light years away. three of the planets are within what's considered to be the "habitable zone," where surface water might exist and therefore life may be possible. transgender rights advocates say the guidelines were necessary of homeland security, john kelly, have arrived in mexico for talks on the proposed border wall and the deportation of undocumented immigrants. tensions are high, with the two countries facing their most serious rift for years. now on bbc news, a look at wednesday in parliament. hello and welcome to wednesday in parliament.

the main news from westminster: the labour leader says the government has put england's nhs and social care in a state of emergency. we need a government that puts the nhs first, and will invest in our nhs. but the prime minister says labour policies would leave no money to pay for anything. that doesn't help doctors and nurses, it doesn't help patients, it doesn't help the nhs, and it doesn't help ordinary, working families up and down this country. also on the programme: the local government secretary says he understands only too well the pain caused by increases to business rates. growing up above the family shop, i saw for myself the impact an increase in rates can have on small businesses. a rise in the costs lowered the mood of the whole family. even as a child, i knew it wasn't good when i found a stack of bright red final reminders hidden away

at the back of the drawer. a fortnight ago, the labour leader jeremy corbyn sprang a surprise on theresa may at prime minister's questions. he read out leaked text messages which, he said, indicated the government had offered surrey county council a special deal to fund social care. his remarks were widely reported, and the department for local government spent the day rejecting the assertions. at the latest session of pmqs, mr corbyn returned to the same territory, saying that the government had put health and social care in a "state of emergency". her friend, the tory chair of the local government association, lord porter, has said, and i quote: extra council tax income will not bring in anywhere near enough money to alleviate the growing pressure on social care. two weeks ago, we found out about the sweetheart deal with tory surrey. when will the other 151 social services departments in england get the same as the surrey deal? the right honourable gentleman

refers to the questions he asked me about surrey county council two weeks ago. those claims were utterly destroyed the same afternoon. so rather than asking the same question, he should stand up and apologise. mr speaker... mr speaker, far from apologising, it's the prime minister who ought to be reading her correspondence and answering the letter from 62 council leaders, representing social services authorities, who want to know if they're going to get the same deal as surrey, as they are grappling with the crisis which has left over a million people not getting

the social care they need. theresa may insisted it was her conservative government that was putting extra funding into the nhs. i remind the right honourable gentleman that we are spending1.3 billion more on the nhs this year than labour planned to do if they'd won the election. let's just look at what's happening in the nhs. we have 1800 more midwives in the nhs than 2010. we have more people being seen in accident and emergency since 2010. we have more operations taking place every week in the national health our national health service staff are working hard,

they're providing a quality of care for patients up and down the country. what they don't need is a labour party policy that leads to a bankrupt economy, because labour's policy is that you spend money on everything, which means you bankrupt the economy, and have no money to spend on anything. that doesn't help doctors and nurses, it doesn't help patients, it doesn't help the nhs, and it doesn't help ordinary, working families up and down this country. her government has put the nhs and social care in a state of emergency. nine out of ten nhs trusts are unsafe. 18,000 patients a week are waiting... mr speaker, i repeat the figure — 18,000 patients a week are waiting on trolleys in hospital corridors. we need a government that puts the nhs first, and will invest in our nhs. first of all, i have to say to the right honourable gentleman, that he should consider correcting the record. because 54% of hospital trusts are considered good or outstanding. quite different from the figure he has shown.

