there is speculation he was suffering from covid—19. now on bbc news: wednesday in parliament. hello and welcome to wednesday in parliament, as sarah everard's killing fuels calls for justice for women. i have parliamentary privilege. i can name the men who have hurt me, but millions of women in this country don't even have that. we have to address the fundamental issue of the casual everyday sexism and apathy. also in this programme, borisjohnson�*s former aide returns to the political fray with a damning verdict on how covid was managed. in spring 2020, we had - a situation where department of health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and ppe. and the speaker tells a welsh mp to mind her language. she speaks welsh more on that story later. but first, prime minister's questions, dominated this week by the killing of sarah everard and the issue of women's safety. sarah went missing while walking home from a friend's house earlier this month. a police officer has been charged with her kidnap and murder. earlier this week, hundreds of people gathered in parliament square to pay tribute to sarah and to protest about violence against women. at question time, the labour leader, sir keir starmer, said it was one of those tragedies that, like the murder of stephen lawrence, demanded both justice and change. now, the awful events of the last week have lifted a veil on the epidemic of violence against women and girls. this must also be a watershed moment to change how we as a society treat women and girls and how we prevent and end sexual violence and harassment. he is right, frankly, that unless and until we have a change in our culture that acknowledges and understands that women currently do not feel they are being heard, we will not fix this problem. and that is what we must do. we need a cultural and social change in attitudes to regress the balance, mr speaker. keir starmer said he wanted to adopt a constructive approach. for many, many women and girls who do come forward to report sexual violence, no criminal charges are brought. only 1.5% of rapes reported to the police lead to a prosecution. put the other way, 98.5% of reported rapes don't lead to a prosecution. that's a shocking statistic. borisjohnson agreed rape prosecution rates were a disgrace. then the consensus broke down a little. the prime minister pointed to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which labour voted against on the grounds it didn't do enough to stop violence against women. we're also doing what we can to toughen the penalties for those men — i'm afraid it is overwhelmingly men — who commit these crimes. and i think it would've been a good thing if last night, the whole house could have voted for tougher sentences for those who commit sexual and violent offences and stop people, mr speaker, from being released early. and in that collegiate spirit, i would ask him to work together with us. keir starmer. mr speaker, i was director of public prosecutions for five years and spent every day prosecuting serious crime, including terrorism, sexual violence and rape, so i really don't need lectures about how to enforce the criminal law. keir starmer highlighted three cases where rapists received sentences of under ten years. does the prime minister agree we need urgently to look at this and to toughen sentences for rape and serious sexual violence? prime minister. mr speaker, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if there was a bill going through the house of commons which would do exactly that? as it happens, there is such a bill before the house. i think it will be a great thing if the right honourable gentleman actually had voted for it. he still has time. he can lift his opposition. he actually voted against it, mr speaker, on a three line whip, and i think it was crazy. keir starmer. mr speaker, he mentions the bill last night. that provided for longer maximum sentences for damaged memorials than the sentences imposed in the three cases of rape i've referred the house to, all of those sentences less than ten years. borisjohnson accused him of trying to misrepresent what the bill set out to do. ministers were trying to stiffen sentences, he said, and to accelerate the criminaljustice process. until we sort out that fundamental problem, until women feel that they are being heard and voices are being heard and their complaints are being addressed by society, we will not fix this problem, and i warmly welcome what he suggests about wanting to fix it together and i hope that in that spirit, he can bring himself to vote for the tougher sentences that we set out. another labour mp pursued keir starmer�*s point. i have parliamentary privilege. i can name the men who have hurt me, but millions of women in this country don't even have that. stuck between a criminal system where only 1.4% of reported offences result in charges being laid and where too many survivors who speak out are pursued through the civil courts by their abusers to silence them. can the prime minister advise how women are meant to getjustice? prime minister. mr speaker, i'm afraid that she's completely right and i know that she speaks for many people and many women up and down the country. we have to address the fundamental issue of the casual everyday sexism and apathy that fails to address the concerns of women. that is the underlying issue. the snp's westminster leader focused on the integrated review of foreign, defence and security policy that could lead to the uk increasing its stockpile of nuclear weapons. our children have the right to a future that no longer. lives under the shadow of these weapons of mass destruction. l as the irish president said on this st patrick's day, i surely we need to find ways to make peace, not war. i every single one of these weapons will be based i exactly when the scottish people, given the moral. of democratic authority i to impose these weapons of to mass destruction i on our soil in scotland? the prime minister. mr speaker, the people of scotland contribute enormously to the health, happiness, wellbeing and security of this entire country, not least through