A man was brought down with a Taser outside the Palace of Westminster after he reached for a knife when approached by officers, Scotland Yard has said.

A bearded man, wearing black trousers and a grey sweatshirt, was seen being held against the fence with his arms behind his back by a police officer.
Police said the man was arrested on suspicion of possessing a knife.
But they "remain open minded as to whether terrorism was a motive", they said.
The man was held just yards from where PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death by terrorist Khalid Masood in March.
Joe Murphy, London Evening Standard political editor, tweeted: "There were shouts of 'knife, knife, knife' and man was brought down with a Taser."
BBC deputy political editor John Pienaar said the latest incident ended very swiftly with the man being taken away in a police van.
While the gates are closed, the road and pavement opposite remained open and the incident had no effect on traffic in Parliament Square, he said.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said "it is too early to understand the motivation" of the man "so we have not declared this a terrorist incident".
"However, given the location, the circumstances and recent tragic events, the MPS Counter Terrorism Command will be investigating this incident.
"We remain open-minded as to whether terrorism was a motive."
Eyewitness Bradley Allen, 19, from Barking, east London, who was walking past Parliament, said he saw a man "who looked quite angry with fists quite clenched".
"He stared at me and my mate and we walked past him. Within seconds there was a shout and police ran out of the front gate shouting at him 'Get on the floor, get on the ground'.
"Within seconds he was on the ground - I'm not sure whether he was Tasered - I'm not sure how he got down there, but in seconds it was over.
"Armed police everywhere, telling everyone to move back, and we all got pushed back."
Security around Westminster was tightened following the attack by Masood, who was shot dead after fatally stabbing PC Palmer as he guarded Carriage Gate.
A review of security at the perimeter of the parliamentary estate was ordered by Commons Speaker John Bercow following the incident.
The use of armed officers and physical barriers have become more visible, while a permanent barrier has been erected to protect pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, where Masood murdered five people and injured more than 50 others by mounting the pavement in a car.


The new owners of a dilapidated castle in County Armagh have announced that they are planning to build a hotel within the castle grounds.

Killeavy Castle was sold at auction for Â£1.19m in March. It was bought by an Australian couple who have strong links to the Killeavy area of south Armagh.
They have appointed architects to design a 36-bedroom hotel close to the castle and to restore the 19th century listed building "to its former glory".
They said it could create 85 jobs.
The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, are hoping to apply for planning permission for the project early next year.
The castle has not been occupied for more than 10 years and was sold in a poor state of repair.
The 330-acre estate backs onto the slopes of Slieve Gullion and includes a farm and woodland.
In a statement, the new owners said: "Our vision is for Killeavy Castle and Demesne to be restored to its former glory, within a financially viable hospitality and agriculture business, so that it can be maintained and be available for use by the public for many years into the future."
It is understood there are plans to incorporate the two-storey castle into a new wedding venue.
The couple have appointed a design team which is being led by Newry-based architects P O'Hagan and Associates.
The owners said the team also includes "conservation surveyors, hotel and hospitality consultants, quantity surveyors, landscape architects, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, arboricultural and transport consultants".
"As you can imagine the plans for the site are still developing and are at an early stage," their statement added.
"We think we know what will be successful, but the team is working with various statutory bodies, including Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) Invest NI and Newry and Mourne District Council, to refine the plans and ensure a sustainable development for Killeavy Castle and Demesne."
The couple have strong family ties to the area as the man's parents both grew up within four miles of the castle, before emigrating to Australia in the 1960s.
The owners said they have been regular visitors to south Armagh over the last 30 years and  have lots of family and friends living in the area.
Killeavy Castle started life as a country farm house, built in a gothic style by the Foxall family between 1810 and 1820.
In 1836, Powell Foxall commissioned the Dublin-based architect George Papworth to extend the building, adding four stone towers, outbuildings and Tudor-style windows.
The extended 4,000 sq ft house then became known as Killeavy Castle.
By 1881, the castle was the home of the Bell family, who owned it until recently.
It is located within a government-designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).


Rosa María Apodaca has spent the past six years looking for her eldest daughter.

Patricia Jazmín Ibarra was 18 when she left on the morning of 7 June 2011 to go to work at a mobile phone shop in the centre of Ciudad Juárez.
"They stole her," says her mother, who has given up her job to look for Patricia Jazmín.
Ms Apodaca knows that many of the young girls who disappeared from Ciudad Juárez were eventually found dead.
The city on the Mexican-US border is located on a key route for drug smuggling and human trafficking.
In the 1990s, Ciudad Juárez became infamous for the staggering numbers of young women who disappeared from it, and between 2008 and 2011 the city held the dubious title of murder capital of the world.
"They never find them alive. They find only bones, this is how they give them back to their families," Ms Apodaca says of the many women who have gone missing.
"You never have the certainty that it is your own daughter."
It is people like Ms Apodaca that Dr Alejandro Hernández Cárdenas is trying to help.
He works as a forensic doctor at the prosecutor's office and has developed a special technique to rehydrate corpses in order to help identify them.
The technique is so innovative that last year the Mexican Institute for Industrial Property gave him a patent for his secret formula.
Forensic experts have used glycerine injections to reconstitute fingers to get prints for over a century. But that technique does not work for entire bodies.
DNA testing can help, but in order to identify bodies, samples from two direct family members are needed for comparison.
With the rehydration process, the body can regain most of its original condition so families can identify it.
"I think I am doing this work because I was affected by the idea of these bodies going to mass graves or their families not being able to mourn properly,"  Dr Hernández says.
The rehydration technique has also helped provide key leads in criminal investigations.
When Dr Hernández rehydrated a corpse in the state of Queretaro, in central Mexico, he discovered unusual lesions on its skin, which later led to an arrest being made.
The doctor was told that his help was key in bringing the murderer to justice.
Dr Hernández, 59, says that he first thought of becoming a forensic expert when he was 18 and studying to be a dentist while also driving an ambulance to help provide for his young family.
One night in 1977, he was called out to a train accident that had killed 35 people and had left most of the victims unrecognisable.
"When the forensic doctor arrived, he told us to check their teeth," Dr Hernández recalls.
He helped out at the morgue for four or five days, while the victims' families were waiting for news outside.
While the task may seem gruesome to some, it inspired in Dr Hernández a desire to help identify victims of crime.
After becoming a dentist and eventually joining the forensic lab, he started experimenting with his rehydration technique.
He used pig skin and human fingers he kept in glass jars and checked on them daily.
One day in 2004 he was inspecting seven jars. When he took out the finger from the fourth jar, it looked perfect.
"It was like a new finger. I couldn't believe it," he says.
At first he thought it was too good to be true and suspected his colleagues of playing a trick on him. But when he confronted them, one told him: "We don't mess with them, they smell too bad."
He had found the magic formula and four years later managed to rehydrated a full corpse.
In recent years, Dr Hernández has been applying his technique more and more to migrants found dead in the border area.
Read next: Read next - Suicide in Ciudad Juarez: Where life has little value
Ciudad Juárez is one of the main crossing points to the US and more than 6,000 bodies have been recovered from along the border since the 1990s.
The bodies are often found in mass graves and are often hard to identify because they have been mutilated or are mummified because of the harsh weather conditions.
Because there is no investigation unit at the forensic lab where he works, Dr Hernández has been financing his research himself, paying for the chemicals and working on it in his spare time.
He hopes that someone will take an interest in his research but ultimately wishes for less rather than more work. "It's not that I am lazy, it's just that when I have a lot of work it means that a lot of people have died," he explains.
"I would prefer not to have found this formula - if it meant that those people had never died."
Irene Caselli was in Ciudad Juárez as an Adelante Latin America Reporting Fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation.


The locations manager for Steven Spielberg's latest movie, The BFG, has said Scotland provided the perfect landscapes for scenes in the film.

The film adaption of Roald Dahl's story The Big Friendly Giant was partly shot on Skye and Orkney.
David Broder said: "Scotland provided The BFG with very dramatic mountain and island locations that became our Giants Land, a place of wonder and awe."
VisitScotland hopes the film will boost tourist visits to Skye and Orkney.
Mr Broder said the Scottish government, along with public bodies and charities, helped the film's production team to shoot scenes on the islands.
He said: "We received great help from Creative Scotland, Scottish ministers, RSPB Scotland, the National Trust for Scotland and the friendly, helpful residents of Skye and the Orkney Islands."
Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, said cinema played an important part in encouraging tourists to come to Scotland.
He said: "With 40% of visitors to the UK inspired to come here after seeing a location on film or on television, the appearance of Skye and Orkney in Steven Spielberg's latest movie can only be great news, not only for the islands themselves, but for Scottish tourism as a whole."
Tourism Secretary Fiona Hyslop added: "Our island communities serve as a unique backdrop for TV and film productions, with dramatic landscapes and seascapes.
"These movies shine a spotlight on some of Scotland's greatest assets, icons and hidden gems, which helps attract tourists to our island and rural communities."
Tourism body VisitBritain has already promoted The Storr, a geological feature of the landscape in Trotternish, Skye, used for the film, in its campaign called Oh My Giant Britain (OMGB).
The BFG opened in the US on 1 July and in the UK on Friday.
Skye is a favourite with film-makers and provided backdrops for Stardust, which starred Michelle Pfieffer, big budget sci-fi Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman, Keanu Reeves' film 47 Ronin and the latest film adaption of Macbeth.
Last month it emerged that the production team behind The BFG were helped by Highland's Council's small tourism and film unit with its inquiries about locations on Skye.


A super-hard metal has been made in the laboratory by melting together titanium and gold.