secondly, iwill take no lessons on the nhs... oh, the deputy leader of the labour party says we should take lessons on the nhs. i won't take any lessons from the party that presided over mid staffs hospital. remember labour used to talk about boom and bust? now it's no longer boom and bust, it's borrow and bankrupt. representatives of international children's charities have strongly criticised the decision to wind down the scheme to give sanctuary to lone child refugees. the government says the arrangement is acting as an incentive for children in warzones to make dangerous sea crossings to europe. the home affairs committee is investigating the issue. when the dubs scheme was first announced, it was very clearly about targeting the most vulnerable children, and we thought that was absolutely

the right thing to do. it makes very little sense to us that the scheme would be cancelled now, when we know there are still 2500 unaccompanied children in greece, ten times as many in italy and many others across europe. we are very disappointed that the dubs scheme has closed. we would like the dubs scheme to remain open and remain as a safe and legal route for unaccompanied child refugees that are in europe to seek sanctury in the uk. i think the impact we have seen of the closure, and some of the confusion around what has been going on is quite severe. to take a handful of local authorities, in lewisham, they've offered 23 places for unaccompanied minors, only one of those has been filled since that offer was made. also aware of the real disjuncture between the national transfer scheme and the devolved administrations in scotland and wales, and if the dubs provision is conflated with the national transfer scheme, it denies those nations the opportunity to make a full contribution we believe they desire to. when a country that's as capable and relatively wealthy as the uk — the fifth—largest economy

in the world, a country that has real expertise in child protection, that has real expertise in our staff at the home office — when a country like ours is seen to close the door in the face of child refugees and refuse to help, it is really noticed by other countries in the world. the government has said that one of their reasons for closing the dubs scheme is because they think it was increasing the pull factor, that it was increasing the risk of children becoming involved in trafficking. if there is ever some very strong evidence to suggest that this kind of scheme or any one like it was doing harm by encouraging children to make dangerous journeys, then we would have a problem with that too. for that reason, we accepted the need for a date cutoff point when we first had the scheme announced. i think there is very little evidence in this particular context that a scheme like dubs

would act as a pull factor. there is evidence that safe and legal routes protect children, and the question we should be asking ourselves is, what intervention is most likely to make children safe? and we have evidence that a route to safety is that intervention, so that's what we should pursue. you spoke earlier on — forgive me, i didn't make detailed enough notes — about what capacity you felt that there was within local authories, because, unfortunately it tends to contradict what we're told when local authorities tell us that they don't have the capacity, that they already have children in care that they need to find homes for. if lewisham has 22 spaces going, and only 150 children are proposed to be resettled through the entire dubs programme, in its entirety, that's a very significant proportion to go tojust one london borough.

government representatives. it is almost chicken and egg about capacity. if they dubs scheme continues, do you think local councils could offer more? we have been clear that support is contingent upon resourcing. we had been it clear that councils across the country are under pressure, and want to know that commitment to taking in a refugee child doesn't mean that they can't make a responsibility to another child in the area. that message has been very clear. the uk's former ambassador to the european union has warned mps that the eu will want to play hardball with the uk over brexit and could refuse to strike a free trade deal unless the uk contributes to the brussels budget. sir ivan rogers — who quit injanuary — was making his second

appearance this year before a commons committee. the budgetary issue now comes to the fore, and i think we can expect a number of them to think, well, if the british want a future trade deal, and they want some sort of transitional arrangements before a future trade deal — all big ifs — then this will come together at some gory european council in the autumn of 2018, and will come together in the money equation. and there will be some who want to play hardball and say, well, absent british money over a transitional period, why the hell should we give them any trade deal? i'm not saying that's a majority view, i wouldn't be in a position from my discussions before christmas to know exactly where people will come out on that. it was very early days there, pre—christmas. all i was conscious of from the discussions i was having with opposite numbers was that there was a hell of a lot of work going on in the undergrowth to examine the implications

of the uk exiting on the budget. sir ivan also said that the eu was unlikely to agree specific deals for certain industries. they will be very loath to have individual sectoral deals done legally and ratified, unless it's all agreed. the age—old brussels mantra of nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. they will think, rightly or wrongly, that we'll care most passionately about financial services, maybe automotive, and therefore, unless and until they've got other things that they want, out of us on various other areas, which may include money, they ain't going to sign on the dotted line for any full—blown equivilancy agreement on financial services which gives us what we're looking for. we have precisely the sort of problem that exists in every other international agreement, but that's the issue... yes, but we have enormously valuable and competitive services sector, sector, with a huge surplus, where we risk being screwed if we don't get this right. this is a very serious problem unless we get a bespoke financial services deal with equivalence that really works for us. i agree with you, then that comes to the government's arrangement.