their contribution to our science, or defences, our international aid and many, many other ways. i'm very proud this government is investing record sums in defence, including maintaining our nuclear defence, which is absolutely vital for our long—term security and helping thereby to drive jobs notjust in scotland, but across the whole of the uk. the prime minister. borisjohnson�*s former chief adviser, dominic cummings, has called events last year during the covid pandemic a "disaster" and said that borisjohnson removed the vaccination programme from the "smoking ruin" of the department of health. dominic cummings, who left his post at the end of last year, was speaking to the science and technology committee about the creation a new agency called aria to fund cutting—edge science projects. was it something that you proposed to the prime was it part of a deal that you did with the prime minister tojoin them? the prime minister came to speak to me the sunday before he became prime minister and said "welcome to downing street to help sort out the huge brexit nightmare." i said yes, if first of all, you're deadly serious about actually getting brexit done. secondly, double the science budget. third, create some entity. and fourth, support me in trying to change how whitehall works and the cabinet office work because it's a disaster, sir. and he said, "deal." where did you say deal? where were you when that was concluded? in my living room the sunday before he became prime minister. just you and him or were there others there? just me and him. he said the pandemic had demonstrated the need for fast decision making. i hope that the disaster of last year... in a rational world, it ought to make the case for aria to open and close. in february, march, april last year, there was no entity in the british state. zero entities, including the prime minister himself, who could make rapid decisions on science, funding, minus eu procurements, state aid, etc laws. no entity in british state that could operate at scale and at pace. and that was obviously disastrous. obviously last year, we saw the demand for health had absolutely total disaster terms of buying, how it buys, how it procures, how it deals with science and technology. it's why we had to take the vaccine process out of the department of health. i hope that as the country emerges from the current lockdown and as various... there should be an urgent, very, very hard look by this building into what went wrong and why in 2020. one of the most obvious lessons of that is this problem. it's the incredible value, potentially, in getting science and technology stuff right, the disaster that can come if you don't get it right. also, i would encourage people to think about... it's not coincidental that the vaccine programme worked the way that it did, to do that, we had to take it out of the department of health. we had to have it authorised very directly by the prime minister and say strip away all the normal nonsense that we can see is holding back funding... you said we took it out of the department of health. who's we? well, in a sense, number 10 took it out. in spring 2020, we had a situation where department of health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and ppe and all of that. one committee member found an ingenious way to ask about his pay. you said injanuary, . this was the main thing you worked on, . the science, aria. is that the reason why you were given the £45,000 pay rise? i uh, no, so, the new media reports about me getting a pay rise after covid are wrong. it is true that i interfered with the pay system regarding my own pay, but that was in summer 2019. when i arrived, i was put on the normal pay grade for my position of 140—something—thousand. i said i didn't want that and i only wanted to be paid but i was paid at vote leave. i figured that i should be paid the same to sort out the brexit mess. i've been paid for voting leave, so i asked for a pay cut, which is what happened in summer 2019. for some reason, this appeared in the media as if i got a pay rise after covid, but that didn't happen. when we were all rehired in the day after the election, then i moved back onto the normal pay grade for my position. dominic cummings, who is set to return to the committee as part of its separate inquiry into coronavirus. you're watching wednesday in parliament with me, david cornock. the widow of the former home secretary, lord brittan, has told mps she wants to make sure that the events she lived through never happen to anyone else. lord brittan, who'd been a conservative home secretary in the mid 1980s, was caught up in a met police investigation operation midland into false claims of sexual abuse in westminster. he died injanuary 2015, and lady brittan's homes were searched while she was still grieving. no police officer has been disciplined for the way the case was conducted. mps on the home affairs committee are carrying out an inquiry into police conduct. lady brittan explained why she wanted to talk to them. in order to help others, and to ensure that the events that i lived through never ever happen again to anyone else, i wanted to come today to talk about what happened to me. i don't want anything for myself and to be honest, it is too late for leon. i believe in the need for good policing and i believe in the rule of law, as indeed did my husband. and i try to uphold the rule of law by being a magistrate over 26 years. what i hope now is to encourage you to take a long hard look at the system that holds the police to account and to make sure that at the end of this all, we have a system that is robust, independent, fair, and has the trust of the public. thank you for inviting me and i hope what i have to say will be useful. thank you very much, lady brittan. i'm very sorry that your experiences have been so difficult in all of this. an mp on the committee took lady brittan back to events seven years ago. when you were first contacted by the police, did you alreadyl about guilt on the issue? did you feel that there was any kind or prospect of fairness - in the way the matter| was being dealt with? i