The alloy is the hardest known metallic substance compatible with living tissues, say US physicists.
The material is four times harder than pure titanium and has applications in making longer-lasting medical implants, they say.
Conventional knee and hip implants have to be replaced after about 10 years due to wear and tear.
Details of the new metal - an alloy of gold and titanium - are revealed in the journal, Science Advances.
Prof Emilia Morosan, of Rice University, Houston, said her team had made the discovery while working on unconventional magnets made from titanium and gold.
The new materials needed to be made into powders to check their purity, but beta-Ti3Au, as it is known, was too tough to be ground in a diamond-coated mortar and pestle.
The material "showed the highest hardness of all Ti-Au [titanium-gold] alloys and compounds, but also compared to many other engineering alloys", said Prof Morosan.
She said the hardness of the substance, together with its higher biocompatibility, made it a "next generation compound for substantively extending the lifetime of dental implants and replacement joints".
It may also have applications in the drilling industry, the sporting goods industry and many other potential fields, she added.
The gold-titanium alloy is a cubic compound with a particular arrangement of atoms found when metals are combined at high temperatures.
Titanium is one of the few metals that human bone is able to grow around firmly, allowing it to be used widely in medicine and dentistry.
Follow Helen Briggs (@hbriggs) on Twitter.


Former Tour de France champion Sir Bradley Wiggins has launched his own cycling team as part of his preparations for the Rio 2016 Olympics.

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The four-time Olympic champion will try to break the individual world hour record as part of his build-up to Rio with Team Wiggins.
"Cycling has given me everything," said the 34-year-old.
"I want to build something to inspire kids and to reach all those people who might be on the fringes of the sport."
He added: "My message is simple: if I can do it, then so can you."
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The team will feature young British talent including England's Andy Tennant, Jon Dibben, Steven Burke, Daniel Patten and Mike Thompson, Welshman Owain Doull, Mark Christian of the Isle of Man and Scotland's Iain Paton.
The team's calendar of UK track and road events will be unveiled in spring 2015.
Team Wiggins will operate independently of British Cycling, but the governing body has given its backing to the outfit, which aims to provide opportunities for British riders to gain experience and track time together in the build-up to Rio 2016.
British Cycling chief executive Ian Drake said Wiggins has "helped to inspire a new generation of British cyclists".
He added: "Sir Bradley won his first Olympic medal in Sydney in 2000 and it's impressive to see him still breaking new ground now, 15 years later with his Wiggins team."
Wiggins will continue to ride with Team Sky until April, before switching his focus to the track and his Olympic bid.


The Scottish first minister has dismissed the efforts of David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg to keep Scotland in the UK.

Speaking at a pro-independence event in Edinburgh, Alex Salmond described the three politicians as "Team Westminster".
And he suggested their primary concern was keeping their own jobs.
It came as Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg travelled to Scotland ahead of next week's independence referendum,
Recent opinion polls have suggested the referendum race is now neck and neck.
Mr Salmond said: "Today what we have got is an example of Team Scotland against Team Westminster.
"The breadth and reach of the 'Yes' campaign is there for all to see - it is not about the Scottish National Party, the Green Party or political parties. It goes right through the whole sector of Scottish society
"What we are seeing today on the other side is Team Westminster jetting up to Scotland for the day because they are panicking in the campaign.
"Our campaign for example has the key test on jobs. What we are interested in is having a powerhouse parliament that can create jobs for Scotland. What Team Westminster seem to be concerned about is their own jobs."
But Mr Salmond again stressed that the "Yes" campaign was not taking anything for granted with just over a week to go until the referendum on 18 September.
The first minister said: "For the last months, and certainly for the last weeks of the campaign proper, we are engaged in a conversation with our fellow citizens.
"We don't make any assumptions about the poll next week, but nonetheless I think the evidence would indicate that more and more of our fellow citizens are becoming convinced by the arguments being put forward by their fellow citizens in the 'Yes' campaign. The movement to Scotland is decisively towards 'Yes'".
Better Together head Alistair Darling  said the nationalists were being "offensive" and "divisive" by labelling themselves as "Team Scotland" and their opponents as "Team Westminster."
He added: "There are many of us in Scotland who are deeply patriotic, but actually take a different view from him, and believe we are better and stronger together as part of the United Kingdom.
"We know what he's hinting at here - that somehow people who are not on his side don't deserve to be heard, they're not truly patriotic, truly Scottish.
"It's deeply offensive to a number of people in Scotland, it's deeply divisive and it's wholly unnecessary."


Boreham Wood defender Danny Woodards has signed a new contract extension with the National League club.

Woodards, 33, has agreed a deal to remain at Meadow Park until the end of next season.
The ex-Crewe and Bristol Rovers man joined Boreham Wood in January 2015 after being released by Tranmere.
"Danny is a model pro and with him also coaching at the club, I was always hopeful he'd want to stay," manager Luke Garrard said.


People who buy a drone in the UK might have to register it and take a safety test in the future.

This is because there have been lots of reported "near misses" recently - where drones have almost crashed into things, which could've caused an accident.
As a result the UK government are currently looking into making new strict safety rules about flying and owning drones.
They have also been looking at bringing in tougher punishments for people flying a drone in a no-fly zone - like near an airport.
There are already lots of restrictions in place for people flying drones in the UK.
For example, any drone with a camera must not be flown within 50 metres of buildings, cars or crowds of people.
Also, anyone using a drone as part of their business to make money, must register it with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The new government rules could mean that people have to take a test similar to one you might take when you learn to drive a car.
This could apply to any drone weighing more than 250g.
Some people think this new test could cost a lot of money and might be a bad idea.
However government ministers think it might help to increase safety.


Harlequins scored 15 points in the final eight minutes against 14-man Gloucester to clinch a dramatic victory at Kingsholm.

James Lang's penalty with four seconds remaining sealed victory after Ross and James Chisholm crossed for tries to help level the scores 27-27 following Richard Hibbard's sin-binning.
Gloucester scored 17 unanswered second-half points, fighting back from 15-10 down to build the game's biggest lead.
Hibbard's yellow, however, was costly.
Moments after the hooker was sin-binned for a penalty at the scrum, James Chisholm went over to give the Londoners renewed hope of taking something from the game against their fellow top-six hopefuls.
A slick passing move, which involved Marland Yarde and Alofa Alofa, put the older of the Chisholm brothers, Ross, over in the 75th minute.
And while 21-year-old fly-half Lang was off target with his conversion attempt, a penalty at the scrum with moments remaining allowed him a shot from right in front to win it.
It was an enthralling finish to a match which started with Charlie Sharples going over for the hosts, only for Gloucester to be punished for failing to make more of their strong start, as Tim Visser touched down on his return from Scotland duty and Charlie Mulchrone helped edge Quins ahead before the break.
Billy Burns landed his third kick of the game to convert David Halaifonua's try and restore the hosts' lead after half-time, with Sharples grabbing his second try of the game as Gloucester quickly built a comfortable lead.
The one-man advantage was ruthlessly exploited late on as Quins move to within two points of Northampton in sixth, while a losing bonus point leaves Gloucester ninth in the table and eight points adrift of a European Champions Cup spot.
Gloucester director of rugby David Humphreys:
"It's a sense of frustration, anger and disappointment after those last six or seven minutes of madness.
"We led by two scores and had to get the basics right but our defence and set-piece went to pieces after we had controlled the second half.
"European qualification is still mathematically possible but we had to get four or five points today and we didn't so it's a massive blow for the squad, especially after a great win over Saracens in our last home game."
Harlequins director of rugby John Kingston:
"At the end of the first half we led 15-10, but we were much the better side and should have been further in front. They then had a good period but we came back strongly and deserved to win.
"We knew we had to control the environment today as the influence of the crowd is very important here. I thought we managed to do so, for which the leaders in our team must take great credit.
"We've kept our European Cup hopes alive as finishing sixth or maybe seventh will be enough to secure us a spot for next season."
Gloucester: Marshall; Sharples, Scott, Twelvetrees, Halaifonua; Burns, Heinz (capt.); Thomas. Hibbard, Afoa, Galarza, Thrush, Ludlow, Rowan, Morgan.
Replacements: Matu'u, Hohneck, Doran-Jones, Savage, Kalamafoni, Braley, Hook, Trinder.
Harlequins: R. Chisholm; Yarde, Marchant, Hopper, Visser; Swiel, Mulchrone; Lambert, Gray, Sinckler, Merrick, Matthews, J. Chisholm, Ward (capt.), Luamanu.
Replacements: Buchanan, Owens, Shields, South, Naoupu, Jones, Lang, Alofa.
For the latest rugby union news follow @bbcrugbyunion on Twitter.


A wave of car bombs has killed at least 51 people in mostly Shia areas of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and in other cities around the country.

More than 200 people were wounded in the attacks, officials said.
More than 2,500 Iraqis have died in attacks since April, the UN says - with violence at its highest since 2008.
The spike comes amid heightened Shia-Sunni tensions. Sunnis say they are being marginalised by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shia-led government.
The interior minister said in a statement that the scale of the attacks suggested that militant groups had infiltrated the "social fabric of Iraq".
The statement added that it would not be possible for security forces to stop the violence without active co-operation from citizens.
By Rami RuhayemArab affairs analyst, BBC News
The government is still reeling from a sophisticated jailbreak just over a week ago, when hundreds of prisoners - many of them sentenced to death for involvement in such violence - managed to escape.
The failure of the authorities to prevent the jailbreak and Monday's attacks is opening fissures within the governing coalition and between ministers themselves.
After the jailbreak, there were arguments over whether the blame should fall on the justice ministry or the interior ministry, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had to sack a number of security officials. Monday's attacks are likely to increase popular anger at the government's failures.
The Baghdad bombs, hidden in parked cars, hit markets and car parks in several areas of the city, police say.
The deadliest was said to have hit the eastern Shia district of Sadr City, report say.
A man says he saw vehicles arriving to park shortly before a blast happened in the district of Habibiya, in southern Baghdad.
"We were standing here when a a pick-up truck drove in here and parked there. There were two others cars parking there. Minutes later the car went off," he told the Associated Press news agency.
One bomb also exploded in Mahmudiya to the south of the capital, killing at least two people.
In the city of Kut, south-east of the capital, at least seven people were killed when two car bombs blew up.
There are also reports of a car bomb going off in Basra, the second city.
This could be the bloodiest month in Iraq for years, says BBC Arabic's Haddad Salih in Baghdad, with the number of attacks escalating since the beginning of the month of Ramadan earlier this month.
Although the violence is less deadly than that seen during the heights of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007, it is the most widespread since the US military withdrawal in 2011. More than 700 people have been killed in July alone.


