Andrea Leadsom: I’m staying in Government because there’s more work to be done to get Brexit deal the Prime Minister wants

Andrea Leadsom has vowed she will be staying in government because “there’s more work to be done to get the Brexit deal the Prime Minister wants”.

The Commons leader insisted she has no plans to quit the government and will support Theresa May in securing a deal.

Ms Leadsom’s announcement comes after it was reported Tory Brexiteers ‘still need 11 letters’ to trigger a confidence vote.

The Sun reported the number of no confidence letters submitted to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 committee, stood at 37. The number needed to spark a confidence ballot is 48.

Ms Leadsom, who attends Cabinet as part of her role, hit back after her SNP counterpart Pete Wishart joked she had upset his "Brexit resignation bingo coupon", adding: "I had her definitely down as a resigner."

Mrs Leadsom replied: "Normally I'm very happy to entertain (Mr Wishart's) banter but I think all he's done today is to demonstrate he's not very good at bingo."

She added: "I am staying in Government because there is more work to be done to get the Brexit that the Prime Minister wants to deliver to the people, and therefore I am determined to support her to do that.

"Now, him bantering about it and mocking it is all very well, but he doesn't suggest anything else and his party has form for ignoring the will of a referendum in Scotland that voted to stay in the United Kingdom.

"What are they doing sitting there? All they want to do is break up the United Kingdom, and against the will of Scottish fishers keep them in the Common Fisheries Policy. How much sense does that make?"

The pair's exchanges came at business questions and amid the backdrop of Cabinet resignations over Mrs May's draft Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Mrs Leadsom is used to receiving a ribbing from Mr Wishart at the weekly session in which she outlines forthcoming Commons business.

Speeches from the frontbench are usually a mix of serious and light-hearted, with Mr Wishart earlier saying: "Can I thank the still in place Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week?

"She's only gone and upset my Brexit resignation bingo coupon because I had her definitely down as a resigner today.

"I know there are still opportunities later in the day and she'll probably have something to say about her place on all this, and once she's recovered from the hangover from all the unchilled Chardonnay that was consumed last night, we might get a sense of what actually happened at that Cabinet meeting.

"But what we now want to hear from the Leader of the House is what's going to happen now? We need to be reassured that this nonsensical binary choice of a bad deal or a no deal is taken right off the table."

Mr Wishart also asked for a "debate about huffing and puffing" and took aim at Scottish Tories by labelling them the "most useless rebels in the history of parliamentary rebellions".