Adam. It is a butter based croissant, i am told. What are you talking about, adam . Basically, the greatest piece of Investigative Journalism ive done in my entire career was here at cop26, the Climate Change conference in glasgow. Id gone for breakfast one morning, and this has reached Legendary Status already, and weve already talked about it on the podcast on bbc sounds this week but here is the tv version. With added pictures of chris mason eating a croissant, in case you didnt know what one looks like i was surprised to find out that a plant based croissant had a bigger Carbon Footprint than a bacon roll. Of course, that seems a bit counterintuitive because we are always being told one of the things you can do to help reduce Greenhouse Gases is eat less meat. So, of course, that went on social media, farmers loved it because they said, oh, this shows that we are not the bad guys. But it turns out it was wrong. Theyd put on the Carbon Footprint for the wrong kind of croissant. Theyd put on the Carbon Footprint of the kind of croissant you are eating now, chris, a butter one, which is full of dairy, and it turns out that a true plant based croissant has a fifth of the Carbon Footprint of a normal one. Well, now weve established that. Then it got weirder, and it caused an international incident, because then i bumped into the french ecological transition minister. She told french people to eat fewer croissants. Thats just the sort of people you bump into, adam. Somehow. Newscast. Newscast from the bbc. Hello. Its chris in the studio. Its laura in the studio, with now one and a half croissants, for those people who are listening rather than watching. And its adam in the riverside studio, in front of the cop26 Climate Conference in glasgow. Hooray and weve got loads of coppery to get to beyond croissants, vegan or otherwise, but, laura, quite a bit of stuff going on At Westminster in the last 2a hours, and particularly today, thursday, with developments hour by hour around notjust Owen Paterson, one particular backbencher, former Cabinet Minister, although he is at the centre of this, but the whole business of how mps behaviour is regulated but, bigger than that, what people looking in on this place make of it. Absolutely. If youve been living under a rock, i will try and do the short version. Owen paterson was a tory Cabinet Minister, very long serving mp. He was found to have broken the lobbying rules more than a dozen times by talking to the government about various issues when he was on the payroll of two companies. The report into him the Standards Committee did was very, very clear that he had really done the wrong thing. He has always insisted that he was innocent and he was acting in the public interest. But the Standards Committee, which is in charge of making sure mps dont do naughty things, recommended that he should be suspended for 30 days. Parliament was going to have to vote on that but instead of having a vote on that yesterday the tories came up with a plan to overhaul the rules that he had been found guilty of, which would have protected him and torn up the rule book, basically. Now, that vote squeaked through last night by 18, which, when youve got a majority of 80, that tells you somethings wrong. But there was a furious backlash. Lots of tories were outraged. Front pages were appalling for the conservatives this morning. It became very clear that the other Opposition Parties wouldnt work with the government on creating this new system. So they ditched it, Screeching U Turn, and then Owen Paterson has now quit. And it is a mess. It backfired spectacularly and its really raised this issue again of sleaze, and its also stirred up all those questions about the Prime Ministers own attitude to following the rules. We should hear, shouldnt we, Jacob Rees Mogg, the leader of the commons, in the chamber this morning, doing the bit that, if you could put a soundtrack to, its the Handbrake Being pulled, the tyres smoking and the car completely changing direction. I fear last nights debate conflated the individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken. Therefore i and others| will be looking to work on a cross party basis i to achieve improvements in our system for future cases. I think the chances of there now being Cross Party Consensus on this are dead as a dodo. Even though the government has done its thing . I think so, yeah. Instead of saying, yes, lets look at the new system, we now have the Opposition Parties very strongly reacting to this, and i had a chat earlier with keir starmer, the labour leader, who says this is nothing less than corruption. What they have done is corrupt, and often in a situation like this you have a Prime Minister who is trying to lead on public standards. What youve got with this Prime Minister is a Prime Minister who is leading his troops through the sewer, and so it is a complete mess of their own making. Its a very strong accusation to say this is corrupt. It is corrupt, because there was a clear finding after due process about Owen Paterson engaging in paid lobbying. Thats been outlawed, rightly, in parliament for many, many years. So there is a clear finding, and then to rip the whole system up to protect him is corrupt. There is no point Shilly Shallying Around and pretending its something else, its corruption. On this occasion, its corruption from the top, from the Prime Minister down, because he whipped his mps to vote to bring down the entire Standards System, and that has very wide implications for politics, for standards in public life in the uk that go well beyond this individual case. There are two bits of all of this that i find quite intriguing, watching this from a distance. Hearing Jacob Rees Mogg saying, oh, in the debate, the two things got conflated, the