The government has no convincing case for spending £50bn building the HS2 rail link between London and the North, a report by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee says.

The government's main arguments in favour of HS2 - increasing railway capacity and rebalancing the economy - were still to be proven, peers said.
There are less-expensive options than HS2, they said on Wednesday.
A government spokesman said HS2 would deliver big benefits.
Lord Hollick, chairman of the Lords' committee, said overcrowding on the West Coast Main Line was largely a problem on commuter trains and on long-distance services on Friday nights and some weekends.
"The Government have not carried out a proper assessment of whether alternative ways of increasing capacity are more cost-effective than HS2," he said.
"In terms of rebalancing, London is likely to be the main beneficiary from HS2. Investment in improving rail links in the North of England might deliver much greater economic benefit at a fraction of the cost."
Committee member and Labour peer Lord McFall told Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 live that the committee was not against HS2 in principle, but that the government needed a firmer transport strategy if it wanted to achieve its aim of rebalancing the economy.
"We're against the government initiating public projects at £50bn without adequate assessment against their objectives," he said.
"Can you imagine going forward with a project of this magnitude without a national transport strategy?" Lord McFall added.
"If we're going to rebalance the economy, then we must have a fundamental appraisal of the impact in the North, and that hasn't taken place to date,"
Lord Hollick called on the Department for Transport to provide detailed answers to the questions set out by the committee.
"Parliament should not approve the enabling legislation that will allow HS2 work to begin until we have satisfactory answers to these key questions," he said.
The peer sets out arguments against the investment in a YouTube video.
A Department for Transport spokesman said the case for HS2 was "crystal clear" and claimed it would have a "transformational effect".
"It is a vital part of the government's long-term economic plan, strongly supported by Northern and Midland cities, alongside our plans for better east-west rail links confirmed in the Northern Transport Strategy last week.
"Demand for long distance rail travel has doubled in the past 15 years... it is crucial we press ahead with delivering HS2 on time and budget and we remain on track to start construction in 2017," the spokesman said.
Shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher said that Labour supported HS2. However, he added: "It's vital that ministers win public confidence for this important investment and ensure that the economic benefits are felt as widely as possible. We have said there will be no blank cheque for the project under Labour."
Rhian Kelly, CBI director for business environment, said a modern railway was needed to deal with lack of capacity on the West Coast Mainline.
"HS2 will better connect eight of our 10 biggest cities, boosting local economies along and beyond the route together with complementary road and rail investment. It's vital we avoid any further delays to the project," she said.
The Lords report echoed a similar report published by the Commons Public Accounts Committee in January.
The MPs said that ministers lacked a "clear strategic plan for the rail network" and were "sceptical" about whether HS2 would deliver value for money.
The £50bn price tag included a "generous contingency" that could be used to mask cost increases, they added.
The first phase of HS2 will be between London and Birmingham opening in 2026, followed by a V-shaped section to Manchester and Yorkshire.
It promises to reduce journey times between Birmingham and London from 81 minutes to 49 minutes, and slash the trip to Manchester by an hour to just 68 minutes.


A police officer struck and killed by a stolen car during a pursuit in Merseyside "didn't stand a chance", the force's chief constable has said.

PC David Phillips, 34, was hit by a pick-up vehicle that mounted a central reservation in Wallasey at 02:10 BST.
The married father-of-two had been trying to stop the vehicle, which was taken from an estate agents in Birkenhead.
A murder investigation is under way.
Merseyside Police Chief Constable Sir Jon Murphy paid tribute to Mr Phillips, who was married to Jen and the father of Abigail, seven, and Sophie, three.
He said: "This is an incredibly sad day for Merseyside Police. His daughters will have to grow up without their father. He didn't stand a chance."
He also appealed for the perpetrators to "do the sensible thing, do the right thing and give yourselves up".
"If you don't, we will find you," he added.
"We've got no idea who has done this. We have an abandoned vehicle and at this moment we have nothing left."
Prime Minister David Cameron said it was a tragic and awful case and his thoughts went out to Mr Phillips' friends and family.
He added: "There's no such thing as a safe day if you're a police officer."
Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Jane Kennedy's voice broke with emotion as she told a press conference: "It's a dark day when you lose one of our own and it's a painful reminder of the risks police officers face to keep us all safe."
Peter Singleton, chairman of Merseyside Police Federation, said PC Phillips' colleagues were "understandably devastated".
"He was one of the best and will always be missed," he said.
"His young children have been robbed of a father, his wife Jen deprived of a husband and his parents their son."
A statement from Merseyside Police said officers had earlier attended a burglary at the estate agents on Woodchurch Road, Birkenhead.
During the raid the offenders stole the red Mitsubishi pick-up vehicle, which was then pursued by officers.
PC Phillips was one of two neighbourhood patrol officers who made efforts to stop the car on the A5139 Dock Road, police said. He was pronounced dead after being taken to Wirral's Arrowe Park Hospital.
The officers had used a device known as a stop stick, which is thrown across the road and has spikes to burst vehicles' tyres.
Detectives have been examining CCTV footage in a bid to identify the offenders.
A green tarpaulin was placed at the spot where Mr Phillips was struck as scenes of crime investigators examined the road.
Wallasey Road North, Corbyn Street and the estate agents in Woodchurch Road, Birkenhead, remain cordoned off as forensic examinations take place.
Diversions have been put in place at Wallasey Road North and Woodchurch Road.
The Mitsubishi was found abandoned in Corbyn Street, Wallasey.
Officers are urging witnesses or anyone with information to come forward.
PC Phillips' death comes less than a year since off-duty Merseyside PC Neil Doyle was killed in an attack on a Christmas night out in Liverpool in December.
He is the first on-duty Merseyside Police officer to have been killed in a criminal act since PC Raymond Davenport in 1981.
PC Davenport had been trying to stop a stolen car in Liverpool and was dragged along the road after reaching in through the driver's window.
Phil Davies, leader of Wirral Council, said: 'We absolutely condemn the murder of this neighbourhood patrol officer, killed during the course of their duties.
"As a council, we will do whatever we can to assist the police in their efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"I would like to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of the officer, and of course colleagues, who will be feeling the loss of one of their own very deeply this morning."


Manchester United defender Eric Bailly has been given a three-match ban for his red card against Celta Vigo in the Europa League.

The 23-year-old was sent off after a mass brawl in the semi-final on 11 May and missed the final against Ajax, which United won 2-0.
However, the suspension has now been extended to include two more games.
Bailly will miss the Super Cup against Real Madrid on 8 August and United's first Champions League group match.
The Ivory Coast international's case does not qualify for an appeal because European football's governing body Uefa only overturns decisions made by the referee in cases of mistaken identity.
Bailly was sent off for a swipe at Celta's former Manchester City striker John Guidetti, with Facundo Roncaglia dismissed for retaliating.
The Premier League club also received a warning from Uefa for a late kick-off to the semi-final.


Police are searching for a missing woman and her two children who were last seen in Carmarthenshire.

Salli Reeves, 39, and her sons Shaldon Morgan-Reeves, 5, and Ellian Chapman, 13, were seen at about 15:00 GMT in the Llanerch area of Llanelli on Friday.
Dyfed-Powys Police is asking anyone who has had contact with them or seen them to call 101.


It is early in the World Cup qualifying campaign for a defining moment, but the Stadion Antona Malatinskeho in Trnava will be the backdrop to an occasion that will shape the mood of Gordon Strachan's remaining time in charge of the national team.

Drawing at home to Lithuania on Saturday has clarified and sharpened a sense of frustration among Scotland fans.
Hopes of finishing second in Group F seemed to diminish sharply when the visitors took the lead, but a late equaliser and Slovakia's ongoing failure to match their performances with their status as the second seeds have kept Scotland hanging on grimly to their ambitions.
Strachan insisted, since the general expectation, given their qualifying record, was that England would top the group, that nothing has changed for his side. The most likely target remains second place and potentially a role in the play-offs, but other aspects have, critically, altered.
Scotland built up hope in the first half of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign only to surrender it meekly in a way that caused doubt and weariness to take hold but not overwhelm supporters.
Looking laboured for spells against Lithuania as they dropped two points has intensified that view and Strachan needs to deliver a win against Slovakia, or at least a convincing display in a draw, to keep unrest at bay.
Both sides will feel vulnerable to their flaws in Trnava. Slovakia carry a baggage of recriminations and poor form, having failed to score in their last four matches and misplaced the dynamism that drove them to Euro 2016. They too are looking for redemption and the home fans will expect them to be assertive and bold.
That might encourage Scotland, who are capable of hitting on the break with pace and danger with the likes of Robert Snodgrass and Matt Ritchie on the flanks. Both teams, though, will approach the game knowing that a win is the only result that will keep second place within straightforward reach.
"It can help," said Scotland captain Darren Fletcher of Slovakia's likely attacking intent. "Sometimes it's a little easier than trying to break down an opposition who sit in, are hard to beat and frustrate.
"Hopefully there will be spaces for us, but at the same time, they've got a lot of quality and we should not underestimate them. They've got quality players and it will be a tight game, hopefully one that we can find a way to win.
"Slovakia are under pressure, so it's up to us to take advantage of that."
Scotland need a performance and result that will establish their credentials, not leave them - and the manager - being further questioned.
Fletcher is a doubt for the game after injuring his thigh against Lithuania, but the captain hopes to pass a fitness test that will allow him to play his role as the heart and mind of the Scotland midfield.
Strachan has other individuals to consider, though, as he plans for a game that is testing his resourcefulness, with Slovakia changing formations and personnel dramatically in recent matches.
James McArthur has been impressing for Crystal Palace during the past month and he brought energy and a sense of determination to Scotland's play when he replaced Fletcher on Saturday.
Strachan thinks highly of Barry Bannan too and all three could be accommodated if Strachan deploys a 4-1-4-1 shape, with Fletcher holding - and looking to curtail the poise and menace of Napoli's Marek Hamsik.
Leigh Griffiths is Scotland's most reliable finisher, but a game primarily spent on the counter attack may not suit the Celtic striker, at least initially.
Chris Martin has started the first two games of the campaign, but Steven Fletcher is the better all-round centre-forward and would best serve the likely game plan.
These are significant decisions for the manager, but there is no way to markedly improve the quality of the team. It is the psychology that can be influenced more tellingly.
When Scotland needed to win, against Georgia in the last campaign and against Lithuania on Saturday, the team seemed wary of itself, uncertain. Assertiveness comes more freely when the odds are against the players.
The manager has led Scotland into 18 competitive matches and won eight of them, although he can take some encouragement from a record of nine away games that has delivered four wins (albeit one in Malta and one in Portugal against Gibraltar).
Wins in Croatia and Macedonia, at the beginning of Strachan's reign, were solid statements of intent - and another is needed now.
The strong characters and personalities in the squad need to deliver for their manager now, the likes of Fletcher and Snodgrass, not only in their individual performances but also in drawing the best out of their team-mates.
Qualification is at stake but also how the support view Strachan. Doubts have gathered; the manager needs them to be dispersed again.
"If we could win here then it would be massive," Fletcher said. "Even not losing would put us in a strong position in the group with plenty of games to play. We're not ruling ourselves out.
"We're still in this group and still fighting. There's still a long way to go and we still believe in ourselves."


