The Scottish National Party's "obsession" with independence has led to "very poor outcomes", Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride tells Sky News.

Asked if Humza Yousaf should resign, Mr Stride says "it's a matter for him and the SNP".

He adds: "But it does seem an extraordinary mess that he's managed to get him and the SNP have got themselves into. That they are now potentially going to be beholden to Alba in this situation that they find themselves."

Mr Stride says: "The most important thing for the Scottish people is actually what happens down on the ground with the services that they care about.

"If you look at the SNP's record, their obsession with independence, I'm afraid, has led to very poor outcomes when it's come to health, when it's come to education and a number of other areas, despite the fact that because they're part of the UK, the amount of spending per head in Scotland on public services is about 30% higher than it is in England.

"So overall very unsatisfactory, but it's for them to decide where they go from here."

By Connor Gillies, Scotland correspondent

Humza Yousaf is considering resigning as Scotland’s first minister as early as today, Sky News understands.

A senior source has said the embattled SNP leader could "call it quits" later ahead of a key vote of no confidence later this week. 

Mr Yousaf is facing two no confidence votes at Holyrood in the coming days after the collapse of his power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens.

The 39-year-old, who now runs a minority administration in Edinburgh, sacked the Greens on Thursday and they have joined the opposition in confirming they will vote to oust him. 

Talks had been planned with the Alba party which is led by now bitter rival Alex Salmond. Its own MSP, Ash Regan, was set to cast the deciding vote and determine Mr Yousaf's future.

The pair had been due to meet this week with Ms Regan bringing a set of demands as her price of agreement.

But some senior figures within the SNP had said publicly and privately that would be an electoral disaster and would seriously harm the nationalist cause.

One MP said it would go down like a "cup of cold sick".

Sky News understands Mr Yousaf could now walk on Monday ahead of the vote. Although no final decision has been made.

A source told Sky News this morning the first minister said Mr Salmond pulling the strings behind the scenes would be "doing a deal with the devil".

MPs are set to debate assisted dying today, after a campaign backed by the journalist and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen.

The 83-year-old Childline founder, who has stage four lung cancer, revealed in December she had joined the assisted dying clinic, Dignitas, in Switzerland.

But she said under UK law, her family could be left at risk of prosecution if they helped her to go to Zurich, something she branded "not right" and "not ethical".

A petition for a debate on assisted dying, backed by Dame Esther, gained more than 200,000 signatures, triggering Monday's session at Westminster Hall.

A number of celebrities and public figures are set to gather outside Parliament ahead of the debate.

Thursday's local elections have been pencilled in as a day of peril for Rishi Sunak for so long, it's hard to remember when Tory turbulence - and maybe even a leadership challenge - was not expected after 2 May.

Most council seats up for election were last contested in 2021, the high watermark of Boris Johnson's political prowess, when the Tories were benefiting from a vaccine bounce.

Since then, the party has plunged in the polls after ploughing through two prime ministerial downfalls.

But in the Politics At Jack And Sam's podcast, Politico UK editor Jack Blanchard and I explore whether it might be Labour who have the harder job to do if they don't clean up some of the highest profile races, with Tories winning in long-time Labour areas.

Thursday's local elections see 107 councils, 10 high-profile metro mayors and a parliamentary by-election in Blackpool South.

Unusually, both Tories and Labour are broadly setting their expectations in the same place and, by also studying the work of Sky analyst Professor Michael Thrasher, we've been working out what might happen.

Read more here:

By James Robinson, news reporter

The UK will not take back asylum seekers who cross the border into Ireland "until the EU accepts that we can send them back to France", according to a government source.

The comment comes amid an escalating row between Dublin and Westminster over the Irish government's plans for new legislation to enable asylum seekers who cross the border from Northern Ireland to be sent back to the UK.

Irish justice minister Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee last week that more than 80% of recent arrivals in Ireland came via the land border with Northern Ireland.

Ireland's deputy prime minister and foreign secretary Micheal Martin said the threat of deportation to Rwanda was causing "fearful" migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK.

As the row deepened on Sunday night, Irish prime minister Simon Harris vowed the country would "not provide a loophole for anybody else's migration challenges".

