Now on bbc news, tuesday in parliament. Hello and welcome to tuesday in parliament. Mps back moves to end remote voting. But one rebel says many members now face a stark choice. Stay at home and play no part in proceedings raising your right to cast your vote on legislation or come here and expose yourself and family to greater risk. The Health Secretary responds to the latest report, saying the risk of dying from coronavirus is higher for people from black, asian and minority ethnic groups. There is much more work to do to understand the key drivers of these disparities, the relationships between the different risk factors and what we can do to close the gap. And calls for a coordinated effort to put pressure on china over hong kong. It is time for an International Democratic alliance to come together and speak with one voice. After a weeks break, mps returned to westminster, where there was a government rebellion brewing. Members were being asked to back plans to force them to be in the commons if they want to be able to take part in parliamentary votes. Ministers argue that working via videolink, which theyve been doing during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, has made it harder to pass new laws. But in order to keep with social distancing rules, the old way of crowding through Division Lobbies had to be replaced. Instead, a winding queue was marked out, through the lobby and down into Westminster Hall. Many mps argued taking part in debates and voting remotely had worked fine and it was too risky for many of them to return to the commons. For the government, Jacob Rees Mogg said the rationale for returning to a physical parliament was a simple one. The stopgap of a hybrid parliament was a necessary compromise during the peak of the virus. But by not being here, the house has not worked effectively on behalf of constituents. For ten weeks there has been no detail, line by line consideration of bills that will affect peoples lives. There are lots of mps who are banned from attending parliament because they are shielding either themselves or others in their household. How can it possibly be right to exclude those people . How can it be a conservative motion to exclude those mps and thereby disenfranchise their communities . Jacob rees mogg said some members would still be able to take part via videolink. I will be bringing forward as i promised i would on the 20th of may, a motion tomorrow to allow members who for medical grounds, are unable to attend, to continue to appear for scrutiny, that is to say urgent questions and statements remotely. That will be brought forward tomorrow as i promised i would do. One mp pointed to a recent change in government policy waiving the fees foreign born nhs staff have to pay to use the Health Service in england. Today, there are low paid clinical staff working in the nhs who are free of the surcharge as a result of this house having its voice heard and would he therefore understand my incomprehension that members opposite would want to continue with this coke zero parliament for one more day when we could resume ourjob of holding the government to account. Madam Deputy Speaker, my honourable friend puts it extremely well, lots of people are going back to work. We have a role as Leaders Within the country and within the community to do that. At the present time it is incredibly difficult and not at all straightforward for members to get here to the british mainland and as a result of that i am wondering if he accepts that the social distancing cueing arrangements that are now going to be trialed, actually defeat the purpose to some degree of us having those debates because it will eat into so much parliamentary time that we are eager to use for debate. I do expect some teething problems with the Voting System today and it will be sometime before our proceedings are fully restored. But in the meantime we must act to minimise the disruption. Madam Deputy Speaker. The honourable gentleman asks if i have ever been to alton towers and yes indeed i have, i took sister there many years ago. Laughter. And. Anyway. Enough of my reminiscences. He has said that tomorrow people can enter these debates virtually, can he say if they have a medical reason not for being here, but they can be here virtually, precisely what is stopping then being able to vote virtually as well . There are well established procedures for those who cannot be here being paired so their opinion and their opinion of their constituents has exactly the same effect as if they vote in person. The Procedure Committee makes it very clear that people should not have to disclose their medical condition to participate in the government. What this government is doing is overreaching. It is one rule for them and one rule for other people. Could he confirm for me that the constituents of the mp5 who have to shield and therefore worth less and it is expected that they will be less well represented by this place . What the leader of the house is proposing is discriminatory. The equality and Human Rights Commission has said so. If you are able bodied, you can come in. You have to ignore government advice about shielding, the r factor, but you have to come in. Now for whatever reason you are following the governing guidelines and you cannot be here, you are effectively losing your vote. The chair of the commons Procedure Committee said it was an uncomfortable day for her. She highlighted the plight of her fellow tory mp, robert halfon. He wanted to be here today but his doctor has advised him that he must not for his own health. So the idea that we decide today to disenfranchise him completely seems to me to be absurd. We can work from home. We should work from home. Because that is the right thing to do not just for our government but because it is the right thing to do for our families, for our colleagues, and for constituents. The mogg conga as it is now deemed through the house into Westminster Hall is a result of the government not continuing the motion at the end before the recess. Nobody else just the responsibility of the leader of the house. Even number ten did not realise the process of what the leader of the house was doing on the day before recess it would seem. The Underlying Health conditions of either members or their families are to be frank none of our business but they will be excluded as we have heard from my right honourable friend, the member for harlow. I appreciate the lengths mr speaker has gone to to make sure we have adequate arrangements for