Transcripts For BBCNEWS Tuesday In Parliament 20200429

Now on bbc news, tuesday in parliament. Hello there. And welcome to tuesday in parliament. Coming up, the Government Faces claims that it should have prepared for a pandemic by stockpiling more protective equipment for nhs workers. How can the government claim to have delivered a billion items of ppe, when this number included counting individual gloves and paper towels . Ministers bring forward a bill to better protect those fleeing Domestic Abuse. It is staggering that some 2. 4 Million People experience Domestic Abuse each year. And scotlands first minister explains why she is advising the public to cover their faces when they are out and about. When you will be with other people and it will be difficult to keep the recommended two metres of social distancing, then those are the circumstances in which you should wear a face covering. A minute silence has been held across the uk to commemorate the key workers who died of coronavirus. Prime minister Boris Johnson who returned to work on monday, joined the tribute at the 11am. Millions paused as a mark of respect to those on the front lines. More than 100 nhs and care staff have died with the virus, as have many transport and other key workers. While a short time later, michael gove, the Cabinet Office minister made a statement on Public Services during the outbreak and he thanked those on the front line. Nurses, doctors, porters, cleaners, paramedics, pharmacists, care home staff, prison and police officers, teachers, social workers, those preparing and delivering food, collecting our refuse and administering the welfare system. They deserve our gratitude, they need our support, they are in all of our minds. They are the very best of us to im sure that everyone in this house will have a one minute silence at 11 oclock today as we reflect on the sacrifices being made by so many on our behalf. Michael gove said every Community Across the uk was grieving with more than 20,000 lives lost. He set out what the committee he chairs had been doing to help, among others, children, police and food supply, charities and the vulnerable. As for those who had not followed social distancing rules. 0ur police have been working hard to keep people safe while enforcing the measures the Prime Minister put in place from a month ago, they issued 3203 fines between the 27th of march the 13th of april to those who have flouted social distancing rules and this number will increase considerably since then, all dedicated to help saving lives and protect the nhs. His new labour shadow turned to the newly released figures on deaths in care homes. At the weekend, ministers said that deaths in care homes were declining in the same way that they are in hospitals. However the most up to date statistics tell a different story. Weekly figures published by the office for National Statistics today, show that there were 4316 deaths outside of hospitals in england and wales involving covid 19 registered up to the april the 19th. The number of overall debts in care homes has tripled, mr speaker, in three weeks. Michael gove accepted that the figures were deeply concerning. Rachel reeves turning to the provisions personal protective equipment, or ppe in the revelations in the bbc panorama programme. It claimed there were no gowns, visors, swaps or body bags and the government pandemic stockpile when covid 19 reach the uk. The stockpile was set up in 2009 and the programmes said that the government subsequently ignored a warning from its own advisers to buy more equipment. Buy missing equipment. They insisted they take in the right steps and are doing everything they can to increase stocks. Following from panorama, how can the government claim to have delivered a billion items of ppe when theyre lacking individual gloves and paper towels. Will the minister provide to the house a breakdown of1 billion ppe items by type and place a copy in the house of Commons Library today. The figures of the government produced, the fact that we have distributed in the course of this crisis 143 million masks, 163 million aprons, 1. 8 million gowns and 547 million gloves. The ns and pmp also watch the programme and had some specific questions. Wire we read so im prepared, why were gowns and visors and swabs and body bags left out of the stockpile when it was set up in 2009 . Surely these projects provides ppe and individual gloves are counted as single pp items and they want to convince me that paper towels are not in that ppe number too. The stockpile that we have before this pandemic was explicitly designed in accordance with the advice from the Scientific Advisory that the government at the nerve to act in for a flu pandemic. The coronavirus is different from a flu pandemic as we all know and we, like every government across the world, have had to had to respond to this new virus by ensuring notjust with personal protective equipment, both in every respect that we are in a position to refit and to upgrade our response. 