suppose if i were to be frank, at that particular period of my life, remember, this is way back at the end of �*14, early �*15, my husband was critically ill in hospital, it is a very difficult thing a husband or wife in hospital have to talk about, and he was so clear that his conscience was clear, that we didn't talk about it, and so i managed the death, the funeral, all of those i had to do in the first thing that really got to know about all of this was when the officers knocked on my door at eight o'clock in the morning on, i think it was the 5th of march, and i was shocked beyond belief. i had no idea what it was about. of course i sort of half followed some of the stuff in the press but when you are at that stage of your life dealing with somebody who is very ill, i put it out of my head and so it was only later that i realised that the presumption of innocence had not been given to these men and then also i realised reading the report that all sorts of things that had happened which perhaps shouldn't have happened, if the policing had been a little bit less, i put it this way, in favour of the person who was doing the complaining. she was asked whether things had now changed. i think as far as i know, i have been in contact with the metropolitan police, or they have been in contact with me, is that there clearly is a lot of work being done on search warrants, because perhaps of all the things which went horribly wrong in that particular inquiry, it was the application for search warrants. and in my view at the time, cos i signed search warrants in the past, it was a fishing expedition and that is really not what you are allowed to do with search warrants. so i think there's a lot of work on that. what i don't know because it is not really been made public or clear to me is whether there is any movement on anything else. lady brittan. now, the phrase "once in a generation", used in 2014, about the scottish independence referendum was not a promise that the issue would "go away" according to the snp. tommy sheppard told mps he'd also welcome another vote this year if it could be held after the pandemic was over. he was speaking at the start of an snp led debate on the forthcoming elections to the scottish parliament in may. i accept that the phrase once in a generation was part of the debate. but let us at least be honest with each other about the context in which that was said. it was said invariably by those who were proposing a yes vote for independence as a caution to their supporters that they might not get another chance. it was not made as a promise or qualification to those who opposed independence, that it was going to go away forever. it wasn't us who said it. it wasn't even the tories. it was the snp that said it. tommy sheppard said any vote wouldn't be held until the coronavirus pandemic was over. i will have to have... i tell you now, nobody is suggesting that. we'll have to have that put behind us and moving into a recovery phrase before that can happen. i'm sorry. quickly. interested in what he said because his leader has said an independence referendum could be held this year. the scottish national party have put aside £600,000 of party funds to fight a referendum campaign this year. are they wrong or is the gentleman wrong? if it is possible. if it is possible to have it this year because of the pandemic is over and we have moved beyond it, then i would welcome that. the minister said people expected their governments to focus on covid recovery but instead... the snp has tabled this motion for an opposition day debate not to discuss what more we can do to work constructively together, to drive our recovery from covid—19, but instead to promote separation and the pursuit of another divisive and damaging referendum on independence. why do the snp want to turn this scottish election in mayl i into a referendum on whether ori not we have another referendum? because they cannot defend their atrocious record - in government for the last 14 years. | they have no defence - at all and nothing to offer. 25 minutes of opening speech and not one positive policy. about how to deal with i the problems of scotland. has he ever reflected on why he is his party's sole representative at westminster based on this intransient policy against us and against scotland having the right to choose? it is called having principles. you ought to try it sometime. we are against independence because it would be bad - for the scottish people. a lib dem agreed now was not the time to be talking about a referendum. this on a day when survey polls show that independence is one of the three top priorities forjust 8% of scots. and the pandemic wasn't deemed important enough to mention in their motion. i'm afraid to say that snp, after 14 years in power in scotland, now consumed by internal problems, are out of touch. yes, scotland could apply for eu membership. but there is no guarantee it will be welcome. scotland's deficit is twice the eu target and with its ageing and rural population, public spending is a 15 billion per year higher than its tax in north sea oil revenues. so if scotland did vote for independence, will impact would that have on scotland's economy? the government has been defeated again in the house of lords over the fire safety bill, which strengthens regulations in england following the grenfell tower fire. peers voted to include an amendment to prevent landlords passing on costs to flat owners for work to improve fire safety. a bishop thought leaseholders were facing a "great injustice". by not including sufficient provisions to protect leaseholders, a conscious decision would be made to impose poverty, possibly bankruptcy and certainly misery on thousands of ordinary people. people whose only crime was being aspirational. those responsible should be the ones who pay. whilst i can appreciate the desire that many noble lords have for a quick legislative solution to the who pays issue, we also have a duty as parliamentarians to implement a clear framework and transparent legislation to support fire and building safety reforms. lord greenhalgh. ministers must now decide