Six people accused of being involved in Wales' largest heroin seizure kept the drugs in a speaker, a court has heard.

Shazia Ahmad and Wasim Ali, from Newport, Umar Arif, Umar Butt and Khalid Yassen, from Cardiff, and Zawed Malik from Greater Manchester, all deny conspiracy to supply the class A drug.
Cardiff Crown Court heard two cars were followed by undercover police officers.
Almost 40kg (88lbs) of heroin worth about £5m was seized between 2013 and 2014.
The jury was told the speaker was being carried in a car that was stopped by police.
Mr Butt and Mr Yassen were arrested on the M5 with 36.5kg of heroin in a speaker and suitcase in their Citroen Picasso.
Undercover officers said they followed the Picasso and a Fiat Punto "travelling in convoy" but admitted under cross examination that they did not see a "speaker box" being placed in the Picasso.
The court heard money was handed over at locations across Newport, including a Lidl car park.
The case continues.


Rhys Oates' strike ensured Hartlepool remain narrowly above the League Two relegation zone following a 1-1 draw against promotion-chasing Carlisle.

Oates cancelled out Jabo Ibehre's opener as Pools ended the afternoon one point ahead of Newport while the Cumbrians retained the final play-off spot.
Hartlepool immediately faced an uphill task when Danny Grainger's long throw somehow put Ibehre through on goal and the striker side-footed through goalkeeper Joe Fryer's legs.
That preceded a drab spectacle as frequent Carlisle time-wasting combined with toothless opponents.
Yet Pools found an unexpected leveller in the 65th minute when Oates charged down Grainger's attempted clearance and produced a sublime curling finish.
That sparked the game into life, with Carlisle defender Michael Raynes forcing fine saves from Fryer either side of Nathan Thomas fizzing a stunning half-volley agonisingly wide.
Carlisle continued to threaten from set-pieces as Ibehre rattled a post and Shaun Brisley was denied by Liam Donnelly's last-ditch block.
Both sides pushed for a winner during an electric finish, but the spoils were shared.
Match report supplied by the Press Association.
Match ends, Hartlepool United 1, Carlisle United 1.
Second Half ends, Hartlepool United 1, Carlisle United 1.
James Bailey (Carlisle United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Michael Woods (Hartlepool United).
Corner,  Carlisle United. Conceded by Brad Walker.
Foul by George Waring (Carlisle United).
(Hartlepool United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
George Waring (Carlisle United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Michael Woods (Hartlepool United).
Corner,  Hartlepool United. Conceded by Reggie Lambe.
Attempt blocked. Nathan Thomas (Hartlepool United) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked.
Attempt missed. Liam Donnelly (Hartlepool United) header from a difficult angle on the left is just a bit too high.
Corner,  Hartlepool United. Conceded by Gary Liddle.
Corner,  Hartlepool United. Conceded by Danny Grainger.
Jamie Devitt (Carlisle United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Foul by Jamie Devitt (Carlisle United).
Nathan Thomas (Hartlepool United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Jabo Ibehre (Carlisle United) hits the right post with a right footed shot from the left side of the six yard box.
Corner,  Carlisle United. Conceded by Liam Donnelly.
Attempt saved. Michael Raynes (Carlisle United) header from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal.
Corner,  Carlisle United. Conceded by Joe Fryer.
Attempt missed. Nathan Thomas (Hartlepool United) right footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses to the right.
Liam Donnelly (Hartlepool United) is shown the yellow card.
Jabo Ibehre (Carlisle United) is shown the yellow card for hand ball.
Hand ball by Jabo Ibehre (Carlisle United).
Foul by James Bailey (Carlisle United).
Michael Woods (Hartlepool United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Attempt missed. Liam Donnelly (Hartlepool United) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the right.
Foul by Reggie Lambe (Carlisle United).
Lewis Alessandra (Hartlepool United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Attempt saved. Nathan Thomas (Hartlepool United) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Substitution, Carlisle United. George Waring replaces Jamie Proctor.
Attempt missed. Nathan Thomas (Hartlepool United) right footed shot from outside the box is too high.
Foul by Jamie Proctor (Carlisle United).
Scott Harrison (Hartlepool United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Corner,  Carlisle United. Conceded by Joe Fryer.
Attempt saved. Shaun Brisley (Carlisle United) header from very close range is saved in the centre of the goal.
Foul by Scott Harrison (Hartlepool United).
Reggie Lambe (Carlisle United) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Goal!  Hartlepool United 1, Carlisle United 1. Rhys Oates (Hartlepool United) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.


Newport County may seek help from Glamorgan cricket club as they look to overcome their Rodney Parade pitch problems.

The club are hoping to obtain a cricket-style ''super-sopper'' after Saturday's home game with Barnet was abandoned at half-time because of a water-logged pitch.
Newport manager Warren Feeney revealed the matter is being discussed.
"It cannot keep happening," said Feeney.
"Obviously with Rodney Parade we are tenants, so I am sure a lot of discussions will be going on with them over the next couple of weeks.''
A ''super-sopper'' is a rolling device that absorbs excess surface water and the Exiles believe it could help with a problem which has dogged them for the past few seasons.
Feeney added: ''You have to give yourselves every chance.  If Glamorgan cricket can do us a favour, why not?
'We want to play football, we want to get it on. We don't want to be playing catch up.  That is a game we are owed already.''
Championship outfit Cardiff City used the "super-sopper" last season after encountering problems with the surface at their Cardiff City Stadium home.


The Aurora Borealis also know as the Northern Lights have been making an appearance across parts of the UK.

Stargazers and photographers around the world have captured some stunning images of the spectacle in recent days.
Here is a selection of their images:
The Northern Lights are caused by the interaction of the solar wind - a stream of charged particles escaping the Sun - and our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere. Find out more about the Northern Lights.
The lights themselves are often visible in Scandinavian countries, but also in northern parts of the US and Canada.
The Northern Lights were also seen off the coast of Norfolk, England too. Thanks to Ben Gadsby-Williams for this time-lapse video.
Thank you for sharing your pictures with us.
You can email your pictures and video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or upload them here.
Compiled by Rozina Sini


A dual carriageway will be named in honour of British service personnel killed in combat, with more than 90% of people surveyed in favour of the idea.

The A453, which runs from Nottingham into Leicestershire, is set to fully reopen this year.
It bears the same number as that of the total of British military losses in Afghanistan.
The favoured name is Remembrance Way, honouring those killed in all conflicts.
The idea was suggested by the family of Warrant Officer Sean Upton, a Nottinghamshire soldier killed by an explosion while on patrol in 2009 in Afghanistan after first hearing about it on BBC Radio Nottingham.
It was put out to two-week consultation with 1,630 responses. The leading suggestions were Heroes' Way, 453 Remembrance Way, Bastion Way, Hope Way and Helmand Way. Heroes' Way was the overwhelming favourite.
Councillor Richard Butler, cabinet member for sustainability at Rushcliffe Borough Council, said: "We do have to be very careful we get it right; the last thing we want to do is cause offence.
"[The preferred option] is Remembrance Way... because of course that will have memories for other people from other wars and conflicts."


Drugs and paramilitary involvement are definite lines of enquiry in the murder of a man in west Belfast, police have said.

Joe Reilly, 43, a father of one, was shot twice in the chest at Glenwood Court, Poleglass, earlier this month.
Two other people in the house at the time were told to lie on the kitchen floor while the shooting took place.
Police spoke after revisiting the scene as part of a reconstruction to encourage witnesses to come forward.
Det Ch Insp Peter Montgomery urged people to "remember there is a handgun out there which may be used to inflict another death".
He said that a number of witnesses had come forward since the shooting but that police "need the community... to provide us with information so that we can progress our investigation".
"A line of enquiry I'm following is in relation to drugs and I believe this murder has been carried out by a paramilitary organisation," said Det Ch Insp Peter Montgomery.
"At this stage it's too early to say which organisation and I need the public to come forward to help me identify what organisation I should be concentrating on and who are the gunmen involved."
He said that police have a "clearer picture of where the killers went after the murder" and know "the type of clothing the killers were wearing".
"Both were wearing half-zip hooded sports tops and skin-tight jogging bottoms.
"Both had their faces covered and at least one had a Celtic scarf up over his face and was wearing dark-rimmed glasses."
He added: "As members of a civilised society, we owe it to ourselves, to each other and to victims like Joe Reilly and his family to put those responsible for his death before the courts."


The parents of a three-year-old boy killed by a runaway trailer said they were "disappointed" no change to the law is planned to improve their safety.