0ther mps turned to different aspects of the handling of the crisis. We were promised nearly two weeks ago that the government would publish the Scientific Evidence behind the decision not to self isolate before we get the airports but has not yet done so. Why is the government still not published the Scientific Evidence and advice . The first thing about flights into this country is that many of them are carrying people who are being repatriated, many people that have the protective equipment and other goods that we need here it is mentioned earlier, changing our approach is something that we are reviewing at the moment. The scientific adviser sage does not include one molecular biologists, not one nursing and only one member of an ethnic minority. With the government publish the criteria process used to identify and appoint members of the same from dealing with covid 19 . The criteria for membership is a commitment to doing Everything Possible to save others lives. A conservative had a plea. When the time is right and i hope it will be soon, that the Outdoor Economy including those of west sussex are in the first wave of modifications, as they are important to the emerging Mental Health crisis as well as, if youll let it put this way, economically wilting with every day of the peak growing season they remain closed. One of the things you know about this disease that it spreads more easily inside and outside as the government reflects on how to lift current restrictions, that will be an important factor. Domestic abuse charities have seen a dramatic increase during the coronavirus lockdown. A labour mp who has worked extensively in the area raise the matter of questions to the attorney general. The national Domestic Abuse helpline for spam is 50 in the river 16 dead, women and children to Domestic Violence in the first three weeks of lockdown. For the issued new guidance as result of the pandemic and prioritise the more serious cases . What can the attorney general provide that Domestic Abuse will fall into this category . This may be a difficult time those are still living that as government has insisted and invested in another £2 million but to the front line for Online Services and phone lines so that there is help 24 hours a day, seven days a week for those victims who needed. The government also announced they would been £3. 1 million for those that experience abuse as children during the coronavirus lockdown. 84 mps put their names down to speak i debate of the Domestic Abuse bill. The bill approved provision bill provided safety accommodations and prevents them from being cross examination by their accusers. The attention of several mps made to believe that he did not go far enough. First some shocking statistics. It is staggering that some 2. 4 Million People experience Domestic Abuse each year. And unforgivable that on average, more than two individuals, the majority of whom are women, are killed each and every week as a result of a domestic homicide. Tackling Domestic Abuse needs to be everyones business. From prevention, to protection, to prosecution, and to support. Legislation alone cannot have all the answers but this landmark bill will, i believe. Make a significant contribution to that. Labour system or must be done for the coronavirus lockdown. It cannot be right that the most vital actress people would had to turn people away due to lack of funding. There are a range of ways that the government can help the sector, coordinating access to underused its existing accommodations, ensuring that support work is been access to ppe, technological support, ensuring women that are not trapped in abusive situations because they have no access to public funding. This requires grit and more joined application. She said women were suffering right now. They are living locked in, locked away. Threatened and terrorised by someone who thinks it is ok to use his wife, partner orfamily as an emotional punch back. An emotional punch bag. What almighty cowards they are. Those who seize the opportunity of a Global Crisis to show those smaller and weaker than them that they are in control. Unfortunately, i had a stepdad who reigned with physical terror and i regret that i remember the difficulties that we had when he became violent. And when he decided one day to come home and beat my mum to a point where she needed strong support and where he came up stairs and blamed me, an 11 year old kid and he used words that i would not repeat in parliament ever. Those are things that shake you. Those are things that unfortunately, you can never forget. Theresa may had a suggestion. I would urge them to look at the efforts of the new York Police Department in the past and i have some already are. The random contactor visiting with homes but there are no perpetrators or where there been reports of domesstic abuse it must be done carefully to not exacerbate the situation. But it can help those victims. The labour secretary. You are the man with the power here and this is your bill. Be the man who listens to what women are saying. Dont be the man who knows better than us, listen to what we are saying about this and make the change we are asking for. The bill later passed its initial stage of the vote and will now go on to detailed scrutiny. The Northern Ireland assembly debated its Domestic Abuse bill, which makes coercive control an offence as its been in england and wales. The chair of the Justice Committee emphasise the importance of the change. The bill provides for a new Domestic Abuse offence focusing on nonphysical abuse behaviour which is coercive control, Northern Ireland is currently the only part of the United Kingdom without legislation, that criminalises such behaviour and given the party placing Domestic Abuse, without the inclusion of psychological and social control issues along with physical damage, the police and legal system cannot support systems adequately and protect them from further abuse. Over the last number of months, we are very much tempted to piggyback on westminster legislations to default assembly and this legislation takes a kind of the stakeholders and puts in place legislation that listens and adheres to concerns. Legislation that listens and and hears to concerns. But one mla for the bill compared poorly with the Domestic Abuse legislation going through westminster. If this contests, physical or sexual abuse, violent or threatening behaviour, controlling or coercive behaviour, psychological or emotional abuse. That is it. That is clear and that is unambiguous and that is intelligible. Compare that with clauses 1,2,3, 4 and five. Of my legislation. It is covered by our bill and our offence is more robust than in england and wales. Going on to clear his second stage it