Or is it better to impose a smaller tax every year? Piketty says he thinks it is better to impose annual taxes, than hefty, one-off transaction taxes.

Q: You argue the key driver of inequality is the difference between the rate of return on capital, and normal economic growth. But what do you say to the argument that the returns on different kinds of skills (penalising those with low skills) is the key factor?

Piketty says both factors are important.

Different skills, and different demand for skills, are a fundamental cause of inequality.

In the US, and other countries, the difference in the distribution of wages does not alone explain rising inequality.

Those are the top are being paid more. But that is not explained just by an increase in their marginal rate of productivity, as standard economics would explain, he says.

To tackle this, you could increase tax for those at the top, he says.

He turns to his r>g theory.

Before the 19th century r>g was obvious to everyone, he says. That is because growth was zero.

This ideas was the very foundation of society. It allowed the wealthy to live off their capital income.

He says one of the messages of his book is that the industrial revolution did not change this basic rule as much as people thought.

Growth improved in the nineteenth century. But the rate of return on capital improved too. The gap between them was not really affected.

It was only in the 20th century that things changed, he said. Capital was lost during the world wars. And growth improved.

Piketty says "r" (the rate of return on capital) and "g" (growth) are influenced by different factors.

Growth of 1.5% already seems reasonably good in the long run, he says. It is not low growth. It is only very exceptionally that growth gets up to 4 or 5% per year.

Piketty turns to progressive taxation of wealth.

That can take the form of inheritance tax. But it can also take the form of an annual tax on wealth, he says.

In this country there have been proposals for a mansion tax.

Wealth has been doing well, he says. Increasing the tax burden on the wealthy, through something like a mansion tax, to reduce the tax burden on others makes a lot of sense, he says.

But should people with high mortgages be taxed the same as those with large mansions who do not have a mortgage, he asks?

In the 21st century, the way wealth is taxed needs to be rethought, he says.

To some extent, international cooperation will be required for this, he says.

He says he does not know how far rising income inequality will go.

But we need more transparency in relation to wealth, he says.

That's it. Piketty has finished his opening remarks.

Stewart Wood is now asking questions.

Piketty says the high rates for top rate of tax in Britain in the post-war period were to blame for its economic problems. Other issues were more important, he says.

Piketty says he is very interested in progressive taxation.

A 50% top rate of tax is too low, he says.

Thomas Piketty is opening the meeting with a short speech.

He says he is disappointed by the way people say his book is pessimistic about the future. That is because he does not have a deterministic view of the future, he says.

Q: Do you regret meeting the Dalai Lama? Would you meet him again?

Clegg says he has not regrets about that. He has not plans to meet him again, but he would be "more than honoured" to do so. The government recognises that Tibet is part of China. But the Dalai Lama is a highly respected religious figure. Clegg says he would hope to have the opportunity to meet someone like that again. But there are no plans for him to do so in government.

And that's it.

I'll post a summary soon.

Q: You have announced new plans for teaching the curriculum in academies. Doesn't this make it look as if you are disowning the coalition's education policies?

Clegg says he does not accept this.

There are many areas where the Department for Education already controls what academies do. He thinks making them teach a core body of knowledge should be added to that.

Q: Would you support more action to limit the spread of second homes?

Clegg says this is a huge problem in some areas, like the south west. The government has already changed the rules on council tax for second homes.

Q: Is your leadership secure?

Clegg says you would not be a good leader if you did not take decisions that some people oppose. The Lib Dems took a collective decision to go into coalition. There were interminable meetings.

At the meeting of the parliamentary party last week, there was unanimous support for his leadership.

Q: Is there a case for telling the electorate before the election what a Tory/Lib Dem coalition might look like, or a Labour/Lib Dem coalition might look like?

Clegg says he can only speak for the Lib Dems. You cannot produce a Blue Peter "here's one I prepared earlier" blueprint for a coalition. Those decisions would have to be taken after polling day, he says.

Q: You seem a bit melancholy, like a spat-out smartie? [This is from Quentin Letts.]

Clegg says he's not gloomy.

He says he has read Letts' columns, and developed a thick skin. He has got the appetite for more service in government, he says.

Q: Will Lib Dem MPs support the EU referendum bill?

Clegg says the Lib Dems favour a referendum. But they are perplexed by the Tory demand for legislation now.

Q: Will the manifesto make it clear which pledges you would be willing to jettison in coalition?

Clegg says the Lib Dems did this last time. People are entitled to know what the priorities are?

Education would be a cornerstone, he says.

Q: Lord Oakeshott says there is a problem with cash for peerages in the party. Is he right?

No, says Clegg. On this, as on other matters, Oakeshott is wrong. And it is demeaning to Lib Dem peers to suggest otherwise.

Q: Are you firmly opposed to the Lib Dems supporting a minority government at arm's length, via a confidence and supply arrangement?