system and the individual. Actually, if you read the amendment that kick this all off, by mps led by andrea leadsom, it actually explicitly listed the two things on the same motion. The second thing is, when this all first emerged, it looked like it was a sort of backbench initiative by some concerned Conservative Mps, and then it quickly became clear this was a really orchestrated, organised thing that people like the chief whip had been making phone calls about and it was really planned and executed. But i wanted to ask you two about the Conspiracy Theories, that actually the change to the system was designed to just save one man, Owen Paterson, theory number one, and theory number two, that its not necessarily about the system, its about the woman who runs the system at the moment, the independent commissioner for standards, kathryn stone. What do you make of those two Conspiracy Theories . Well, i think its absolutely true to say there is no love lost between Downing Street and kathryn stone, who is the independent commissionerfor standards. That is absolutely the case. It was suggested to me that somehow borisjohnson has got a real animus towards her because she found that his behaviour had not been absolutely as it should have been over that holiday to mustique. In fairness, we should say borisjohnson would say hes done nothing wrong, and Downing Street has said they genuinely were trying to look at reforming the system here because there is a widespread view that it doesnt work that well. But i think this is clearly about more than one person. And now, tonight in westminster, there are fingers being pointed at the chief whip. But do you want to know the anatomy of how its been described to me, exactly what happened . Shall we do that after weve heard from Owen Paterson, that statement, just so we see what hes saying tonight, before we unpick exactly where we are and what youre hearing . Yeah, we havent heard from Owen Paterson in front of cameras or microphones, but he put out a written statement, which we can bring you a little bit of. He had claimed previously when this happened that one of the reasons why she had become extremely distressed was the whole process and how long the investigation dragged on and that she had found it very distressing indeed. But i think that strength of feeling from Owen Paterson and among his backers and his friends, who were looking for a way out, i think that sort of claim together with, as has been suggested to me, a concern in number ten about how the system worked. What i understand happened was that the chief whip, mark spencer, was basically given an instruction. I was told he was set a target of finding a way of reforming the Standards System and protecting Owen Paterson. He then phoned john whittingdale, friend of newscast, a former conservative Cabinet Minister, to say, look, weve got this idea about changing the system. Would you be prepared to do it . He then said, well, i dont particularly fancy it but, yes, ok, im being asked to do something. He believes also there is some concern about the way the process works. Andrea leadsom, another former Cabinet Minister, and they are all sort of a group, you know, brexiteers, former ministers, same kind of era. She put her name down to the amendment, the way they were going to try and make this happen in parliament, but, of course, what happened in Parliament Last night, with cries of shame, one labour mp calling, what have you done to this place . Furious backlash in all the papers, suddenly Downing Street goes and does a Screeching U Turn and john whittingdale, and other people involved are thinking hang on a minute. Left out to dry, basically. A year, and as a result Owen Paterson then felt, what will probably happen next week is there would have been a vote in parliament, he would have been suspended, and instead what we are looking at is a by election. I dont think for a second the Opposition Parties are going to leave this alone. Weve already seen, havent we, chris, from Opposition Parties, particularly online, you know, notjust sir keir starmer sitting down and talking to me. Online, this is absolutely now going to be used in Attack Adverts against Conservative Mps, particularly in marginals, and some mps that i was talking to today were saying, we were pressured to do this, now we went out, we took the hit, and now its all this terrible mess. We could probably have a look at some of the adverts already on social media doing the rounds. Yes, there is one from the labour party. Tory mp james morris voted to save one of his mates who broke the rules, one rule for them, another rule for everyone else, thats a reference to the mp for Halesowen And Rowley Regis in the West Midlands who did as he was asked yesterday. He voted with the government. Labour seizing on that. Yeah, and it has been felt in glasgow, hundreds of miles away because obviously it is a huge news story, you cant ignore it, and there are a lot of Conservative Mps here because they have interest in what is happening in cop26, and some of them are quite scathing about it, as well, so the westminster gossips have been in their hair. Also, youve got ministers here. Also, youve got other Government Business here that is potentially being overshadowed by this, so there was a huge announcement about phasing out coal power today which is one of borisjohnson� s big cop26 priorities, but alok sharma, at the cop26 president s press conference, iasked him about Owen Paterson. The business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is here and when i bumped into him in the corridor i did not ask him about some nerdy stats, i asked him about some comments he made about the parliamentary commissionerfor standards. Do you still stand by your comments about the parliamentary