would be considered in more detail. You are watching tuesday in parliament. Dont forget you can find all of our programmes on the bbc iplayer. Scotlands first minister, nicola sturgeon, has advised the scottish public to wear face coverings and enclosed public spaces. She said it would not be mandatory, but that would be kept under review. The scottish conservative leader wanted clarification at first ministers questions. Can she be absolutely clear in which circumstances she is recommending face coverings be used . Given that this is already reported as a requirement for all scots to wear face coverings when leaving home, which i know is not the same as earlier today. The intention she was seeking to convey. The evidence is not overwhelming, but theres evidence that ive seen that there could be some benefit in a situation where somebody has the virus. But they are asymptomatic, this could give them additional protection in transmitting the virus. It gives additional protections against them transmitting the virus to others. Not making this mandatory right now, its advice and recommendation. Effectively the advice is, if youre leaving your own home to go into an enclosed space where you will be with other people, and it will be difficult to keep the recommended two metres of social distancing, than those of the circumstances in which you should wear a face covering, and i stress covering up medical mask. She added it was no substitute to the social distancing and good hand hygiene. The labour leader revealed his uncle had died in the pandemic and turned to the issue of testing. The first minister announced the Scottish Government would be adopting a test, trace and isolate strategy, and we welcome that. And in the framework document they set out early and rapid testing, early and effective tracing, and early and sustained isolation of contacts. Professor devri sidra, a member of the own Scottish Governments own Advisory Group has suggested that a strategy could require between 15 20,000 tests per day. And yet we are still not even meeting the Scottish Governments own target of 3,500 tests per day. Nicola sturgeon said her government is looking at how test, trace, isolate fitted into the next phase of attacking the virus. We will be pushing something next week both to explain how that works and the work we are doing to get to the capacity of delivering it. We are working to have a capacity in place within weeks in order to start to dovetail with how restrictions may start to be eased, but of course the capacity you need will develop over time depending on the degree of social distancing that is still in place. The nhs app to alert people when they may have come into contact with someone who has covid 19 could come out in the next three weeks. It could stop the spread of the disease if people self isolate when they are told theyve been near an infected person. The director of the nhs Digital Technology arm said the app would be voluntary. The mps in the Science Technology Committee Also had concerns about the impact on privacy and on liberty. When will the app be ready for deployment . We are looking at it and we are hoping that in the next couple of weeks will be in a position to rollout in a small area. When do you expect it to be did available for mass deployment . We should be technically ready, some are in performing the trials and small area in the way we expect. I expect it technically to be ready for a wider deployment in two to three weeks. He explained why the nhs had opted for a system that gathers data centrally. It allows you to do more important things rather than phone to phone. One of the concerns around Contact Tracing is the ability to detect malicious use. One of the ways you can do that is looking for anonymous patterns, even if you dont know who the individuals are. You might can see anonymous propagation. It was reported yesterday, i think that gchq had been involved in advising on the development of this app. Has the Intelligence Services post to you whether you ought to take a centralised or decentralised approach . So, its been the National Cybersecurity centre and they have, along with a number of others been advising us. The whole model rests on people having randomised ids. So the only point in the process of which they need to actually say to us who they are, is when they need to order a test, having become symptomatic because its impossible to do that otherwise. They will have the choice to download the app and turn it on but also to upload the list of randomised ids of people they have been in touch with. They will also have the choice at any point to delete the app and all the data they have shared with us with that. But could we soon feel obliged to download the app . Theres huge issues here about societal stigma and autonomy, perhaps about being allowed to leave your home, to take up your employment, to go to Public Places in like football stadiums, will there be any kind of compulsion or incentivize station to download the app to use the app, teach share the data . She thought government promises about privacy were not enough. What we have seen already in an emergency situation is that guidance can be confusing, can confuse the public messaging, commitments can be rolled back, police may misinterpret or differently interpret, i think there is a clear need for hard law. Peers have backed a bill to killers who refuse to disclose the location of their victims bodies. The legislation is dubbed helens law after helen mccourt, whose killer ian simms was freed from jail without ever revealing where to find her remains. It will also apply to offenders who do not reveal the identity of child Abuse Victims pictured in illegal images. We will all appreciate the closure and comfort from laying a loved one to rest. The family and others like them have been willfully and cruelly denied discomfort. Mrs mccourt