cueing but how suitable are they for those with disabilities including hidden disabilities. Covid 19 has been described as a great leveler and that anyone could catch it and we saw that with my right honourable friend at the Prime Minister but the unequal impact is well documented, older people, men, those from bame backgrounds those with Underlying Health conditions, they now have every stark choice, stay at home and play no part in proceedings, losing your right to cast your vote on legislation or come here and expose yourself and your family to greater risk. In order for me to get here today, it required a journey of 18 hours, starting on an aeroplane, a taxi, a normaltrain, four hours in edinburgh waiting for a sleeper train that i picked up at 1am this morning and used until 8am. I cannot and will not do that every week. Apart from anything else, are journey will be 26 hours long and it will require me to go into self isolation for 14 days the only responsible way to live in a community such as mine so having come here i am here for the duration because i cannot go back until it is safe for my family and community for me to do so. I do not tell the house that madam Deputy Speaker because i am looking for any sort of sympathy. I am 19 years a member of parliament. I have learned better than that by now. I am telling this house because i think it is important at this house should be a problem and for the whole of the United Kingdom. Well, at the end of all that, it was time to test out the new socially distanced Voting System. The queue to vote started outside the building in the sunshine of parliaments courtyard then snaked in through the new chicanes in Westminster Hall, with mps winding round and round, and having the chance to chat supposedly two metres apart as they waited to get back into the chamber, where they eventually arrived at the despatch box and moved to the right or left to register their vote with the odd bit of confusion along the way. It tookjust over a0 minutes for all the mps to vote as opposed to the normal 15. The government won by a majority of 57 but with more than two dozen rebels. So while some mps will be able to contribute from home, they wont be able to vote if theyre not in westminster. A report from Public Health england has confirmed that the risk of dying from coronavirus is higher for black, asian and minority ethnic people than it is for white people. The study found that people of bangladeshi ethnicity were twice as likely to die from the infection than white britons. It remains unclear why that is the case and Public Health england acknowledged that more work is needed. In the commons, the Health Secretary gave his reaction. This work underlines that being black or from a minority ethnic background is a major risk factor. This Racial Disparity holds even after accounting for the effects of age, deprivation, region, and sex. The phe ethnicity analysis did not adjust for factors such as comorbidities and obesity so there is much more work to do to understand the key drivers of these disparities, the relationships between the different risk factors, and what we can do to close the gap. A succession of mps wanted to know what the government was going to do about the findings. Weve always knew there was a social grading in health, they had an equality access to health care and inequality and health outcomes. With the secretary of state confirmed today is that covid 19 thrives on inequalities. Indeed, black lives matter, mr speaker, but it is surely a call to action that black, minority, asian people are more likely to die from covid 19 and more likely to be in intensive care. What guidance will he give to nhs of rostering during the ame staff and covid 19 areas . What discussion has he had for the department for education about children returning to school particularly amongst parents . We need to be careful, cautious and sensitive especially to the needs of those who might be disproportionately affected and we have to do research to get to the bottom of why. Matt hancocks appearance at the despatch box gave mps their first chance to question him about the actions of the Prime Ministers most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings. Youll remember that Durham Police found that mr cummings might have breached lockdown rules during a trip to durham. He and his cabinet colleagues have completely shredded their own lockdown rules to protect a man who thought he was above the rules. In refusing to sack Dominic Cummings for travelling 260 miles with his wife, who was symptomatic, the Prime Minister has destroyed his own stay home and save lives message. I know the minister will want to shrug it off and will want to move on, but i have to say to him, it has been absolute fury. People think that there is one rule for the government and their friends and another rule for everybody else, and they have made massive, massive sacrifices and they feel that the government isnt standing by them. Please, please, please reflect that back to the government. Can my right honourable friend advise therefore if an assessment has been done on what, if any, damage has been done to the governments Public Health message by the actions of the Prime Ministers special adviser . Well, thank you, mr speaker. The critical thing is that, given the sacrifices that my honourable friend lists and that are heartfelt, that as a nation, we have the resolve to see this through. We can see that the number of cases is coming right down and we can see that the number of people dying is coming right down and weve got to see the back of this disease. We are not there yet. Matt hancock. The foreign secretary has said chinas proposed National Security law for hong kong would be a clear violation of its International Obligations. China is seeking to pass a law that would ban treason, secession, sedition and subversion in hong kong, sparking fresh protests. In a statement, dominic raab said the uk was talking to International Allies about how to handle a mass exodus of hong kong citizens if beijing presses ahead. Working very closely with our partners in australia, canada and the united states, the uk released a joint statement expressing our deep concerns over this proposed new security legislation. Our partners in new zealand and injapan have issued similar statements and the eu has too, and ive had discussions with a various number of our eu partners. So the uk stands firm with our International Partners in our expectation that china live up to its International