commissioner for standards . Do you think she should stay in post . Do you still think the commissioner is going to have a difficult time staying in post . That was informative, wasnt it . Butjust to prove that it feels like the entire world is here, im nowjoined in this Beautiful Riverside Location because ive been joined by former home secretary, former work and pensions secretary, and crucially former Energy Secretary at the time of the paris Climate Change agreement, amber rudd. Thank you, chris, and former. Women and equalities minister. Im adam, youve got me mixed up with chris. Laughter thank you, adam, and former women and equalities minister, just to round it off. Ok, because its an important job that nobody forgets. It is to me. We will talk about your specialist subject which is this, cop26, in a second, but, i mean, whats your reaction to whats been happening with Owen Paterson, with the u turn, with the attempt to change the Standards System . Ive watched it with growing horror, really. Sadness. Owen paterson has had, you know, if he just accepted the situation, as far as i cani see, from the distance here, he could have had choices going forward. And today we have learnt that he has decided to resign as an mp altogether, so i think he has been poorly advised after doing some l things, which i dont know the details of, but hes clearly been found wanting in many different ways, and i wish he had just accepted that rather than perhaps being encouraged by his friends to challenge it in this way. One of your famous lines from back in the brexit argument days, when you were on the tv with the Prime Minister, the now Prime Minister, on the other side, was to describe him as the life and soul of the party but he is not the man you want to drive you home at the end of the evening with a clear barb, ultimately, about trust. This whole thing boils down to trust, doesnt it . And the potential for people simply not having it in politics as a result of whats gone on. That could be the consequence and its a great shame because as we often| say the vast majority of politicians are trustworthy, good people, they try hard, l and they often have a very difficult time. I i must say, having seen. Owens resignation letter, the bit that really stuck| with me is his reference to his family. It is fairly unusual, as a career, that your whole family have to take the consequences with you in quite such a way. Was it right for number ten and the tory party to try to rip up the rules . No, it wasnt right, and i wouldnt have supported it had i been there. I think it was a misjudgmentl of an epic and sort of in a way baffling proportion because the u turn was swift because the consequence was enormous, and rightly so. One of the jobs you do now that you are out of parliament some would call lobbying, you would probably call Public Affairs or consultancy or Something Like that, now that you know more about that world, do you think thats compatible with being an mp at the same time, as well . Could you do both of those things . First of all, i dont do lobbying. Im happy to be corrected. I thought you did do something to do with Public Affairs. Yes, but i dont. I never engage with government. 0h, ok. I only speak to businesses. Thats interesting because we label it as one thing that you would say there is a degree of Different Things . I think there is because, you know, lobbying is about, do you contact Government Ministers or mps or selectl committees or whatever it is, and the answer is no, i dont think it is consistent with that. Its difficult for mps to have alternative jobs but i think. There are some they can do. But the business of actually. Lobbying a minister on behalf of someone you are paidj by is rightly not allowed. Right, onto your specialist subject, Climate Change and what we are doing about it. You were there in paris for the paris Climate Change agreement. I dont know how widely understood that document actually is. It was the first ever globalj agreement, 195 countries, setting out their plans to limit the dangerous impact of Climate Change and to reduce emissions. I thats why paris was so distinct from glasgow and was so extraordinary at the time. We actually got one agreement signed by 195 countries. And the Headline Figure was about limiting the increase in Global Temperatures by the end of the century to two degrees, but then you were saying that, actually, they snuck in this other one. Yes thats right. On the front of the document itself it was always about two degrees, then at the very last moment, the final weekend l when we were all absolutely exhausted at about 4am another text came out and the french had cut off the coffee, let alone the food, the use. The building was being dismantled around us, j this 1. 5 degrees appeared. And to keep 1. 5 degrees within reach. It was really the small island states who pushed on that, i a fantastic man called tony debrum from the Marshalli Islands who sadly is no longer. With us, and the uk and the eu working on a much more ambitious agreement than the us and china, which is why china is now slightly pushing back i on the idea that 1. 