has campaigned for a change in the law to represent this, to acknowledge the added distress this causes for the families of victims, and there is widespead public support for such a change. Also setting the case for Vanessa George who was jailed for abuse at a plymouth nursery. She took photographs of herself abusing children in her care and swapped indecent images of the internet. The pain felt by victims and their families have been confounded by the fact that the children in the photographs cannot be identified for the images she produced and has hitherto refused to disclose their identities. For many families who placed their trust in Vanessa George, they do not know and may never know if their children fell victim to her cruelty. It is not a no body, no parole bill, is not everything the campaign wants it to be, but it sends a clear message to parole boards as a government view is that it a refusal to give information that can ease a victim pain like a nondisclosure of remains to be a significant factor in their decision making. The bill entrenches a change in law that was already the practice which is to fully consider the failure by the prisoner to disclose information about the victims remains for the identity of child victims of indecent imagery. Given this on the surface it may appear to change little, however it will make decisions more consistent and fair across the system. And importantly a response to the pleas of victims families demonstrating that they have been heard. There was one note of caution, he thought nondisclosure should be a separate offence. It should notjust people for the same judge who tried to murder or sex abuse case, but the judge should try it without a injury. That would be quicker but also avoid any deliberate or unwitting bias against the sex offender in the mind of a jury who onlyjust reached a guilty verdict. They can sentence for the original offence and then secondly can impose a consecutive sentence for the crime of nondisclosure. Whilst another peer worried whether the bill would do what is meant to. It seems to me, very, very clear that the misuse of power by those who retain power by refusing to give information that victims require is part of the criminality be it the murderer, be it the rapist, be it child abuser of whatever kind, that misuse of power is the fundamental question that we should be looking at that. The law at the moment does not adequately address. It addresses acts, acts that can be properly adjudicated on. But the concept of power and how thats misused is a much more difficult one. And thats it from me for now. But do join me at the same time tomorrow for another round up of the day here at westminster, including the highlights from Prime Ministers questions. But for me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye. Hello there. It has been the sunniest april on record and for much of the month its been exceptionally dry. But things changed a bit on tuesday for many of us. You can see the way in which rain pushed its way northwards, certainly across england and wales, there were some showers for scotland and for Northern Ireland. Now, that first area of rain is clearing away, you can see the frontal system sliding out into the near continent but there is another area of low pressure out to the west. More frontal systems coming our way, which means there is more rain in the forecast through the day ahead. This is our main rain band, it will be pushing its way north eastwards, so initially moving across the south west of england, into wales, the midlands, into the london area by about lunchtime, and then that rain will eventually get into northern england, Northern Ireland and southern scotland by the end of the day. Northern scotland will hold onto something brighter, but with one or two showers. Some brighter skies returning behind the rain band as well. Quite a windy day across parts of Northern Ireland and also the south west of england. And those temperatures generally between 10 14 degrees, i think some coastal areas in north east england might struggle at around eight or nine. Now, as we go through wednesday night, here goes ourfirst rain band northwards, but another pulse of heavy rain will slide its way north eastwards across england, wales, Northern Ireland, again up into southern scotland, some further hefty showers chasing on behind. Temperatures to start thursday morning generally between 5 8 degrees. So for thursday, low pressure firmly in charge of the scene, you can see these various frontal systems spiralling around the low. So there will be some outbreaks of rain to contend with, some patchy rain drifting its way northwards across scotland, perhaps parts of Eastern England for a time. And then, yes, well see some spells of sunshine, but also some showers. And some of those showers across the southern half of the uk will be heavy and thundery into the afternoon. Also, very windy across the south of england and the Channel Islands, across the Channel Islands we could see gusts of 50 miles per hour, potentially those temperatures again generally in the range of 10 14 degrees. So, certainly cooler than it has been on many days recently. For friday, its another sunshine and showers day, the centre of our area of low pressure will start slide away eastwards so we may just start to see something a little bit brighter and certainly drier developing. Temperatures nudging upwards a little bit, could get as high as around 15 degrees. And then we get into the weekend, certainly to start off it will be drier with fewer showers. I think some of us will see rain returning from the west on sunday. A very warm welcome to bbc news. The latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. Im mike embley. American coronavirus cases move past a million that is nearly a third of the total worldwide. 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