Scott and Donna Hussey's son, Freddie, suffered fatal head injuries when he was hit as he walked with his mother in Bedminster, Bristol, in January 2014.
Bristol South Labour MP Karin Smyth raised the case of the family in the Commons in a special debate.
A minister ruled out new legislation but has agreed to meet with the family.
Freddie Hussey was killed when a two-tonne trailer became detached from a Land Rover and careered across the pavement,  crushing him.
Andrew Jones, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, said new legislation could be "disproportionately burdensome".
Scott and Donna Hussey have been calling for a test similar to the MoT which would be applied to trailers and towed equipment.
Mr Jones said figures for 2014 showed there had been 1,257 road accidents involving towed vehicles, in which 39 fatalities and 214 serious injuries were involved.
But he said he would meet with Freddie's parents who have campaigned on the issue since their son's death.
After the debate Ms Smith said she was pleased the minister "took this issue very seriously" and that he had set out a number of clear actions that he has pledged to undertake.
Tony Davies, 37, from Hallen, was found guilty of causing Freddie's death through careless driving.
He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service.


Three women and a man have admitted fraud in connection with the sale of hundreds of puppies, some of which died or suffered serious health problems.

The prosecution was brought by the RSPCA following a raid at a puppy farm at a traveller site in Essex.
Teresa Wade, 57, Victoria Montgomery, 54, her daughter Roxanne Montgomery, 33 and Tony Hammond, 34, admitted fraud at Basildon Crown Court.
The gang, from Essex and east London, will be sentenced later.
Live: For more on this and other Essex stories
All four admitted handling about 750 puppies between July 2013 and October 2014.
The court heard the animals were sold for an average of £450 each and the RSPCA estimates the fraud was worth more than £300,000.
The court was shown video footage shot by the RSPCA of dozens of cockerpoo (a cocker spaniel and poodle crossbreed) puppies kept in cages inside dark sheds near South Ockendon.
The dogs - some barely two weeks old - had soiled newspapers for bedding, no toys and some had no heating.
Teresa Wade, of Ship Lane, Aveley, South Ockendon, admitted advertising them over the internet as being home-reared, and that they were shown to prospective buyers at houses belonging to the other defendants, before being sold for up to £750 each in cash.
But some of the animals were so sick they died shortly after arriving at their new homes, or cost their new owners thousands of pounds in vet bills.
Wade will be sentenced later along with Victoria Montgomery, of Melford Avenue, Dagenham, and Hammond and Roxanne Montgomery, both of Grafton Raod, Dagenham.


Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes says Jonny Hayes' new contract is "a huge boost" for the club.

Winger Hayes, 29, signed a new deal tying him to the Pittodrie side until 2019, having first joined from Inverness Caledonian Thistle in 2012.
The Dons had rejected bids from Cardiff City for the Republic of Ireland international, who has scored 25 goals in 190 Aberdeen appearances.
"I'm so pleased," said McInnes, 45, of Hayes' new deal.
"It's a huge boost for everybody - team-mates, supporters, myself - because there was a stage in January, certainly the Dundee game, the last game before the window closed, there was a feeling that it may well have been his last game. There was a real possibility of that.
"And the fact we have managed to get him, not just until the end of the season, but to commit beyond that, is great news.
"We try to work with all our players and pitch at the right level to keep them. We have always been quite good at that.
"The better the team does and the better individuals do within the team, it becomes more of a challenge to be able to keep everybody happy.
"But I spoke to Jonny continuously throughout January about where we were, if something didn't happen for him maybe to extend. So it was something he was willing to do."
Premiership rivals Ross County stand between Aberdeen and a place in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals with the sides meeting in Dingwall on Saturday in one of three all top-flight fifth-round ties.
Aberdeen have not won the tournament since 1990 but did reach the final of this season's League Cup, losing to Celtic.
"A strong cup run can help your league form as well," said McInnes, whose side are second in the Premiership.
"There is benefit for attendances and financial gain for the club. But, more than that, the supporters can get excited by a good strong cup run.
"I thought we suffered from that last season [losing in the fourth round].
"As good as we were in the league [finishing second in the Premiership], there was a feeling towards the end of the season that it wasn't quite the season we wanted to be, and a big part of that was not progressing as far as we wanted in the cups."


Drivers of electric vehicles will soon have to pay to use a major network of charging points.

Since 2011, Stroud-based Ecotricity has installed nearly 300 electric chargers across the country and powered more than 30 million miles for free.
But from Monday, motorists will have to pay Â£5 for a 20-minute rapid charge at its electricity pumps.
A spokesman for the firm said, it would still be "significantly less" than the cost of running a petrol or diesel car.
He added that a payment system was being introduced to "maintain and grow" the network, which will remain free for Ecotricity domestic energy customers.
The Gloucestershire firm, founded by green energy tycoon Dale Vince, said it had seen usage treble in 2015.
Some 38,000 motorists are registered to access the green energy firm's 296 charging points across the UK.
Sales of new alternatively fuelled vehicles rose by 40% in 2015 to more than 72,000, a market share of 2.8%.
The government's Committee on Climate Change warned last year that 9% of new car sales should be electric by 2020 for the UK to meet its legal obligation to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels.


Allegations of widespread doping in athletics are "sensationalist and confusing", according to the sport's world governing body.

The Sunday Times published data from 5,000 athletes, which it says reveals an "extraordinary extent of cheating".
The IAAF, whose data was leaked, stressed the results referred to were not positive tests or proof of doping.
It also rejected the suggestion it had done nothing to act upon data showing "suspicious" results.
The Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD/WDR obtained access to the results of 12,000 blood tests between 2001 and 2012.
An IAAF statement said: "Any reporting by the ARD and Sunday Times that the IAAF was negligent in addressing or following up the suspicious profiles is simply false, disappointing and misinformed journalism.
"In an attempt to catch and sanction the cheats in our sport, the IAAF has used every means available to it within the anti-doping framework it operates in."
In a detailed response, it also denied the data was "secret" and said it had published a detailed analysis of it more than four years ago.
It did, though, "condemn in the strongest possible terms the distribution, sharing, and publication of private and confidential medical data that was obtained from the IAAF without consent."
The allegations claimed more than 800 athletes - and a third of all medallists in endurance events at recent Olympics and World Championships - had suspicious blood test results which were not followed up by the IAAF.
The IAAF though "refuted outright" any allegation it did not appropriately follow up suspicious profiles.
It said: "What the IAAF cannot accept under any circumstances from the ARD/Sunday Times, or the scientists whom they have retained, is an accusation that it has breached its primary duty to act in the best interests of the sport of athletics.
"The experts have never worked for the IAAF and are therefore in no position to make any comment regarding what the IAAF has done or not done in the development and implementation of its blood and urine target testing program.
"To do so is simply guesswork on their part. The IAAF categorically refutes all allegations made by ARD and The Sunday Times and, specifically, that it failed in its duty to pursue an effective blood testing programme at all times."
The statement also says it did follow up suspicious results on six specific athletes, saying: "In fact, as the newspaper was told before publication, each test led to intensive follow-up, as a result of which the six athletes were subsequently caught cheating and banned."
The Sunday Times and ARD/WDR used two of the world's "foremost anti-doping experts", scientists Robin Parisotto and Michael Ashenden, to review the data and they said while "abnormal" results were not proof of doping, they were suspicious.
The IAAF countered that the reports offer no new evidence that any athlete had failed a drugs test.
A statement from the governing body said a large proportion of the blood samples were collected in a period before the implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and could not be used as proof of doping.
"The IAAF quite rightly operates within an anti-doping framework, provided by WADA, where suspicion alone does not equal proof of doping. Any reporting or insinuation of such is wholly irresponsible on behalf of these media outlets," it said.
"While the ARD and The Sunday Times may wish to pretend they have a 'scoop' by reporting on suspected prevalence of doping, their efforts are in fact over four years behind those of the IAAF."


A Conservative MP says party bosses failed to act on multiple complaints and warnings about bullying, harassment and blackmail by a senior activist.

Ben Howlett told BBC Newsnight there was "institutionalised bullying" in the party's youth wing, after he stepped down as its chair in 2013.
Allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Mark Clarke, who ran a campaign bussing volunteers around the country during the election, surfaced after Elliott Johnson, a young party activist, took his own life in September.
After it was approached by Newsnight for comment this week, the Conservative party said it was banning Mr Clarke, who denies the claims, for life.
After Mr Johnson's death, it emerged that he had complained to Conservative Central Office that Mr Clarke, a former Conservative parliamentary candidate, had threatened to destroy his career. He also named Mr Clarke in a letter found by his parents.
Ben Howlett, MP for Bath, told Newsnight he first raised concerns about Clarke's behaviour with party bosses in 2010 and had discussed Clarke with current party chairman Lord Feldman and Baroness Warsi, chair from 2010 to 2013.
Newsnight has spoken to five more activists who say they made complaints about Clarke before Johnson's death.
Mr Howlett said: "We've complained about him [Clarke] for a long period of time, and it's not just him, it was people that were attributed to him as well.
"I complained when I was national chairman directly to Sayeeda Warsi as the party chairman, I complained directly to the chairman's office when Grant Shapps took over as the party chairman and I have to say Lord Feldman has been well aware of all this, for a very long period of time."
Asked about Mr Howlett's claims, the party said Lord Feldman was not aware of allegations against Clarke until August 2015 when he "acted immediately to set up an internal disciplinary inquiry".
A Conservative spokesperson said on Tuesday night: "We have been checking and rechecking, but have not been able to find any records of complaints that were made but not dealt with - but we are determined to get to the bottom of what's happened."
Mr Clarke ran RoadTrip, an organisation which bussed young volunteers, largely drawn from Conservative Future, around the country to help campaign in marginal seats.
Howlett says his complaints about Mr Clarke were not investigated. He says it was "water off a duck's back, ignore it, move on".
He said he had suffered mental health issues as a result of his own bullying by Clarke and had heard a "huge range" of complaints from others, including women complaining about sexual advances by Clarke.
Mr Howlett said the party had failed to confront what he described as "institutionalised bullying" within Conservative Future after 2013.
"It was unfortunately swept under the carpet in the big scheme of things, because the party didn't want to end up having the general election result lost I can imagine, and you don't want to talk about those kind of thing whilst an election is going on."
Since learning of Newsnight's allegations, the Conservative Party has said it will no longer recognise RoadTrip as an official Conservative campaigning body.
The circumstances around Mr Johnson's death are the subject of both a coroner's inquiry and a police investigation. The party says it is passing all complaints about Mr Clarke to police.
One former activist told Newsnight Mr Clarke had sexually harassed and then threatened her, telling her he had a dossier of information on her sex life.
"He pointed out that he knew that I was quite outspoken, that he'd seen me criticising certain things that the party was doing - certain campaign things - and that I should be on board and that I could have all of these favours, they could do all these great things for me if I joined them.
"At that point he tried making a move on me and I backed away. He stroked my arm and tried to put his hand up my skirt and I backed off and said I don't want any part of this. Get off me basically."
After the incident, she said: "He sort of said: 'If you're not one of us, we can destroy you basically, we will destroy you. If you try to take us on we will ruin you. We'll make sure that you don't have any kind of career in public affairs or in Parliament.'"
The woman complained to Conservative Central Office in the summer of 2014 that he had attempted to blackmail her when she refused his advances. She says she received an acknowledgment of her complaint but heard nothing more.
Ray Johnson, Elliott's father, said: "I find it staggering if Ben Howlett MP has come out and damned Feldman and Shapps for not having acted. If this turns out to be true Lord Feldman and Shapps should look to their consciences and resign immediately."
Mr Clarke told Newsnight he strongly refuted all allegations of bullying, harassment, assault or attempted blackmail.
He said: "I believe that these false allegations and this media firestorm are related to the events surrounding Elliott's sad death. As such I will be co-operating with the coroner and providing him with the fullest information. This is the proper process. After the inquest I will look to take legal action for defamation in respect of these allegations."
More on this story on BBC Newsnight at 22.30 GMT on Wednesday on BBC Two. You can catch up afterwards on iPlayer


More than 100 people gathered in Shetland to remember the four people who died in last year's helicopter crash.

The Super Puma crashed on its approach to Sumburgh Airport last August.
Sarah Darnley, of Elgin, Gary McCrossan, of Inverness, Duncan Munro, of Bishop Auckland, and George Allison, of Winchester, died.
A dedication service was held at the Sumburgh Airport memorial site on Saturday and wreaths put in the sea.
A helicopter flypast also took place.
The service was led by Fishermen's Mission Superintendent Aubrey Jamieson.
He said it was right to pause and honour those who had lost their lives.
A new plaque was dedicated to the victims and a number of survivors made the journey to the islands for the service.
Two wreaths were laid at the site of the crash by RNLI crew.
Survivors of the crash paid tribute to their rescuers following the service.
A short statement issued on their behalf said: "We are all here to pay our respects to those who lost their lives that night. We are grateful to have the chance to meet and thank the brave crew members who helped us.
"The whole Shetland community rallied around us in a time of need and we would like to express our deep gratitude to so many people - coastguard, RNLI, hospital staff, police, workers at Sumburgh Airport, Red Cross - for everything."
When the Super Puma crashed last year 18 people were on board the helicopter at the time.
The accident was the fourth of its kind in five years.
The Shetland memorial is dedicated to those who lost their lives in aircraft accidents in the area over the past three decades.


The genetic code of the germ that caused the Black Death has been reconstructed by scientists for the first time.

The researchers extracted DNA fragments of the ancient bacterium from the teeth of medieval corpses found in London.
They say the pathogen is the ancestor of all modern plagues.
The research, published in the journal Nature, suggests the 14th Century outbreak was also the first plague pandemic in history.
Humans have rarely encountered an enemy as devastating as the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Between 1347 and 1351 it sparked the Black Death, an infection carried by fleas that spread rapidly across Europe killing around 50 million people.
Now scientists have uncovered some of the genetic secrets of the plague, thanks to DNA fragments drilled from the teeth of victims buried in a graveyard in London's East Smithfield.
Professor Johannes Krause from the University of Tubingen, Germany, was a member of the research team.  He said all current strains circulating in the world are directly related to the medieval bacterium.
"It turns out that this ancient Yersinia pestis strain is very close to the common ancestor of all modern strains that can infect humans," he said.
"It's the grandmother of all plague that's around today."
Previously researchers had assumed the Black Death was another in a long line of plague outbreaks dating back to ancient Greece and Rome.
The Justinian Plague that broke out in the 6th Century was estimated to have killed 100 million people. But the new research indicates that plagues like the Justinian weren't caused by the same agent as the medieval epidemic.
"It suggests they were either caused by a Yersinia pestis strain that is completely extinct and it didn't leave any descendants which are still around today or it was caused by a different pathogen that we have no information about yet," said Professor Krause.
Globally the infection still kills 2,000 people a year. But it presents much less of a threat now than in the 14th Century.
According to another member of the research team, Dr Hendrik Poinar, a combination of factors enhanced the virulence of the medieval outbreak.
"We are looking at many different factors that affected this pandemic, the virulence of the pathogen, co-circulating pathogens, and the climate which we know was beginning to dip - it got very cold very wet very quickly - this constellation resulted in the ultimate Black Death."
Rebuilding the genetic code of the bacterium from DNA fragments was not easy, say the scientists.
They removed teeth from skeletons found in an ancient graveyard in London located under what is now the Royal Mint.
Dr Kirsten Bos from McMaster University explained how the process worked.
"If you actually crack open an ancient tooth you see this dark black powdery material and that's very likely to be dried up blood and other biological tissues.
"So what I did was I opened the tooth and opened the pulp chamber and with a drill bit made one pass through and I took out only about 30 milligrams of material, a very very small amount and that's the material I used to do the DNA work."
From the dental pulp the researchers were able to purify and enrich the pathogen's DNA, and exclude material from human and fungal sources.
The researchers believe the techniques they have developed in this work can be used to study the genomes of many other ancient pathogens.


Michael Dunlop won the feature Solo Championship race for the third time at the Southern 100 meeting on the Billown circuit in Castletown on Thursday.

The 27-year-old had 6.5 seconds to spare over runner-up Dean Harrison by the finish, with Ivan Lintin third.
Dunlop dominated the Superbike events throughout the week, taking three further victories on his Hawk BMW.
Bradford rider Harrison was a double Supersport 600cc winner, with Ivan Lintin sealing two Supertwins triumphs.
Dunlop was previously crowned Solo Champion in 2011 and 2012 and picked up the first prize of £3,400 after leading the nine-lap race from start to finish.
"That was the race I came to win, that's the one I wanted," said the delighted Ballymoney rider after his win in the main event.
Later in the day, Dunlop secured victory in the rescheduled Open race to make it a convincing four-timer for the week.
RC Express Kawasaki pilot Lintin followed up his 650cc win on Wednesday evening by taking the chequered flag from James Cowton and Rob Hodson on Thursday.
In the morning Supersport outing, Harrison was the victor by 5.5 seconds from Jamie Coward, with Cowton third and Lintin fourth.
Seamus Elliott saw off the challenge of fellow Ballymoney rider Darryl Tweed in the 400cc class.
A thrilling Sidecar Championship race saw three outfits break through the 100mph lap barrier for the first time in the history of the event on the sixth lap.
Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance repeated their success of Wednesday night, ending up with a new lap record of 100.749mph.
Brothers Ben and Tom Birchall were second, with John Holden and Andrew Winkle third. Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle retired.


The funeral of a Jamaican "pioneer" who co-founded what later became the Notting Hill Carnival has been held at Southwark Cathedral.

War veteran Sam King MBE settled in south London having arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948 and became Southwark's first black mayor.
His son, the Reverend Michael King, said his father was a "pioneer" who had been "a servant of the people".
Around 500 mourners attended the service for Mr King, who died in June.
Mr King arrived in Britain after volunteering for the Royal Air Force in 1944, and soon became a prominent campaigner for the West Indies community.
His son said his father helped organise London's first West Indies carnival "to exhibit ourselves as West Indians in a positive light".
Michael King said his father was "very pleased" the carnival had developed into the Notting Hill Carnival.
Sam King set up the Windrush Foundation with his friend Arthur Torrington in 1996 to celebrate the arrival of people from the Caribbean to Britain following World War Two.
Mr Torrington said Mr King believed "the ship was no different from the Mayflower" which transported English separatists to America in 1620.
"He was the one who really kept alive the importance of the Windrush", he said.


It was three years ago that a lightning advance by about 800 jihadist fighters in northern Iraq morphed into a global threat.

Having taken over Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, the extremists proclaimed the birth of their so-called "Islamic State".
As their self-styled caliphate marks its third anniversary, Iraqi forces are getting ready to pronounce its death - at least on their soil.
In Mosul, which was the largest city under IS control, the remaining militants are corralled in the narrow alleyways of the Old City.
Elite counter-terrorism units are hunting them down, house-to-house and room-to-room, in an area of about one square mile (2.6 sq km).
Troops escorted us through the battle zone, where little stands except mounds of rubble.
Here and there we spotted matted piles of human hair. Locals say militants left their beards behind as they fled.
In the streets where they dispensed terror, the corpses of "Islamic State" (IS) fighters now lie rotting in the sun.
We saw some of their victims fleeing on foot, taking only their children and their trauma.
"We couldn't move, we couldn't do anything," said Ilham, a gaunt woman in a black headscarf, who was escaping the fighting with her family. "They were completely in control of everything. We were afraid to go anywhere."
As she spoke a neighbour, Sebham Jassem, doused his young sons in bottled water handed out by Iraqi troops.
"We had no clean water for two months," he said. "Five mortars landed on our house and it was destroyed. We were hungry and scared. Our lives were a disaster."
The campaign to free this ancient city has dragged on for almost nine months.
I watched the opening shots being fired last October by Peshmerga fighters, from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, who swept towards Mosul.
They were part of a complex coalition against IS that included the Iraqi security forces, state-sanctioned Shia militias, and Sunni tribal fighters.
After the liberation of Mosul - a predominantly Sunni city - the scramble for power here could involve Turkey and Iran, and threaten the future of Iraq.
There is already one flashpoint on the horizon - the Kurds have announced plans for a referendum on independence in September.
Even as Iraqi leaders prepare to declare victory in Mosul, there is a sense this battle may have to be fought again.
Like al-Qaeda before it, IS found support among marginalised Sunnis in Iraq.
The minority community complains of discrimination by the Shia-led government in Baghdad. Unless that changes the extremists could be back.
As he toured newly liberated streets in the Old City, a commander of Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service conceded that IS could be reborn.
"We can't tell now," said Maj Gen Maan al-Saadi. "It depends on the politicians. It's complicated in Iraq. What I can tell you is that this country is now cleaned of IS. "
The militants who once controlled a third of Iraq may now be reduced to a few pockets of resistance, but Mosul bears many new scars.
Mohammed Abdul Karim had an IS headquarters right beside his house, and a makeshift IS prison behind it. From his living room, the 30-year-old could hear the screams of those inside.
A few months ago he joined them. IS detained him at work angry that he was repairing mobile phones, which they had banned.
He walked me through the gates of the large two-storey house where he was held, pointed out the handcuffs still attached to the downstairs window.
"They brought a prisoner over here, and tied him up," he said rushing to a tree in the driveway.
"They put water all over his body. Then they brought two electric cables and shocked him until he fainted. They woke him and did it again. Later they rolled him up in a blanket."
Mr Abdul Karim said the man was one of two he saw tortured to death in this way.
Another young man was beaten all over his body because he was suspected of providing intelligence to the Iraqi army.
"They beat him so much he confessed just to end the pain," he said. "After that they killed him."
After Mosul is fully liberated more accounts like this may emerge, and new tensions may come to light - between those who opposed the extremists and those who backed them.
Mr Abdul Karim said some of his neighbours joined the militants. If they returned to their homes, he added, he would do to them what IS did to his fellow prisoners.
When this city finally regains its freedom the celebrations may not last long - for Mosul, or for Iraq.
Many military families across the nation will be mourning sons killed in the fight here.
Iraq has not disclosed casualty figures but commanders admit to heavy losses.
"We lost many martyrs here, all of them young," said Lt Col Mohammed Diab al-Tamimi of Iraq's Emergency Response Division.
"I miss them. Their families miss them and the country misses them.  But they did not die for nothing. They died for this country. May God take them to paradise."
Col Tamimi and his men have been fighting for days to clear a hospital complex where about 200 IS militants are believed to be holed up in a basement.
Asked if he thought the militants might re-emerge in future his response was swift.
"In Iraq," he said, "there is always another battle."


Tributes have continued to be paid to actor Alan Rickman following his death from cancer at the age of 69.

Juliet Stevenson, Rickman's co-star in Truly Madly Deeply, told the BBC he was "blissfully funny" and could make "a whole room collapse with laughter".
"I think pretty much everyone who came across him fell in love with him," she told Radio Four's Front Row.
Kate Winslet has also paid tribute, remembering her Sense and Sensibility co-star as "a warm-hearted puppy dog".
"He was loved enormously by so many," continued the actress, who was directed by Rickman in 2013 in his film A Little Chaos.
"He was an exceptionally warm and giving man and an utterly phenomenal actor and gifted director."
Hugh Grant, who was in Love Actually with Rickman and who also appeared in Sense and Sensibility, said he was "extremely funny, kind, loved and respected".
Rupert Grint joined his Harry Potter co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in paying homage, saying he felt "so privileged" to have worked with him.
"Even though he has gone I will always hear his voice," he continued - a reference to the actor's distinctive and much-imitated baritone.
The Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves star has also been remembered by Rada's Edward Kemp as "hugely loved and highly regarded".
Kemp, director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, told BBC Breakfast its London base had been "in an intense state of grief" following Thursday's announcement.
Rickman studied at Rada from 1972 to 1974 before going on to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in such plays as Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Gregory Doran, the RSC's artistic director, praised his "forensic intelligence, precision and brilliant comic timing" as well as his "integrity and generosity".
The cast of the current London production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses - led by actress Janet McTeer - paid their own on-stage tribute after their final curtain call on Thursday.
Hugh Jackman posted a picture of himself with his "dear friend" on Twitter, while Cher remembered him as a "Brilliant Actor" who would "ALWAYS B WITH US".
Flowers and tributes have also been left at King's Cross station in London at the area designated "Platform 9Â¾", after the Harry Potter books and films.
US actor Neil Patrick Harris said he was "stunned" to hear of Rickman's passing, describing his Tony-winning performance on Broadway in Noel Coward's Private Lives as "a master class".
Sigourney Weaver also expressed disbelief at the news, saying her Galaxy Quest co-star had "infused every character he played" with his "enormous strength of character".
"Alan Rickman was an actor's actor; courageous, generous, witty & surprising," tweeted Susan Sarandon. "When he laughed he lit up a room."
Author Kathy Lette, meanwhile, described her late "pal" as "dear, loving, loyal [and] kind," adding that she preferred to think of him "wearing Harry [Potter]'s invisibility cloak" rather than deceased.
In a statement released on Thursday, Rickman's family said he had "died from cancer at the age of 69... surrounded by family and friends."
It was recently revealed that he and his long-term partner, Rima Horton, had married in secret last year.


Pope Francis has made an unannounced visit to Amatrice, the central Italian town devastated by an earthquake six weeks ago.

Large crowds gathered on Tuesday as the pontiff arrived at a local school where he met children, survivors and relatives of the victims.
He said he wanted the visit to be made in private in order to be closer to those directly affected.
The magnitude-6.2 quake in August killed nearly 300 people.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, authorities advised the Pope that it was unsafe to visit the region.
The 79-year-old also visited Accumoli, where a building collapsed following the quake, and Arquata del Tronto, where homes were reduced to rubble.
The Pope confirmed his intention to visit Amatrice on Sunday, but did not specify when he would arrive.
Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke posted a photograph on Twitter of Pope Francis after he was approached in his car by a local resident who wanted to show her appreciation for his visit.
Gerard O'Connell, an Irish journalist living in Rome, posted a tweet quoting Pope Francis as saying: "I am close to you, I pray for you."


A memorial to mark the 150th anniversary of the first Welsh settlers who set sail for Patagonia has been unveiled on Liverpool's waterfront.

Elan Jones, great granddaughter of one of the settlers unveiled the 4ft (1.2m) memorial at Princess Dock on Saturday.
It is thought about 50,000 people in Patagonia have Welsh heritage from the 153 settlers who boarded the Mimosa.
The event was organised by the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society as part of its Mimosa Festival.


Russia's next parliament will be dominated by the ruling United Russia party and, as usual, will not be short of colourful personalities.

Among the 450 MPs will be a former heavyweight boxer, a youthful prosecutor from Crimea and a man who has become notorious in the West for outspoken homophobia.
And there are controversial figures, who have featured in major criminal cases in the West.
Former heavyweight boxer and showman Nikolai Valuev was already a towering presence in the old Duma. Standing seven feet tall (213 cm) and weighing in at over 23 stone (150 kg), he is reported to have had a special seat installed in the chamber to accommodate his large frame.
During the summer Mr Valuev hosted Russia's most popular programme for younger viewers, "Good night, kids". But he appears to have found the work of an MP somewhat challenging. "It makes my head spin. So many bills! Sometimes I don't even have time to read them before they are passed," he said in an interview.
Ms Poklonskaya was thrust into the limelight when Russia's annexed Crimea in 2014 and she was given the job of top prosecutor in the region.
Born in 1980, she is Russia's youngest female general and her appearances in the annexed territory brought her global attention, especially in Japan, where she was became a star of manga strips and anime fan art.
A fan of Russia's last Tsar Nicholas II, she famously said his 1917 abdication was legally null and void. Ms Poklonskaya also surprised some by turning up with a picture of the tsar at a rally honouring World War II veterans.
Because of her role in Crimea, she is subject to sanctions imposed by the EU, Japan, Ukraine and other countries.
Mr Milonov is a hardline Orthodox believer who spends much of his time crusading against homosexuality, pornography and what he sees as excesses of Western decadence.
He brands gays "devils", and once called US pop diva Madonna a"hypocritical hag" because, he argued, she was more worried about gay rights in Russia than children dying as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.
When confronted in his office by British actor Stephen Fry, Mr Milonov said that most gays lied about their problems in Russia and just wanted to be "favoured and famous".
"You may think I'm a barbarian, a madman. But in reality I'm like everyone else, an ordinary man," he said in a recent interview.
The next Duma is also likely to contain two MPs who have figured in high-profile criminal probes.
One of them is Vladislav Reznik, the only nominally independent candidate who has managed to win a single-seat constituency.
Mr Reznik sat in the previous Duma in the United Russia faction, but ran as an independent this time, one report suggested, because the party wished to distance itself from him over an investigation in Spain into his alleged links to the Russian mafia.
Mr Reznik's lawyer described the Spanish probe as "part of an extremely politicised campaign to discredit Russia".
Another MP expected to make it into the next Duma is Andrei Lugovoi of the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) party.
He is best known as the principal suspect in the fatal poisoning in London of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) defector Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. He himself denies the accusations.
His political views? "I don't make a distinction between America and England, they are two heads of the same dragon. They have always worked and will continue to work against Russia," he once said.
Reporting by Vitaliy Shevchenko and Olga Bugorkova. BBC Monitoring covers news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.


Adobe's Flash software is now blocked by default on all versions of the Firefox web browser.