Yes, says Clegg. That would be the worst of all worlds. You must either be in government or in opposition. You cannot be half in government.

Q: Are you trying to block Francis Maude's plans to end the automatic deduction of trade union subscriptions from the civil service payroll?

Clegg says this is unnecessarily mean. This kind of automatic deduction ("check off") does not cost the government anything. In fact, ending it could even cost departments more. Lib Dem ministers are opposing this, he says.

Q: Would you support a federal system as part of a reformed Lords?

Clegg says he has tried to reform the Lords. He hopes the next generation of Lords reformers have better luck than he did.

Q: Do you support the Silk commission plans for further devolution to Wales?

Clegg says he thinks "Silk 2" (the latest Silk commission proposals) should be implemented.

Q: What do you make of Jean-Claude Juncker?

Clegg says of course he has met him. He is a charming, amiable guy. But this is not personal. Clegg is opposing him because he would be the wrong candidate?

Q: Are you worried we are ignoring human rights concerns in our dealings with China?

Clegg says of course we should not ignore human rights concerns in China. The Chinese are still shackled to a Communist doctrine that is the antithesis of the open society that he believes in. That does not mean we cannot have productive talks with the Chinese. And it does not mean we should cut our economic ties with them, not least because economic growth in China will fuel demands for reform.

Q: What do you think of Uber, the new taxi technology? Is is a disruptive technology that liberals should support?

Clegg says he did not approve of the way taxi drivers conducted their recent protest. But he has some sympathy for their concerns.

Q: What do you mean by protecting the education budget in full? Does that mean spending would rise in line with inflation?

Clegg says the government has ring-fenced the dedicated schools grant, worth about £36bn, and the pupil premium.

Under the Lib Dem proposal, education spending on 16 to 19-year-olds (worth around £7bn) and early years spending (worth around £3bn) would also be ring-fenced.

Q: Do you share Tony Blair's claim that Jean-Claude Juncker is bad for Europe as a whole?

Clegg says it is not right for Europe to set a principle that the leader of the European parliamentary group that comes top in the elections becomes president of the European commission.

The commission should not be at the beck and call of the parliament, he says.

The Lisbon treaty says that EU leaders should take account of the views of the parliament. But it also says that EU leaders should take the final decision. Trying to enforce the lead candidate system is treaty revision by hte back door.

Q: What will you cut to protect the early years budget?

Clegg says that is a fair question. The party will set out its spending plans in due course.

Q: Dominic Cummings, in an interview in the Times, has attacked you again, and criticised the government generally. Should Michael Gove have to cut his ties with Cummings?

Clegg says he does not know Cummings. Cummings obviously has a lot of bile in him. But at least now he is spreading them around evenly.

His views do not deserve the attention they are getting.

Q: Isn't it going to be hard for you to say education is a priority given your stance on tuition fees?

Clegg says if the tuition fee changes had led to a decline in the number of people going to university, especially from black or disadvantaged backgrounds, he would accept that Lib Dem talk of extending opportunity would be "hollow".

But more youngsters are going to university than ever before, including more from disadvantaged communities and more black and minority ethnic pupils.

The facts of the new system are different from the claims made about it, he says.

Q: The Scottish goverment wants to legislate to ban nuclear weapons. Do you think that makes their plan to join Nato inconsistent?

Clegg says Alex Salmond is seeking to claim that "up is down, round is flat". He is just trying to wish away the dilemmas facing the Scottish people.

The Better Together agenda is more positive, he says.

Q: You say debating the Iraq war is not pointless. Some people say Blair in unhinged, and that he should keep quiet. What do you think?

Clegg says he is not going to make personal comments about Blair.

But it is "peculiar" to think the Iraq war had nothing to do with the predicament it faces now.

Q: Do you think Blair is in complete denial?

Clegg says he leads a party that said to Blair he was wrong. Both Labour and the Tories supported the war at the time.

It is obvious he and Blair disagree, he says.

It is also "pointless" to argue that the invasion had nothing to do with what happened afterwards, he says.

If that were true, you would just keep invading countries, he says.

Politics must trump violence.

Q: Have you blocked military action in Iraq?

Clegg says the government won't deploy military force in Iraq.

But it won't stand in the way of the US taking "well-judged, targeted action".

Only the US can deploy the kind of targeted action that may make a difference, he says.

We should not pretend to the British people that we can intervene, he suggests. He says this is a view shared across the coalition.

Q: Is your plan to ring-fence early years spending a "red line" issue?

Clegg says he is not going to get into "red line" manifesto priorities at this point.

But, nearer the election, the Lib Dems will say what their priorities are, as they did last time (when four priorities were on the front page of the manifesto.)

Clegg says he would not be announcing this today if it were not important.

Q: You are talking about "liberal", not Lib Dem. Are you rebranding the party?

Clegg says he has always thought of himself as someone in the liberal tradition in politics. But the party is not going to change its name.

