1,000 british troops havejoined recovery efforts in the cariibbean, where thousands of people have been left homeless by hurricane irma. there has been criticism over the slow response. the foreign secretary, borisjohnson, says an "unprecedented" uk aid effort is now under way. the united nations security council is to discuss the persecution of rohingya people in myanmar. almost 400,000 refugees have poured across the border into bangladesh since the end of august. the prime minister of bangladesh has called on myanmar to take them back. north korea has threatened the us with the "greatest pain" after new sanctions were imposed by the united nations. action came after pynogyang carried out its sixth and largest nuclear test. russia and china have called on the us to resolve the crisis with negotiations. now it's time for a look back at the day in parliament. hello and welcome to

tuesday in parliament. the main news from westminster. hurricane irma has affected 500,000 british people, a minister says the government is working round the clock to help them. hundred of dedicated british public servants are doing their utmost to help and they will not relent in their efforts. but compared to other countries, has the uk done too little, too late? it is the british who are left stuck with the only commercial plane services available charging extortionate rates to get them out. also on the programme. the culture secretary is referring 21st century fox's planned takeover of sky to the competition watchdog. and nice work if you can get it! condemnation of big pay packets for university bosses. should we not collectively,

irrespective of party in this house, condemn this kind of approach and remind our vice—chancellors thatuniversities are a team effort. but first, the foreign office minister, sir alan duncan, has rejected criticism of the government's efforts to help british people affected by hurricane irma. he said hundreds of british public servants were doing their utmost to provide relief. and now, the uk's largest warship in service, hms 0cean, was on its way. the hurricane has caused destruction across the caribbean and in florida, an area spanning over 1,000 miles. british overseas territories devastated by the hurricane include the british virgin islands, where five people have died, and anguila, where four people have lost their lives. the minister said that over half a million british nationals, either residents or tourists, had been in the path of hurricane irma. he told mps the government had

planned for the hurricane season, sending a ship to the area two months ago. in addition to the normal crew, the government also ensured that a special disaster relief team, consisting of a0 royal marines and army personnel, was also on board. this prepositioning of one of our most versatile national assets, along with an extra compliment of highly skilled personnel, allowed the relief effort to begin immediately after the hurricane had passed. over the course of friday and saturday, the government despatched four aircraft carrying military personnel and emergency supplies. this steady tempo of relief lights has been sustained and yesterday it included a voyager and a c—17 and i can assure the house this will continue for as long as required. we should all be humble in the face of the power of nature and whatever relief we are able to provide will not be enough for many who have lost so much. but hundreds of dedicated british public servants are doing their utmost to help and they will not relent in their efforts.

here, here. the speaker: emily thornberry. thank you, mr speaker. let me thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. let mejoin him in commending those british personnel who're playing such typically superlative part in leading the relief effort. let mejoin him in sending my thoughts and those of everyone in this house to those individuals in the british overseas territories and beyond who have lost their lives as a result of this hurricane and with tens of thousands more who have lost their homes and their livelihoods in its terrible wake. but she said the government had been criticised for doing too little, too late. it is alarming to many of those across this house that almost a week has gone by and he's still talking about the potential evacuation of british citizens and even then only the most vulnerable. by contrast across the islands we hear the same accounts that the french, dutch and american

governments have swiftly evacuated their citizens, but it is the british who are left stuck with the only commercial plane services available charging extortionate rates to get them out. and the security situation was deteriorating. a young british citizens should be considered vulnerable, so can the minister clarify for the house when can all british citizens who want to be evacuated expect to be evacuated? and what is the government doing in the meantime to guarantee their safety, their shelter and their security? the minister said he was "sorry" to hear those criticisms. i'm afraid, i wholeheartedly or comprehensively reject her criticisms, i think they are unjustified. it is inevitable that when people are in distress they will of course want more, but it's essential to appreciate that when there are half a million people hit by a hurricane you cannot evacuate half a million people. what you have to do, particularly to those who wish to reside in the countries in which they permanently live, is to bring them help and of course the reconstruction she's mentioned. but he said there had been a serious threat of law and order breaking

down completely on the british virgin islands. for instance on st martins the prison was breached. over 100 very serious prisoners escaped. so what we had to contend with, this is what ministers and mod are for, was to cope with the threat that followed from that. and so on friday we put some marines of hms mounts bay, or royal auxiliary ship mounts bay to protect the governor and everything else about law and order. i'm pleased to say that, 24—hours later or 48—hours later, we have been able to significantly reinforce the marines. we thank and welcome more than 700 british troops and 50 police officers have been sent to the british virgin islands after they were battered by the most powerful storm recorded in addition, 20 tonnes of aid and £32 million

is a start million is a start, but there must be more and we must ask the foreign secretary to provide details of additional help to come. however, mr speaker, this is too little and too late. there is real concern about the lack of preparedness by the uk government in responding to the hurricane. the severity of hurricane irma had been predicted and there was time to prepare, but the uk government did not do so. the minister should know that my constituents, christine and tony, they are in their early and late 70s, have been stranded on st martin now since the hurricane. desperately worried family here in britain. they're running out of water, no electricity running out of food. there's been very little news about what positive action is going to help this couple. the minister replied that older people who were running out of food were being put high on the priority list for help. the culture secretary is referring 21st century fox's planned takeover of sky to the competition watchdog for further investigation. rupert murdoch has bid £11.7 billion to take full control of the broadcaster.

in a statement to the commons, karen bradley confirmed she wants the cma to look more closely at the bid on the grounds of media plurality. she also told mps she was now "minded" to have the merger‘s impact on broadcasting standards examined. turning first to the question of media plurality, i can confirm that none of the representations received have persuaded me to change my position. accordingly, i can confirm my intention to make a referral on the media purality ground to the cma. turning now to commitment on broadcasting standards. over the summer, my officials reviewed the almost 43,000 representations received, a significant majority of these were campaign inspired arguing against the medium—termer going ahead, but generally without providing new or further evidence or commenting on 0fcom's approach. 0verall, only 30 of the 43,000 representations were substantive, raising potentially new evidence or commenting on 0fcom's approach. almost all were related to the question of commitment to broadcasting standards. i have taken careful account of all relevant representations and 0fcom's advice and have today,

as required by the legislation, written to the parties to inform them that i'm now minded to refer the merger to the cma on the grounds of genuine commitment to broadcasting standards. her decision was welcomed by labour. it's the first time a minister in the current government has ever stood in the way of what the murdochs‘ want and, frankly, not before time. so well done. and, as i they say in the black country, she's a good'un. but he was critical of the broadcast regulator 0fcom, concerns about fox should have been obvious to it. the murdochs‘ that have a long history of regulatory non—compliance and of corporate governance failure.

just last week, fox itself recognised its only own failure to comply with broadcasting standards when it pulled fox news which has breached 0fcom's rules again and again from the uk. and he said phone—hacking claims were still being settled. this is alongside the ongoing sexual and racial harassment scandal at fox news, part of 21st century fox's empire. ...broadcasting standards, licence holders, fit and proper persons are taking by the appropriate independent regulatory body and it shouldn't be for politicians to exercise discretion about who they think should or shouldn't hold licences, but it should be for official guidance for the regulator. she acknowledges rightly that there is growing public concern about the concentration of media ownership in fewer and fewer hands, concerns that we on these benches share absolutely. it's essential there is a purality of voice within the media across the uk.

can she reassure us that if the cma does do this inquiry she's now minded to do, it will be a comprehensive look. the first time i think this has happened at the murdochs disgraceful record in relation to news and indeed broadcasting, from the news of the world to fox news to sky news australia and, crucially, it will look at the issue of corporate governance, which is something she flagged up in her letter to 0fcom, something i don't think they looked at properly and i think does need to be looked as it relates to broadcasting standards. i'd end by saying this, she's done herjob today. it's now for the cma to do theirs. during those exchanges, karen bradley asked tom watson if he would join her in condemning the activities of what she described as "some very left wing activists" over the summer. people who have spent the summer walking round my constituency wearing my face mask with big electronic a boards that they not only pursued me around town with, but they actually went and found my family who live outside my constituency and went and protested there.

i'm taking this decision on the basis of evidence, not on the basis of any campaign, intimidation or harassment. i'm very sorry to hear the allegations the secretary of state has made and i promise her i will go away and look and look at the evidence. if there are labour party members involved in this, we will deal with them. please let me just say to her that i've been as sickened as she has with the way our colleagues in this house have been targeted for doing theirjobs and it is a loaded that is carried, a heavier load that is carried by our female colleagues. let me make it clear, you can either be a misogynist or you can be a member of the labour party, but you can't be both. if she gives me the evidence, we'll deal with it. university bosses on big salaries have been told to show some restraint. dozens of vice chancellors

are earning over £300,000 a year while some have salaries of over £400,000. ministers say they don't want to set a pay cap, but insist that "exceptional pay must be justified by exceptional performance." paraphrasing what the prime minister said, that industry fat cats were the unacceptable face of capitalism, would the minister not consider that some vice—chancellors are the unacceptable face of education? well, i think there's a mood in the country and there's been a lot of interest in the press about vice—chancellors‘ pay, that is an obvious point to make. but can i say, as a result of the work that we've done in this house, particularly on the higher education research bill, we have empowered,

we are empowering, the new office for students to act to be sure that value—for—money is given in terms of focussing on senior staff pay. the government has had a similar scheme in operation for civil servants, so that her majesty's treasury has to give approval to any salary that is above the £150,000 threshold. my lords, the figures published by the government, in december 2016, show hundreds of civil servants earning above the threshold. the point i put to the noble lord, the minister, is — can he really be certain that the measures announced are actually going to be effective? we believe it's absolutely the right course to take and can i say again that universities need to be good stewards of their resources. they need to manage in a responsible manner, there needs to be strong leadership and it's important that vice—chancellors pay is restrained. if universities are indeed autonomous and we have in this country some of the finest in the world, and we should be proud of that, surely we should not be publishing naming and shaming lists, but rather lists of those to whom the whole community owes something for the excellence they demonstrate. it is not the job of government, i put it to my noble friend, to meddle in these things. well, we don't believe that we are actually meddling,

what we're doing is we're setting down the framework of how we are encouraging universities to operate. is it not lamentable — i speak as a former vice—chancellor — that many vice—chancellors use their defence through a kind of cult of personality, with themselves as global superstars at a time when the average university lectures pay has been very poor, that many of them find it very difficult in terms of professional mobility, in terms of housing, when the unit of resource per student is going down and when many lecturers are being made redundant. should we not collectively, irrespective of party in this house, condemn this kind of approach and remind our vice—chancellors that universities are a team effort. that they depend on morale and that the inculcation of values in which everyone can believe. here, here.

you're watching tuesday in parliament, with me, kristiina cooper. mps across the political spectrum are urging the government to keep to its word and introduce legislation giving parents who have lost a child the right to paid leave to give them time to grieve. the government announced in july that it would support a private members‘ bill but mps want reassurance that it will get through parliament. the debate was called by paul masterton, a member of the all party parliamentary group or appg for children who need palliative care. the appg for children who need palliative care was therefore quite concerned that bereavement leave was not referenced explicitly in the queen's speech and the initial driver in looking to host this debate was to obtain assurance from the government today

that it has not been lost in the fray. gladly, that has somewhat been superseded by the announcement that the government intends to support the private members‘ bill you're watching tuesday in parliament, with me, kristiina cooper. if you are to suffer a stillbirth, which we did, you have two weeks as a parent, as a father or regular maternity leave as a mother, you have that time in order to grieve, to come to terms with what hasjust happened. but if you lose a child after six months, you don't have that right. you don't have any right to paid leave and although there are so many and in fact the vast majority of employers up and down this country are excellent employers that act with compassion and kindness and understanding when one of their employees loses a child, sadly there are employers out there who don't act with compassion. patricia gibson, whose son was stillborn, said time to grieve should not been left to the goodwill of employers. no one can adequately describe what it's like

to bury their own child. it goes, as the honourable member for strangford pointed out, it goes completely against the natural order of things. the numbness, the sense that the world has ended, the inability in the midst of that shock to comprehend how the world can possibly continue to turn and go about its business. and the loss of a child cannot be quantified by a set period of time, but the law must do what it can to create some kind of statutory space to grieve. for myself, i spent months unable to leave the house and lost interest in the world. eating became a thing that had to be done, not something that you wanted to do. every morsel that you put

in your mouth is a struggle and many parents that have been through this will identify with it. and, yes, the loss of a child can often give way to thoughts of suicide for parents. after all, the entire future that you envisaged for yourself has changed irrevocably and only a gaping shadow of grief that will stay with you forever seems to be left. the minister was moved by patricia gibson's speech. the loss of a child or baby is the worst form of bereavement, i think, that a human can suffer. and it consigns most sufferers to a lifetime of grief which at best, if they are fortunate over time, they learn to live with and this was powerfully put by the honourable lady for north ayrshire in a speech of great impact, i must say. and she reassured mps the government remained committed to supporting the private members‘ bill. now, if britain enters into a transitional arrangement with the eu before a full brexit takes place, what would that interim deal look like? over the summer, there appeared to be different opinions among cabinet ministers on how freedom of movement would work. a lords committee has been questioning the chancellor, philip hammond, about his views. it would be very helpful, i think, if you

could clarify what the government‘s policy is in relation to the movement of people and in particular in relation to the transition period that you think would be necessary to get from where we are now to where you might think we would want to be in three or four years‘ time. the home secretary during the summer, i think late july, made a clear statement that she envisaged that during the transition period, eu nationals would continue to be able to come to the uk on the same basis that they do now. but with the additional requirement, which is provided for in eu law, that they would be required to register with the authorities so we have a record of which eu nationals are here. it‘s not true that the new regime would start in march 2019? there will be a transitional period? so the government's made it clear that its aspiration is to negotiate a transitional or interim period.