Mozilla, which develops Firefox, imposed the block because recently unearthed bugs in Flash were being actively used by cyber-thieves.
The bugs were detailed in a cache of documents stolen from security firm Hacking Team that was hit by attackers last week.
Adobe said it took Flash's security "seriously" and was planning bug fixes.
Flash is widely used on many websites for both multimedia and interactive elements.
On its support pages, Mozilla said the block would remain until "Adobe releases an updated version to address known critical security issues".
Attackers were known to use vulnerabilities in Flash to install malicious software on computers and steal data, it added.
The vulnerabilities in the documents stolen from Hacking Team have been quickly added to so-called exploit kits which are used by many thieves when they craft campaigns that seek to take over victims' computers.
Mozilla also gave advice about how to adjust Firefox's settings so Flash would only run with the permission of a browser's user rather than all the time. It said users should only activate Flash on sites they trust. Firefox is the third most popular desktop browsing program, according to figures gathered by analysis firms that monitor browser market share.
The block comes soon after Facebook's newly appointed security chief Alex Stamos publicly called for Adobe to kill off Flash.
"It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date for Flash and to ask the browsers to set killbits on the same day," he said in a tweet.
In a later message he said Adobe setting a date would help everyone plan and prepare for the day it no longer worked.
Flash, and other Adobe products, regularly feature among the top 10 applications favoured by criminals keen to compromise computers and steal saleable data because they are used on so many devices.
Adobe has already moved to close one of the vulnerabilities revealed in the files stolen from Hacking Team. However, it said it was still working on patches for two other bugs found by the security firm.
It said patches for the other bugs should be available later this week.
Adobe took security "very seriously" and was making "extensive efforts" internally to harden Flash against attackers, it told tech news site The Register.


Television is Greece's medium of choice, followed by the press, the internet and radio.

News, variety programmes, comedy and game shows dominate peak-time TV. There are about a dozen private TV channels and a plethora of private radios.
The media have been badly hit by Greece's economic, social and political crisis. Facing declining circulation figures and advertising revenues, some outlets have imposed cuts or closed altogether.
In June 2013, the conservative-led government abruptly took state broadcaster ERT off the air and dismissed its 2,600 staff, citing endemic mismanagement. The move drew international criticism and sparked a domestic political crisis.
Some of the sacked staff occupied ERT's offices and continued to make internet broadcasts.
A replacement public broadcaster, New Hellenic Radio, Internet and TV (NERIT), made its debut in May 2014.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders has alleged conflicts of interest in the senior management of some media outlets, saying wealthy owners and state officials have tried to consolidate and extend their power through the media.
The watchdog says journalists are often targeted by police when covering demonstrations and have received threats from the far right, the extreme left, and anarchists.
There were 5.7 million internet users by June 2012 (Internetworldstats). Seven in 10 internet users are on social media, with Facebook being the most popular platform.


Beijing has accused the US of damaging trade after Washington levied new duties of up to 450% on a specific steel imports from China.

It was the latest move by the US against cheap steel imports.
The new tax to protect domestic production affects corrosion-resistant steel. Lower duties will be put on steel from a number of other countries.
It comes one week after the US raised taxes on cold-rolled flat steel, which is widely used in car production.
Beijing said it was unhappy with the US "deliberately suppressing" imports, describing it as an "irrational" move harmful to co-operation between the two countries.
"China will take all necessary steps to strive for fair treatment and to protect the companies' rights," the Chinese Commerce Ministry said.
The US also issued duties of between 3% and 92% on corrosion-resistant steel from Italy, India, South Korea and Taiwan.
The 450% duty on Chinese products replaces a duty of 256% that had been introduced last year.
US and European steel producers claim that Chinese producers are selling at below-cost prices and thereby distorting the global market.
India's Tata Steel has put its loss-making steel plants in the UK up for sale.
In May, the EU launched an investigation of Chinese steel exports following large protests by steelworkers.
At the G7 meeting in Japan, the EU's Jean Claude Juncker said the bloc was ready to step up its measures to defend the steel industry.
China though dismisses such criticism, insisting that the country's steel mills are not selling their products at dumping or below-cost prices.
The country is trying to shrink the bloated steel industry which grew rapidly during the years when the Chinese economy was growing by more than 10% a year.


A passenger on a plane travelling to Luton Airport from Israel has been questioned by police after a snake was discovered on the flight.

The man had brought his "small pet snake" on-board the Easyjet flight from Tel Aviv, the airline confirmed.
A spokesman said passengers were "not in any danger". It was later found to be a "harmless" corn snake.
Bedfordshire Police, who met the man when the plane landed, said no further action would be taken.
Some passengers took to social media to say the man had got the snake out during the flight.
Hugo Allon tweeted: "My plane is being met by police because someone brought a snake on board and whipped it out mid flight. Never a dull moment with Easyjet."
The airline said the reptile had remained in its container at all times but as soon as the crew became aware of it they alerted the authorities at Luton Airport.
"We have raised the issue with [Tel Aviv] airport to understand why the reptile was not detected during security," a statement said.


Belfast Giants earned a second Elite League victory over Coventry Blaze in 24 hours thanks to a 6-3 win at the SSE Arena on Saturday night.

The hosts led 2-0 at the end of the first period thanks to Darryl Lloyd and Mike Radja goals before Jordan Pietrus pulled one back for Coventry.
James Demarais (2) and Craig Peacock netted as the Giants pulled clear.
Cale Tanaka struck twice to close the gap to two before Kris Beech sealed the points with 33 seconds remaining.
It was a much closer affair on Friday night, with Belfast prevailing in a penalty shoot-out after the match ended 1-1.
David Rutherford had a Giants debut to remember after scoring the only penalty while Stephen Murphy repelled three Blaze efforts.


Dog thefts in south Wales have quadrupled in two years, new figures show.

Reports of pinched pooches in the South Wales Police force area rose from 16 in 2012 to 68 in 2014.
Gwent Police and Dyfed-Powys Police also reported an increase while North Wales Police saw cases halve in the same time.
Animal welfare charity Blue Cross wants to see tougher sentences for pet thieves.
Cases reported to Gwent Police rose from 10 in 2012 to 13 in 2014; by the end of November, there were 13 reports for 2015.
South Wales Police have had 57 thefts reported so far this year.
Dyfed-Powys Police's dog thefts rose from nine to 11 and there have been 17 in 2015.
North Wales Police saw thefts drop from 31 to 16, with 15 reported so far in 2015.
Pam Burne-Jones from Blue Cross said across the UK there had been a 40% increase in pet thefts.
She added: "I love to go up to people and talk to them about their dogs, but sadly you do have to be aware that it could be someone who's trying to target your pet."
Julie Evans from Briton Ferry, Neath Port Talbot, lost her beagle-cross Hansum while walking him last year.
She said: "Everyone searched for him, but when I found he'd last been seen in the estate I knew someone had taken him - he'd been stolen.
"My biggest fear is that Hansum is in a cage somewhere being used for breeding."


Figures from the South African government indicate that poaching for rhinoceros has increased substantially in the last year.

A record 668 rhinos were killed for their horns in 2012, up almost 50% on the number for 2011.
The majority of the animals were killed in the Kruger national park, the country's biggest wildlife reserve.
Experts say that growing demand for rhino horn in Asia is driving the slaughter.
South Africa is home to around three quarters of the world's rhinoceros population of around 28,000 animals. In 2007 a mere 13 animals were lost to poachers.
But since then the killing has increased substantially. It is being fuelled by the belief in countries like China and Vietnam that powdered rhino horn has medicinal powers and can impact diseases like cancer. Horns can sell for around $65,000 a kg.
The rich rewards have attracted criminal gangs who deploy a range of sophisticated technologies in their efforts to capture and dehorn the animals.
The South African government have attempted to fight back using soldiers and surveillance aircraft, but the numbers indicate they are losing the fight.
According to a recent report from the wildlife monitoring network, TRAFFIC, South Africa's rhinos are now facing a poaching crisis that will lead to a population decline.
"Rhinos are being illegally killed, their horns hacked off and the animals left to bleed to death," says Traffic's director of advocacy Sabri Zain, "all for the frivolous use of their horns as a hangover cure."
Five more rhinos have been killed since the start of this year according to the South African government.
But the country is not alone in facing a threat to its rare rhino population.
India is home to more that 2,200 rhinoceros which are found in the well-protected Kaziranga reserve.
However even the use of around 900 armed rangers and guards hasn't been able to stop the poachers. Last year across India, 18 animals were killed, up from ten in 2011.
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A police team created to handle crimes against MPs has dealt with 53 complaints since the murder of Jo Cox.

The Met's parliamentary liaison and investigation team saw cases of hate-filled messages, harassment and criminal damage between August and early February.
It comes amid concerns that MPs face increasing levels of online abuse.
Almost Â£640,000 has been spent on MPs' security since Mrs Cox's death on 16 June 2016.
The Labour MP for Batley and Spen was shot and stabbed by Thomas Mair in Birstall, West Yorkshire.
The specialist police squad has received 33 reports of malicious communications - which can include Twitter trolling - as well as 13 reports of theft, four allegations of criminal damage and three reports of harassment.
The figures were obtained by the Press Association using the Freedom of Information Act.
Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, received threats from far-right supporters and had a picture of a body with a severed head mailed to her.
She said: "It is the vile views of individuals who at one point indicated that I should be next to be murdered after Jo Cox.
"It was highly unpleasant but you find your mechanisms of dealing with these things.
"It has obviously hit across gender but there has been a particular focus on women, so I do think that is a wider concern."
Lib Dem chief whip Tom Brake said MPs had become targets on social media sites such as Twitter.
"I would suspect every single member of Parliament has received this abuse. Perhaps the issue of Brexit will have been the one which will have drawn that out in recent times.
"I received a message from someone telling me 'you should think very carefully about how you vote for the future of your family', which I referred to the police.
"You just know [as a man] that for every abusive email I am going to get, women are probably going to get five times as many."


Senegalese people living abroad will be able to run for office in their home country for the first time in July's elections, after MPs voted to increase the number of seats in parliament.

The national assembly will add 15 seats for members of the country's diaspora, bringing the total to 165.
There are hundreds of thousands of Senegalese expatriates who support families back home with remittances.
The new MPs will have to return to Senegal to serve their five-year terms.
The opposition has criticised the move, describing it as a waste of money.
"This measure is absurd," Amar Sarr, an MP from the main opposition Democractic Part of Senegal (PDS) told the BBC.
Across French-speaking West Africa, expatriates are often given a say on national politics through the foreign ministry, but rarely through direct parliamentary representation.
Opposition MPs unsuccessfully argued for keeping the size of the National Assembly at its current level of 150 MPs.
They have said they will appeal the bill at the Constitutional Court.