5 degrees. Is the real text and ambition. It was going to be two degrees. Its really good news that since paris people have l basically become more ambitious. | we can look around us and see why, you see the evidence of Climate Change with l the droughts and floods, so people want a more. Ambitious progress than was originally envisaged. Laura here, thank you forjoining us tonight. If people havent been following this, because there has been a flurry of stuff emerging from glasgow at the beginning of this week, if people arent following the ins and outs of it, in an simple terms as you can, what difference do you think this big jamboree in my wonderful home city is actually going to make . Two things i think i are really important. First, the fact it is the forcing mechanism everybody talks about. When you say different countries, different companies, different stakeholders, we are going to do our best, we are going to do this, i we might announce that, this is the time they have to do it by, and everybody is watching. Thats the really good news. The second thing about this is that people are getting. Into groups to make i those announcements. You have groups of corporates agreeing to net zero or certain transparency rules. You have groups of countries like weve just had this morning who make ambitious commitments to reducing or coming off coal altogether. It is an effective way of getting people to be more ambitious while there is so much pressure on them since we are all here. I know there is an element of, oh my goodness, what is this, it is just a whole lot of people coming together, and there is a kind of fun. Element to it, different age groups, different nationalities. Thats quote unquote fun. Yes, different croissants, of course. There is also a very serious bit. There are real announcements coming, Real Information being exchanged, and the feeling is quite i excited, quite optimistic. How do we work out, at the end of it, whether it has been a success or not . We had the same problem in paris, really. Even though we felt we would get an agreement in paris, i it wasnt necessarily likely we would getl an ambitious agreement. One where the green lobbyists would say, | yes, this is something we can be proud of, something we can work towards. And really, its a good question, who are the arbiters of whether this works. Or doesnt, particularly as this is more like a conductor bringing together an orchestra with different parts trying to get one orchestra. One tune out of it. So, its good news, this looks like it is going to be better. Than perhaps people thought. Thats a really good question, chris, because im turning my thoughts to what it is going to be like at the end of next week when the 13, 1a days of negotiations end, and you talk to the negotiators and you say what will you be discussing for the last week, and they say things like, you know that 100 billion promised from rich countries to poorer countries to help them with the transition to green . Thats meant to run out in 2025. We need to Start Talking about what will the process be for deciding what the next round of funding is going to be for the next five years. We need to look at article six in the Paris Agreement where we work out what are the legalities of the Carbon Permit Market going to be, and we also need to work out, oh, how do we calculate the different Risk Premiums for people building a climate resilient bridge. You think, you know what, that does not lead me to think theres going to be some kind of, like, 0lympic Style Closing Ceremony for borisjohnson to come in and do his spice girls by the end of next week. Amber, are you not worried this might end with a bit of a whimper . Having started with a big bang with all of the leaders here. No, because i think that, i i mean, something could go wrong, of course, but at the moment. That, too it might not. It might be bad. It feels like there is momentum going in the right direction. I dont think there will be i an olympic style ceremony like there was in paris with Laurent Fabius with his gavel poised when actually ecuador stopped the whole thing saying, we dont believe in markets, we are marxists. We had to redo it a bit. 0h, ecuador. Ecuador, alwaysl creating trouble. I dont think there will be that, but people will have their own wayl of looking at this to see if it is a success. But if you get people i like the iea saying this is good, we are on track for under two degrees. I if you get people like The Big Green organisations saying, i you know, we are not there yet but this is the right ambition, l then there will be evidence that we can say this is a success, but it isnt an opportunity to stop, | itsjust an opportunity to accelerate. Can ijust say, my own thing i will be lookingl for is sufficient evidence that the markets, the money, is going to continue to Fund Renewables and Carbon Capture storage, and all of the good. Things we need to industrialise countries in a green way. And i think a lot of the potential investors are looking at this saying, are there sufficient signals for us . Can we really rely on a newl green Industrial Revolution . And i think that confidence could really create a momentum for investment that would be really helpful. May i ask you a few domestic questions . Yes. If you look at all of these strategies that the government has come out with in the build up to this conference, which they basically had to do because if you are going to host this conference you have to be greener than green, nowhere does it say, i as an individual will have to do anything different. Is that credible, is that realistic . I think there is an awareness that this green Industrial Revolution, as the prime| minister calls it, is going to have certain costs. We are beginning to see from rishi sunaks last budget and spending review. That. Where hes going to get that. But i think the public kind of know there will be changes but i do think its not unreasonably a delicate balance for politicians here. They want to make sure they set the framework to get the outcome we all want i for lower carbon emissions, but nor do they want to scare the horses. | there is a famous phrase i sometimes refer to which is politicians know. What to do, theyjust dont know how to get re elected after theyve done it. So, we need to take everybody with us. I would you be comfortable, if you were a Cabinet Minister now, would you be comfortable if you were a Cabinet Minister full stop. If you