Q: What do you think about Tony Blair's comments about Iraq? Would you block military action?

Clegg says he will engage with two of Blair's arguments.

For Blair to say that what is happening in Iraq now would have happened anyway without the war is a "pointless" and academic exercise, he says.

The Lib Dems opposed the war, he says. Trying to re-order the chronology is completely pointless.

But Blair has a point when he says that the civil war in Syria is acting as a crucible for violence, and that there is a threat to Britain too. The threat posed by people who have been radicalised in Syria is the number one security threat being considered by the government.

Q: So if America wanted British help, or even just tacit support, for military intervention.

Clegg says the government will not stand in the way of military action by the US to ensure stability in Iraq. There won't be active support for it, but there could be passive support, he says.

Nick Clegg says he is launching a policy today. (This wasn't in the script of the remarks released overnight.)

He says children start learning from the moment they are born.

The government has invested in early years, he says, because if a child starts behind, it stays behind.

He wants the education system to start early, and to keep children engaged all the way through.

The Lib Dems would ring-fence the full education budget, covering the years two to 19, he says.

(Under the coalition, only spending on schools has been ring-fenced.)

• The Lib Dems promise to ring-fence all education funding, including early years, not just school spending.

Nick Clegg is here now.

He is reading out the opening statement released by the party overnight. I summarised the key points earlier. (See 9.19am.)

I'm at Lib Dem HQ waiting for the Clegg press conference to start.

It's the first time I've been in this building. The Lib Dems used to be based in Cowley Street. Now they're on the second floor of an office blog on Great George Street, just off Parliament Square.

If any of you think the Guardian pay too much attention to the Lib Dems, you should see the BBC contingent here. I've counted three of their senior journalists here already.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, is making a statement in the Commons this afternoon in Iraq, but we got a preview of what he's likely to say on the Today programme earlier when he was interviewed in the 8.10 slot. Here are the main points he made.

• Hague said that Britain would not send troops to Iraq.

So many situations can arise in the world that we cannot predict that to absolutely rule all things out in all circumstances tends to be a mistake. But in this situation today, in Iraq, with what we’ve seen in recent days, are we looking at a British military intervention? No, we’re not. I can’t be clearer than that.

• But he said Britain might help the Iraqis with counter terrorism. He refused to elaborate on what that meant. He also said Britain was providing humanitarian assistance.

• He said that he did not think the Iraq war was a mistake, but that mistakes occurred in its aftermath.

No, I don’t think the invasion itself was a mistake. I have always thought that many mistakes occurred in the aftermath of the invasion.

One lesson of Iraq was that intervention was only justified when there was a "very comprehensive" plan for the post-conflict scenario, he went on.

It’s possible to argue that Western intervention makes these things worse and it’s possible to argue that the absence of Western intervention makes these things worse. Foreign policy is the fine judgement between those things.

And I think the truth about intervention is that it is only right when it is the last resort, when it has either limited objectives or where there is a very comprehensive plan working with regional and local leaders to go with it. And that is the aspect, therefore, of the Iraq operation of 2003 of which I have always been most critical.

• He said last year's Commons vote against military intervention in Syria did not mean MPs would never authorise military action.

I don’t think anybody should conclude from that around the world that the House of Commons is never prepared to authorise military action. But of course there was that defeat for the government and it was very serious; yes, we have to take note of that. I think there would be other circumstances at other times [when MPs would authorise military action.]

• He defended his decision to spend so much time last week at the summit on ending sexual violence in conflict with Angelina Jolie. He rejected a suggestion that he was "starstruck". He said he was trying to change global attitudes, and that Jolie had a role to play because governments could not do this on their own.

I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

I will be covering the Hague statement at 3.30pm, but for all the latest on Iraq, you should read my colleague Matthew Weaver's Iraq crisis live blog.

Here's the full agenda for the day.

9.45am: Nick Clegg holds a press conference at Lib Dem HQ. As Patrick Wintour reports, Clegg will promise that his party's election manifesto will be written solely to highlight the big changes Britain still needs, and not with an eye to setting out plans that either Labour or the Conservatives might accept in a post election coalition negotiation.

12pm: Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is interviewed by Stewart Wood, Ed Miliband's key policy adviser, at the Commons in an event organised by the Class thinktank.

2.30pm: Alistair Darling, head of the Better Together campaign, gives a speech in Scotland.

2.30pm: Michael Gove, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

3.30pm: William Hague, the foreign secretary, makes a statement in the Commons on Iraq.

Today I'm going to focus on the Clegg press conference, the Piketty interview and the Hague statement on Iraq.

Thank you to everyone who posted on Friday on the readers' edition about my mum. I appreciate what you all had to say very much. My mum had a massive stroke, and she has been in a coma since it happened. Sadly she is not going to recover. I have spent a lot of time in hospital with her over the last few days, but we've got to the point where it's now most helpful for me to come back to work.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow.