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Welcome back. Before Christmas, the Labour leader had planned to use the first week back after the holiday recess to focus on ministers' actions to reduce the living expenses. He set out this argument yesterday in a piece where he cited steps including plans to cut utility costs. Unfortunately, his economic media push has been blown out of the news agenda by Donald Trump, and his entirely different strategy to ensuring his voters receive cheap energy.

Not a single figure in British political life seems particularly eager on adopting the American method – which is likely good news for Norway.

But there is an intense debate under way about what the UK government should be prepared to say about Trump’s decision to extradite Nicolás Maduro, and install a successor with someone expected to be more cooperative with American interests, especially in regarding the nation's petroleum sector.

The Prime Minister has declined to censure the American intervention, and the government has dodged questions about whether or not it considered what happened as lawful. Recently, all EU states except one nation issued a joint statement which, while not overtly critical, did stress the value of international law, and by implication accuse Trump of ignoring it. It said:

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

The EU recalls that, under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the UN Charter must be upheld. Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have a special duty to defend those standards, as a cornerstone of the global security framework.

The migration minister, was conducting an series of media appearances this morning and, when asked if Starmer was refusing to say the Venezuelan leader's removal violated international law because he was worried of upsetting Trump, the minister replied:

Not at all. The British government are and will remain in conversations with the US administration. And it’s for the Americans to explain the juridical rationale for the action that they’ve taken. And we’re also talking with key partners examining the juridical dimension of this.

But last night, in an interview on the BBC, Emily Thornberry (and a former shadow attorney general), said she was deeply worried about the way Trump seems to think, like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the Chinese president, that he could do what he wanted in his area of control.

Asked about Starmer declining to say that Trump was in breach of global rules, she said, because the PM was in office, he had to weigh up “a number of considerations”. But she was in a different position because she was not a minister, she said. She added:

In the end there is no escaping the fact. This is an unlawful move.

[Starmer] may well wish to hear what the reasoning is from the US administration. I can state before us and say I literally think of anything that could be a valid excuse.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: John Swinney, gives a address in Glasgow. The Scottish opposition leader, and Scottish Tory leader, are also giving talks, at mid-morning and 1pm respectively. All the party heads are looking ahead to the Holyrood elections in May.

Morning: Keir Starmer is on a tour in Berkshire where he is scheduled to make comments to the media.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, takes queries in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: The foreign secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about Venezuela.