Obligations under the sino british joint declaration. He urged china to step back but warned that if beijing pressed ahead, the uk would extend visa rights for hong kongs 350,000 British National overseas passport holders or bnos. We will put in place new arrangements to allow bnos to come to the uk without the current six month limit, enabling them to live and apply to study and work for extendable periods of 12 months, thereby also providing a pathway to citizenship. Mr speaker, let me just finish by saying that even at this stage, i sincerely hope china will reconsider its approach. But if not, the uk will notjust look the other way when it comes to the people of hong kong. It is increasingly clear that we need an alliance of democracies to ensure that we can maintain, as he says, a constructive dialogue with china on shared challenges, not least climate change, while standing up to aggressive behaviour and clear breaches of International Law. He referenced the statements by the uk, australia, canada and the us, which was welcome, and the additional statements from new zealand, japan and the European Union. It is time for an International Democratic alliance to come together and speak with one voice. We are setting out our position clearly and working with our International Partners, and the ball is in the court of the government in china. It has a choice to make here. It can cross the rubicon and violate the autonomy and the rights of the people of hong kong, or it can step back, understand the widespread concern of the International Community and live up to its responsibilities as a leading member of the International Community. At what point does he envisage having to take further steps . No one is calling for sanctionsjust yet, but surely work must be going on to put together something that constitutes a price for beijings heavy hand here. This is the first sip of a bitter cup. And the truth is, its going to be offered to us again and again and again. And appeasement, which has been the case for the free world, is now no longer an option. So will he now explain how he intends to organise the free world so that we stand up against this . The right approach for the United Kingdom, both as a matter of principle but also effectiveness, is to call out behaviour which is contrary to International Law on its own terms. That is the way, in answer to the chairman of the select committee and others, how we will build a coalition of like minded countries to stand firm in the face of such behaviour. Who are, of course, by definition, the young people, the brave hong kongers who are out there demonstrating on the streets and who are most vulnerable and in most need. There were questions about the situation in hong kong in the lords, too. Seven Foreign Ministers former Foreign Ministers from right across politics sent a letter to the Prime Minister, proposing, as a way of demonstrating our legal and moral and political and economic obligations to hong kong, the government itself should take a lead in putting together an International Contact group which can keep in touch with developments there and continue to press china not to breach its International Treaty obligations and not to breach the commitments its made for a high degree of autonomy in hong kong. My noble friend has led direct action in this respect. Over the last few weeks, he has issued several statements, including a statement of the british position, but also underlining the very provisions that my noble friend has highlighted about, if this law is enacted, the International Obligations that china has to hong kong will be undermined, and equally raising this issue in partnership with the likes of canada, with the likes of australia, the us and indeed the European Union. Youre watching tuesday in parliament, with me, alicia mccarthy. And dont forget, you can follow me on twitter bbcalicia. Now, the scientist whose advice prompted the Prime Minister to introduce the lockdown says its very unclear what will happen with coronavirus later in the year. Professor neil ferguson, who stopped advising the government after he allowed a woman to visit his home during the lockdown, was giving evidence to a house of Lords Committee along with other scientists. He told the peers that the epidemic had started in the uk much earlier than had been predicted. One of the things which we learned in early march, soon after that, was the uk had been much more heavily affected than we had previously anticipated, really, in early march, from spain and italy. So that was one of the reasons we have, if not the largest, one of the largest epidemics in europe. Going forward, what the models say is that we have limited room for manoeuvre, that this is a highly transmissible pathogen. Weve reduced transmission by about 80 , but to maintain control, we need to keep that transmission suppressed by about 65 or so, so we have a little bit of wiggle room. So, it will be a learning experience as to how we allow society to resume whilst maintaining control of transmission. He said he had been shocked at what had happened in care homes. The infections in care homes and hospitals spill back into the community, more commonly from the people who work in those institutions. And so if you can drive the infection rates low in those institutional settings, you drive the infection lower in the community as a whole. If the lockdown wouldve been very strict, if wed have thought more about what was happening in care homes and hospitals, as youve heard, early on, maybe thats one of the areas where models did drop the ball. You know, we should have thought. With hindsight, its very easy to say, we know care homes and hospitals are these huge collections of very vulnerable individuals, so maybe with hindsight, we could have modelled those early on and thought about the impact of there. But i think, considering the amount of information we had at the time, i think the models offer our best estimates of what could happen in the short term. Long term predictions are much, much more difficult. Accepting that theres wide confidence limits in models, what, in the short term and the medium term, are the models saying is likely to happen now . One of the key issues is how much will relaxation of current controls lead to potentially increases in transmission . And i should say, its not clear that it automatically will do so, but most of the modelling would suggest we might get a small increase. But its very unclear whether that will lead to the reproduction number being