the latest headlines on bbc news: at least 15 people are confirmed dead in wildfires in california's wine region. more than 150 others are missing — although that may be a result of the chaotic pace of evacuations. one of the worst affected towns is santa rosa where entire districts have been gutted. catalonia's president has signed a declaration of independence — but suspended secession to give space for dialogue with spain's central government. the independence referendum was illegal under spain's constitution, and the government in madrid immediately rejected his statements. it will hold an emergency cabinet meeting on wednesday. the hollywood producer harvey weinstein has now been accused of sexual harassment by some of hollywood's biggest stars — angelina jolie, gwyneth paltrow, and mira sorvino. and the italian film star asia argento and two other women claim he raped them — according to an investigation by the new yorker magazine. now it's time for a look back at the day in parliament. hello there and welcome

to tuesday in parliament. our round up of the day at westminster. coming up in the next half hour: ministers pledge to try to save jobs as defence manufacuturer, bae announces that nearly 2,000 workers could be under threat. the government will continue to work with bae systems to make sure that compulsory redundancies are kept to a minimum. meanwhile labour accuses the government of failing to act over the plight of workers in belfast whose jobs are at risk because of a trade dispute with the us. i fear that bombardier and everyone that depends on the firm is considered a fair price to deal for a post specs and deal with president trump. also on the programme: the parcel delivery firm, hermes, defends the way it employs its drivers. and a new mp wades into a row over parliamentary procedure. i didn't expect my new rule to be reduced to be a member

of a talking shop. but first: britain's leading defence manufacturer, bae systems, has announced plans to cut almost 2,000 jobs across england. 1,400 of the posts are going from its militaryjet business, with factories in lancashire and east yorkshire badly hit. the firm, which makes the eurofighter typhoon, is facing a drop in demand. the house should be absolutely clear that bae systems has taken this decision as a result of effectively normal business practice. it's a result of internal restructuring and a drive to transform its businesses so it can continue to be one of our most efficient and effective companies, generating export orders across the world. this is not related to any uk defence spending decisions. and thirdly, to answer the question... would the honourable... 7 forgive me, mr speaker. the honourable members can shout all they like but it was very striking, and i hope we do not bring politics into this. the loss of nearly 2000 highly

skilled jobs is nothing short of devastating for communities and local economies that have a proud history of defence manufacturing. but moreover if these redundancies go ahead there is a very real risk that these skills will be lost forever. with a knock—on impact for this country's long—term manufacturing capability. when bae systems says to the government that this is normal business practice, will the government reply to bae systems and remind them that they are not a normal business, because they enjoy a near monopoly position in many parts of the british defence procurement structure? the honourable gentleman is right to remind us that we spend almost £4 billion on procuring products and services from bae systems. but again i think it is important if we want to have a globally competitive, highly efficient bastion of success in this vital industry that we do allow the company to go

through its management processes. i'm afraid the minister really doesn't get it. because when the french or the americans or the russians pursue a contract it is a relentless whole of government process that they undertake, as indeed it was incidentally under the prime minister tony blair. so on behalf of the industry and the skilled workforce, will the government up its game and seek to secure new contracts, especially with saudi arabia and the gulf states? this is the latest evidence of the government failing to deliver on defence programmes. this is notjust about an export industry. this is about undermining skilled jobs. undermining our own defence industry and undermining the defence of the uk as a whole. it is somewhat concerning, if not a little bit peculiar,

that those who are standing up, notably representatives of the snp, to condemn these job losses, sing the praises of bae, yet support a policy of being opposed to all arms sales, notably to saudi arabia. anna soubry. well, a little later, labour accused the government of putting politics ahead of bombardier workers in northern ireland in an attempt to secure a post—brexit trade deal with the united states. canadian—owned multinational bombardier, which employs more than 4,000 people in belfast, has been hit by a proposed 80% levy on exports to the us, on top of a 220% tariff on its aircraft previously announced in a row over state aid. allegations about funding support from the canadian federal government and the government of the province of quebec for the c series. it also alleges that the uk's provision of £113 million, repayable investment funding,

committed to bombardier in 2009, to support the development of the composite wings, contravened trade rules. we strongly and robustly refute these allegations. i want to make the government's position very clear. we consider this action by boeing to be totally unjustified, to be unwarranted, and incompatible with the conduct that we would expect of a company with a long term business relationship with the united kingdom. he said he wouldn't rest until this "groundless action" was ended. labour was unimpressed. bombardier represent 8% of northern ireland's gdp, and about 40% of manufacturing output. the danger tojobs, the future of bombardier, and the northern irish economy, because of the decisions in the us, is very real. i fear that bombardier and everyone who depends on them are considered a fair price to pay for a post—brexit trade deal with president trump by this conservative government.