were a Cabinet Minister now. Possibly not given who the Prime Minister is. Chuckles yeah. Especially if he was offering you a lift, famously. And saying to people, you need to eat less meat, actually you need to go for the vegan croissant that does not taste as nice as the Bacon Sandwich because the Scientists Say we are going to have to eat less meat. Would you be comfortable recommending to people thats what we do . No, i wouldnt. But would you do it nonetheless . Listen, when i was growing up there was one vegetarian restaurant around, i it was called cranks. Thats what people called people who were vegetarians, i am so sorry. Were you a patron . Its everywhere i hadnt considered my political career then. L last night i was at one of those nice dinners, | and i looked around and the man on my left and the man on my right were both having the vegetarian option. What were you having . Stea k. It actually looked a bit nicer than mine. I mayjust go vegetarian i because theres so much. It wasnt quite, but i dont think im going to confess| what it was. Venison having the vegetarian option. Bambi . Like having the green energy, its going to turn out to be the betterthing, not just the right thing. I amber, whilst i ponder what may or may not have been on your dinner plate last night, lets talk about the Prime Minister. You know him well from being in government, the brexit debate, and all the rest of it, lets talk about all things borisjohnson and green. Because he sounds like the greenest man since the last green activist you bumped into. The hulk. Yeah swamp thing. He hasnt always been like that. No, he hasnt. He has the zeal of the convert, and its great because those i of us who really do want this to happen have been talking| about it for a while. We can welcome it. You can sound a bit baffled sometimes but the fact im going to go to bed now because ive got to get up early tomorrow because im told we are going to get one of the first kind of good assessments of how successful cop26 has been already, because some people are staying up all night doing the calculations, working out all of the pledges. Thanks to amber. Thank you very much. I hope we have good news tomorrow, something to build up on. And goodbye to you two. Goodbye, adam, have a marvellous second week in our home city, looking glorious, and the Cop26 Organisers waiting very nervously for when it is going to rain on all of those people standing outside in queues for an hour and a half, but apparently theyve got lots of umbrellas, i heard yesterday. That is quite enough from two glaswegians. Goodbye, talk to you soon. Goodbye. Hello there. After the rather chilly conditions of the last few days, things are going to feel a little bit different as we head towards the weekend. Some milder weather in the forecast, but with that, quite a lot of Cloud Feeding in from the west. And for some of us through the weekend there is some wet and windy weather on the way. This warm front has been working its way southwards and eastwards, introducing more in the way of cloud, but also introducing a westerly wind, so that is bringing a milderfeel. A milder start to friday for many. The coldest conditions down towards the south and the east where the skies have remained clear. And thats where we will see the best of any sunshine through the morning. For many other places there is going to be a lot of cloud. That cloud, at times, producing some spots of light rain and drizzle. Especially over high ground in western scotland. We will hold onto a little bit of brightness at times across eastern scotland, north east england, parts of east wales, the midlands, and down towards the south east. And the temperatures a little higher than they have been. Double digits for almost all of us. 10 13 degrees at best. As we head through friday night, Bonfire Night of course, expect mild conditions, a lot of cloud, some spots of rain and drizzle, and then through the early hours of saturday, some heavier rain starting to push in towards the western side of scotland. There will be quite a mild start to the weekend. Seven, eight, nine, 10 degrees. But for saturday, while High Pressure will hold on down towards the south, low pressure is pushing close to the north of the uk, and this frontal system here will bring some outbreaks of quite heavy rain southwards and eastwards across scotland, and northern ireland. Some of that rain eventually getting down into North West England and north wales. Ahead of that, southern and eastern parts of england largely dry, but quite cloudy. Brightening up eventually up towards the northwest where it will also be turning very windy. But we stick with that milder theme 12 14 degrees. Now through Saturday Night as this area of low pressure passes close to northern scotland, notice the white lines, the isobars squeezing together. There will be a swathe of really strong winds. Quite widely it will be windy, but wind gusts could get up to 70 mph or even a touch more in the most exposed spots in northern scotland. But for sunday, we can expect more in the way of sunshine. Showers continuing in the far north where we keep a fairly brisk breeze. It will feel a little cooler by this stage, but still top temperatures of 10 13 degrees. Youre watching bbc news. Im rich preston. Our top stories more than a0 countries pledge to end the use of coal, but major producers, including the us, india and china, are not signed up to the agreement. A year on from the start of the war in ethiopia, the government claims to be on the brink of victory but tigrayan fighters are advancing towards the capital. The World Health Organization warns that europe is once again at the epicentre of the covid pandemic. And the uk becomes the first country in the world to approve an anti viral pill against coronavirus