now, that of course has to be negotiated, so that is an aspiration. the government‘s policy is you want a transitional period, it has to be long enough to allow for firms to adopt it and initially it will look very much like what we‘ve got to day, save that people would have to register? in terms of migration, that is what the home secretary said injuly. there is general agreement that it would not make sense to ask business to face two sets of changes. that implies that a transition or interim period would need to look a lot like the current status quo, otherwise business will be making one set of changes at the beginning of the interim period and another set of changes towards the end of it. if the conditions which we negotiate with india or australia or anywhere else for that matter look to be more generous than those that apply to the european union,

do you think that would be compatible with the agreement that we have with the european union? well, it depends what the agreement we make with the european union is. i mean, it is possible in a negotiated solution to seek to impose some kind of most—favoured—nation type provision that says, you know, no one else will get a better deal than i've got. i don't think it will be a big issue and i would also find it quite unlikely that we would in practice be expecting to negotiate significantly more liberal migration agreements with third countries than with our nearest neighbours. discussion then turned to the issue of the border between ireland and northern ireland.

how can, in the longer term, once we‘re through the transition, can something be as frictionless as it is now? i heard the secretary for brexit going on about all sorts of new technology which i think a couple of days later he said probably wouldn‘t work, but ijust don‘t understand how you can get a better deal than you‘ve got now on the frictionless aspect of trading goods and services. i don't think we've suggested in the paper we published a few weeks ago — three weeks ago i think it was — i don't think we've suggested that we would necessarily expect that the border would be completely frictionless, but we will be seeking the lowest possible level of friction at the border which is compatible with our other aspirations for an end state settlement. meanwhile, there was a breaking news moment at the start of the session. i understand that you have an announcement that you'd like to make to the committee. if it is your wish, i can share with you hot off the press news

that the budget will take place on the 22nd of november. excellent. which makes this meeting very timely. the clerk and i had a small wager on the date and she'sjust lost 50p. as the chancellor was announcing the date of his next budget, mps were debating the finance bill which will put some of his previous budget measures, announced in march, into law. the bill picks up parts of the budget that had to be postponed because of the snap election earlier this year. we‘ve heard worries voiced about the lack of certainty in the brexit negotiations and what it means for the public finances, we‘ve heard members reference the challenging demographic and technological changes that face our nation, and yet we have a bill before us that really has nothing to say about any of this. when i was talking to residents of my constituency during the eu referendum, there were specific concerns from leave voters especially on immigration and about sovereignty, but more than anything else, it was the sense of the current anger at a sense

of post—industrial decline that they had witnessed and lived through that animated many of the leave voters in my area. the benches opposite suggest that our strategy to keep tax competitive in some way undermines our absolute commitment to world—class public services. that lower taxes somehow mean less investment in hospitals, schools and our emergency services, but what we know on this side of the house is that only through a strong, growing and dynamic economy can we afford the vital public services that our country needs. there had been rumours of parliamentary shenanigans with conservative mps ready to talk about the finance bill until late into the evening, but in the end, mps voted to give the bill a second reading, the first parliamentary hurdle, shortly after eight o‘clock. well, that‘s it from tuesday in parliament, but do join me at the same time tomorrow. until then, from me, kristiina cooper, goodbye.

hello once again. storm eileen is set to dominate our weather for the next few hours across the british isles and as a consequence the met 0ffice have this amber warning in force for the strength of the wind. anywhere to the south of its centre could well see a gust of wind around 50 not 60 mph. if things really come together in exposed locations across the north wales, perhaps into the north of england, here we could see a gust of wind up to around 75 mph. zero of the centre and in the central south rain an additional hazard, some areas could see a couple of inches or so before the

storm is done with us. there‘s the potential there for significant disruption, the source and the strength of the wind could bring down trees and power lines. eventually the storm moves off into the zero c, the strength of the rain in eastern side of scotland and north—east england... welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. i‘m ben bland. our top stories: struggling to get the power back on and an urgency to rebuild after hurricane irma. 1,000 british troopsjoin recovery efforts in the caribbean. everyone here is telling us the same thing. tourism is the lifeblood of these communities, and without it, these communities, and without it, the suffering will continue. bangladesh says it‘s overwhelmed by rohingya refugees. the prime minister calls on myanmar to take them back. we have a special report from the border. a small fortune. apple rolls out its latest gadgets. but if you want the top of the line iphone, you‘d better get ready to pay for it.

also in the programme: tributes to sir peter hall,one of the giants of british theatre, who‘s died at the age of 86.