but this would be something that the eu 27 have not done for any other partner. it didn't do that for the states, it hasn't been prepared to do it for any other partner. so we would have to say of our financial services, we're big, you need access to us, access to finance on good terms, there's a massive interest for you still having london as a centre within our time zone. but we need a totally different type of agreement with you than any that has previously been negotiated. the government has recently cut the funding for an ethiopian girl band, saying there were more effective way" to invest uk aid. the international development secretary, priti patel, reviewed the funding after reports that the group had received millions from uk taxpayers. her decision was raised at question time in the house of lords. popular culture is used to tackle difficult issues because it works. for example, many in this house will be familiar with the archers, the storyline of domestic abuse endured by helen archer resulted in a 20% increase in calls to the domestic abuse helpline. the very popular ethiopian

girlgroup yegna, dubbed the ethiopian spice girls by the daily mail, reaches 8.5 million people and helps transform the lives of some of the hardest to reach and most disadvantaged girls in the world. so may i ask the minister why, when faced by attacks from the daily mail, did the secretary of state withdraw funding from this multi—a—rated project? the decision was taken, as mentioned earlier, because it was deemed there were other things that were more effective that the money could be spent on. there is another programme operating in ethiopia aimed at child marriage, which is the end child marriage. it focuses more on rural areas that the girl effect project wasn't reaching. and it was deemed more effective because it worked directly

with the communities concerned. now, girl effect is going to continue, we're not going to continue to fund it, because we're going to send the money elsewhere, but we hope that it will continue and we acknowledge that it did some good work whilst it was there. my lords, was thatjudgment made after the daily mail had run its campaign or before? well... you know, the review... the review which took place was actually begun before that process. we undertake an absolute review of how taxpayers' money is being spent to make sure it gets full value for money. and that is a very important thing, because if we don't do things like that, then announcements such as that which were made by the secretary of state this morning, announcing £200 million in urgent humanitarian aid, saving millions of lives, in somalia and in south sudan, would not be possible. you're watching wednesday in parliament with me, christina cooper.

back to pmqs, where theresa may was tackled over increases in business rates in england and wales. new rates will come into force in april — following an assessment of the rateable value of business properties such as shops and offices. the prime minister hinted at the prospect of special arrangements for businesses facing large rises. the government's business rates hike could devastate the local economy in my constituency. brighton pier is facing a 17% increase, the world?s end pub a 123% increase, and blanch house hotel a 400% increase. does the prime minister recognise that brighton will be will she urgently set up a discretionary fund to support small and micro—businesses, and agree to a full review of the whole system? if we just stand back, we can see that business rates are based on the rental values of properties.

those values change over time, they can go up and dow, and it is right that business rates change to recognise that. that is the principle of fairness that underpins the business rates system. however, we also want to support businesses and we recognise that, for some, business rates will go up when the revaluations take place. that is why we have put significant funding in place for transitional relief. i recognise that there has been particular concern that some small businesses will be adversely affected as the result of this revaluation, and that is why i have asked the chancellor and the communities secretary to ensure that there is appropriate relief in those hardest cases. cash for local councils in england was the main business in the commons for the rest of the day. the local government secretary sajid javid said he understood how it felt to face higher business rate bills.

and he promised more support in next month's budget. growing up above the family shop, i saw the impact that an increase in rates can have on small businesses. a rise in the cost lowered the mood of the whole family. even as a child, i knew that it was not good when i found a stack of bright red final reminders hidden away at the back of a drawer. my dad was never shy about sharing what he thought of out—of—town retail parks and how they took customers away from his shop