above. Audio cuts out. So there is a lot of uncertainty right now. Isuspect, though, under any scenario that levels of transmission and numbers of cases will remain relatively flat between now and september, short of very big policy changes or behaviour changes in the community. The real uncertainty, then, is if there are larger policy changes in september whilst we move into a time of year when viruses tend to transmit slightly better, then what will happen then . And that remains very unclear. The only thing i would add to that is, we are assuming that adherence and changes to the lockdown rules apply to the uk as a whole, or england as a whole, depending on whether its a National Figure or not. I think if theres sections of the community that start adhering less well, then we could see more pockets of infection arise, so theres another area for concern and one that would be very hard to try and model, because we just wouldnt have those individual level behavioural details that have been mentioned before. A new law to pave the way for the redrawing of the parliamentary map cleared its first commons hurdle. The parliamentary constituencies bill is designed to lead to constituencies with more equal numbers. It also kills off the plan by the conservative Lib Dem Coalition to cut the number of mps from the current 650 to 600. That part of the bill was welcomed by labours spokesperson. As we have left the European Union and the work of the uks 73 meps falls to this house, it wouldve piled a heavier workload onto fewer shoulders. But more importantly, it wouldve handed further power to an executive, because reducing the number of mps whilst refusing to cut the size of the government payroll creates a dangerous level of executive dominance at the expense of parliament and our democracy. But she said the bill would still put too much power in the hand of the government over constituency sizes and boundaries. The Cabinet Office minister said the aim was to make sure every vote counted the same, as some constituencies have far fewer voters than others and boundaries were based on out of date data. That means that our current constituencies take no account of our youngest voters and nor do they reflect nearly two decades of demographic shift, House Building and migration, and that cannot be right. So the purpose of this bill is to update those rules, and it needs to do that so that the next review, which is due to start in early 2021, can proceed promptly and deliver with some certainty those updated and equal constituencies that the electorate deserves. Based on those current electoral quotas, wed probably see scotland going down by two or three seats. And that would be to the advantage of other parts of the uk, which seems wholly unfair. And it certainly, madam Deputy Speaker, does not ring true with what people in scotland were told in 2014 during the independence referendum. Back then, we were told that we should lead the United Kingdom in the event of a no vote. And so on the contrary, actually, weve probably never felt more excluded, more isolated and ignored in the uk. David linden. And the parliamentary constituencies bill now goes off for more detailed scrutiny. 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 now from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye. Hello there, the temperature reached 27 celsius in hampshire on tuesday, but that was the last of the very warm days for probably quite sometime. The next few days at least will be feeling much cooler, thanks to a northerly wind. More cloud and some wet weather around as well. That rain certainly arrived in scotland during tuesday knocking temperatures back as well. The cloudier weather, together with the rain, is continuing to push its way southwards overnight. Many areas by the end of the night will have had some rain, the exceptions really being towards the southeast and east anglia where it is going to be a little chilly in the countryside and probably drying off later in the night for Northern Ireland and western scotland. Cloudier skies for wednesday in england and wales. Some outbreaks of rain as well, could be little heavy at times. Across Northern Ireland, largely dry, little bit of sunshine and missing most of the showers across western scotland, where temperatures may make 18 degrees in glasgow, much cooler with the showers in eastern scotland and across the rest of the uk temperatures quite a bit lower than they were yesterday. Continuing that cooler theme through the rest of the week, because pressure is lower across scandinavia where we once had High Pressure. Instead, High Pressure we are treating out into the atlantic. Its not close enough to the uk, and it means that we are drawing down a northerly wind which will feed in that cooler air and continue to feed in some showers. Perhaps a longer rain to clear away from the southeast of england early on thursday morning, and then a little bit of sunshine but on the whole, pretty cloudy skies and further showers which could be heavy at times as well. If anything in that northerly wind temperatures may be even lower on thursday, typically 14 15 degrees or so, quite a bit cooler than it should be at this time of year. So this weather is quite a change from what we have seen for a long time. Those cooler northerly winds pick up again on friday. We will blow down some heavy showers from the north. South wales may get up to 16 17 degrees, but for northern scotland, weird struggling to make double figures. As we head into the weekend, we no longer have High Pressure close to the uk. Instead, we are dominated by low pressure, and its quite a deep one as well. It could bring some unusually windy weather to some northern and western parts of the uk, at least for a while on saturday, some risk of gales. Even without the strong winds, it will feel cool in the cloud with some showers, and longer spells of rain. Welcome to bbc news. Im mike embley. Our top stories if a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary curfews defied nationwide. Night eight of protests in the us begins with thousands on the streets of major cities. This is the scene live in washington. Mr trumps likely rival in novembers election comes out swinging. Joe biden accuses the president of fanning the flames of hate. Clashes take place in paris as hundreds call for justice over a death in Police Custody four years ago. Plus, a report here in the uk confirms that black, asian and minority ethnic people are more likely to die of coronavirus than their white counterparts