whether to try to reverse that defeat when the bill returns to the commons. a conservative former chancellor, has been challenged over how far the uk should have links with china, given security and human rights concerns. george osbone was at the forefront of attempts to strengthen ties with the country when david cameron was in power. but many mps are now deeply worried about allegations of of genocide against the mostly muslim uighur people and accusations of human rights abuses in hong kong. to what extent do increased trade and investment links with china have an impact on the united kingdom's willingness to disagree with the chinese communist party, for example, over human rights violations or to hold them account for genocide? its activities in the south china sea? or towards hong kong and taiwan? is it legitimate to trade with a genocidal state? i think the foreign secretary put it rather well this morning as i understand in what was supposed to be a private call, which is that if you only deal with people, countries that share all your values, we will have a pretty limited, sadly, range of countries we will engage with. last time i checked, we just left our big alliance with most of them. so i think you have to be realistic about the world as it is and my view was that you should always raise concerns about human rights abuse, that you should raise their concerns about things like the democratic institution of hong kong, that you should take unilateral action such as the granting of the visas to hong kong nationals, which again is a move i'm very much in support of, although i was only the photocopy boy in the john major government in number ten i always thought it would've been better if we should've offered visas back then or citizenship. so i'm in favour of all... i think you have to raise those things, and i always did and i know david cameron always did and others. i personally think you're more likely to get a hearing and more likely to be heard if you are engaging with china speaking irish and welsh. asylum—seekers. .. can ijust say to the honourable lady, let's stop. i don't mind the beginning, but then to start extending the sentence in welsh does goes against the rules of the house. the first was in irish. the second was in welsh. and it was just wishing everybody a happy... can ijust say i have no argument whatsoever. but unfortunately, the house make the rules. i'm only here to ensure the rules are kept. thank you. liz saville roberts challenging the speaker's grasp of welsh and irish there. that's it for wednesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me at the same time tomorrow for the week in parliament, with highlights from the last few days at westminster and beyond. until then, from me, david cornock, bye for now. hello there. there's going to be very little change with the weather for the end of the week and into the weekend and indeed into next week. thursday looks generally cloudy, i think, for much of the country, and we'll have some patchy rain across more eastern parts of england. high—pressure sits to the west of the uk, bringing northerly winds to most areas, north or north—easterly winds, that is. a lot of cloud around generally. limited spells of brightness. early showers will clear from the south—east, but more rain will arrive across eastern england, east anglia and the south—east through the afternoon. probably the best of the sunshine will be through the central belt of scotland, where we could see 15 celsius. some sunshine for south wales, south—west england, highs of 14 celsius. but elsewhere, 10—11 celsius, and cooler along north sea coast of england, where we have that area of rain and onshore breeze. a few spots of drizzle here and there but because of the cloud cover, it won't to be too cold anywhere. lows of 4 to around 7 or 8 celsius. so into friday, similar story — high pressure dominating the scene. but we will start to tap into some colder air across the near continent in the south—east, so here, with that cooler air, it will actually be drier air, so we should see the clouds breaking up to allow some sunshine here. but elsewhere, another rather cloudy day. some spots of light rain or drizzle, particularly into northern england through the midlands, up towards the south—west. and it will feel cooler as well across the south—east, despite the sunshine. that onshore north—easterly breeze will peck temperatures back to around 7 or 8 celsius. you will have to head further west to see slightly higher values. again, a bit of brightness through the central belt, 13 degrees, i think 10—11 celsius will be the high for most areas, which is around the seasonal average. as we move out of friday into the weekend, we still have high pressure with us, but we will see this weather front move into the north of the uk. that could bring some stronger winds across shetland later on on saturday, and outbreaks of rain. we could see some rain pushing into the north and west of scotland later on, but elsewhere, it's generally, again, a dry day with some spots of drizzle. quite a bit of cloud around, limited sunshine, and those temperatures around the seasonal average, 11—12 celsius will be the high. it's a similar story on sunday. in fact, as we head on into next week, we dominate the weather scene with high pressure, generally light winds, quite a lot of cloud around, and temperatures around the seasonal average. a very warm welcome to bbc news. my name is mike embley. our top stories: a leading charity warns that cutting british aid to syria could mean that hundreds of thousands of children will not be able to go to school. it will mean fewer kids in school, it will mean less medical services, and it is the wrong thing to do. russia is withdrawing its ambassador to washington because the us has accused it of trying to influence last year's us election. the suspect in the atlanta spa shootings is charged with eight counts of murder. investigators are trying to determine if race was a factor. tanzania's president, john magufuli, dies at the age of 61. the vice president said he'd succumbed to complications related to a heart condition.