Read more:

Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf is battling to save his job as he faces two no-confidence votes.

The SNP leader triggered a crisis at Holyrood last week after he dramatically brought the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens to an end.

The backlash has plunged Mr Yousaf's future into doubt, although party colleagues insist he will not resign.

Mr Yousaf is facing a vote of confidence tabled by the Scottish Conservatives, while Scottish Labour has tabled one for the Scottish government as a whole.

Read how we got here - and what happens next...

Welcome back to the Politics Hub on Monday 29 April.

Here's what's happening today:

• Humza Yousaf is fighting for his political future ahead of two confidence votes, after ending the power-sharing deal between the SNP and Scottish Greens on Thursday;
• Rishi Sunak is bracing for a challenge to his leadership as Tory rebels plot to oust him in anticipation of disastrous local election results, after the defection of former Conservative health minister Dan Poulter to Labour increased the pressure on the prime minister;
• Lord Cameron will push for an immediate humanitarian pause in Gaza during talks at the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia;
• MPs will debate assisted dying today after a campaign backed by the journalist and campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen.

We'll be discussing all of this and more with:

• Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, at 7.20am;
• Ellie Reeves, Labour's deputy national campaign coordinator, at 8.20am.

Follow along for the latest political news.

By Trevor Phillips, presenter

I've known Rishi Sunak slightly for almost a decade, having first met him after he penned a thoughtful, comprehensive, well-received report on Britain's minority communities, which I'd say is still the best of its kind.

Sitting down to interview him in a state-of-the-art defence facility this week, I could still see the same energetic, likeable problem solver that I met back then, even if he's now surrounded by the prime ministerial cavalcade of aides, security and media.

That Peloton and fasting regime are clearly doing their job. He's keen to show his detailed grasp of the situation, whether that's welfare reform, defence or migration. It's easy to see why he shone in Silicon Valley and thrived in the Treasury.

However, in the political world he chose, there's a downside to being highly intelligent, disciplined, and super-focused on delivery, as they might say in California.

He betrays frustration with what he - not wholly unjustifiably - sees as a media obsession with polls and presentation.

Unfortunately, as Enoch Powell once pointed out, a politician who complains about journalists is like a sailor who doesn't much fancy being at sea.

He rightly points out that it's his job to make hard choices - for example, funding the defence budget even if it's at the expense of schools and hospitals.

But a political leader should also know that what follows is an even harder job: to cajole the electorate into supporting that choice - and the voters aren't always governed by the logic of the computer.

Read on here...

Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, has said her party will not be changing its mind about supporting the upcoming motion of no confidence in First Minister Humza Yousaf.

Ms Slater said they would vote in favour of the motion on BBC Scotland's Sunday Show,

"I cannot imagine anything at this point that could change that position.

"This was a spectacular breach of trust."

She was asked if policy offers from Mr Yousaf ahead of the vote could persuade them to abstain.

“[The Bute House Agreement] was based on mutual trust and respect. I do have trust and respect for many of my SNP colleagues," she said.

"But Humza Yousaf himself has broken that and he needs to face the consequences."

Policing minister Chris Philp said he was posing a "rhetorical question" after he appeared to ask whether Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were different countries.

The MP for Croydon South said he was struggling to hear when he was asked about the government's new law on deporting some asylum seekers to Rwanda by a Question Time audience member.

He told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg: "I was struggling a little bit to hear the question.

"When I put that point to him I was asking that as a clearly rhetorical question rather than a substantive question, as I think any fair-minded listener would conclude."

What did he say on Question Time?

The audience member, from Congo, pointed out there has been a long history of violent conflict with neighbouring country Rwanda.

He asked Mr Philp: "Had my family members come from Goma [a city on the country's border] on a crossing right now, would they then be sent back to the country they are supposedly warring – Rwanda? Does that make any sense to you?"

Mr Philp replied: "No, I think there's an exclusion on people from Rwanda being sent to Rwanda."

After the audience member objected that his parents were not from Rwanda, the Conservative MP appeared to ask: "Well, I mean, Rwanda is a different country to Congo, isn't it?

"It's a different country?" he said, followed by laughter from some audience members.