everybody in this house, both today and going forward, should be united behind the workforce and the management, not seeking to use this issue to score petty political points, or to use it as a battering ram against the government. our focus should be on the workers. that is what they want to see happen and want everyone united behind them. the dup's nigel dodds. theresa may has challenged public services over how they treat people of different races. the prime minister says institutions must explain or change any variations, as she released data on a new government website. it shows that unemployment for black, asian and minority ethnic people is now at nearly double the level for white britons. in the commons, the first secretary of state, outlined the purpose of the new website. the approach the government is taking is, explain or change. where significant disparities

between ethnic groups cannot be explained by wider factors we will commit ourselves to working with partners to change them. mr speaker, the audit provides an unprecedented degree of transparency into how ethnicity affects the experience of citizens. it will be a resource which tells us how well we are doing as a society in ensuring that all can thrive and prosper. i commend it to the house. the real uncomfortable truth is that the prime minister cannot pretend that she didn't know that there were in—built structural injustices before 2010. because she wrote to the then prime minister, saying, there is a real risk that women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, and older people, would be disproportionately affected by proposed cuts. 0ur prime minister, knowing full well that the damage that would be

caused by conservative cuts, the prime minister has done nothing but exacerbate the problem. far from tackling the burning injustices, she has added fuel to the fire. what we need is a government who is not afraid to act on the uncomfortable truths. the labour is that government in waiting. history has shown that positive change only happens under a labour government. and we are ready once again to deliver a fair and more equal society for the many and not the few. that the labour party has a view of the world in which people are permanent victims, that is not what this audit shows. their lack of transparency. their lack of ability to welcome the government's step that is welcomed by all the experts in the field, i think frankly reflects very badly on the labour party. we know what the problem is.

we know what is required to be done to address it. however, given the huge scope of the audit, will the first secretary inform the house as to what is proposed to ensure that there is consistency and a high level of monitoring across the areas covered? it is a very good point because it is clear, as i say, that there are different problems in different areas. that is why, as well as the individual actions of departments, there is an interministerial group, so departments can find out what other departments are doing, so that we can make sure that every department is responding in the way it should to the individual problems assessed in their area. of course the audit isn't a once—off event. these figures will be added to at all times. therefore as new problems emerge we will be able to take new policy responses, because this

will be a living document. what a load of sententious, vacuous guff. honestly. he should be ashamed. has he just taken over the department for circumlocution and the office of how not to do anything while pretending to do something? the honest truth is unless you do serious analytical work behind the statistics to check whether there is, whether this is just a matter of correlation or causation, there is no value to this work whatsoever. because mrs thatcher fell at the same time as marathons were changed to snickers, but i am not aware that there was any causal relationship between the two. chris byrant. now. mps have been taking evidence on the so—called gig economy from companies who use self—employed drivers and couriers. appearing at the business committee were executives from uber, deliveroo and hermes. ahead of the session mps had spoken in private to workers whose experiences were put to the firms. we had a witness earlier on today who has not taken a single days

holiday in ten years and once, whilst working sick, was told on the phone, courier is more important than he is. the parcel, sorry, the parcel is more important than he is. that is obvious news to me. and if true, it is not something that we would approve of. i am not sure that took place. i would be surprised if it was pre—the code of conduct. sorry, after that code of conduct was embedded. there is a chasm between what you are saying, and the life you are describing for the couriers, and the one we are hearing about. a complete chasm. with respect that is why couriers‘ testimony we have heard, there are 10,000—15,000 couriers providing services on a day—to—day basis for hermes and have done so for a number of years quite happily. i am very sorry to hear of this one instance. with regards to the holiday,

if the courier wants to take a holiday, and we pay premium above the national minimum wage, we believe, to allow couriers to be able to save for a holiday, if they wanted to take that, all they have to do is simply find another person to provide the services for them. if they cannot do that then we will use our list of cover couriers to assist. you say in cases of family emergency, bereavement, a sick child, the field team should meet every effort to assist the courier and ensure that they are covered for the round as arranged. a baby was born prematurely, they were rushed to hospital. their boss said, your contract is cancelled. the words were, the parcels come first. that conduct is not acceptable. as per the code of conduct which is no embedded, that would be a breach of the code of conduct by the field manager.

disciplinary measures. if it has happened in the past we apologise. the pressure of vastly expanding business puts pressure on people. we have assumed that couriers were being treated fairly throughout the network. it turns out, then some cases they were not. we accept that. we have taken meaningful steps to address that and make sure it does not happen again. the food delivery firm deliveroo explained why it used self—employed cyclists. the food delivery firm deliveroo explained why it used self—employed cyclists. 50% of our riders we know to be students, this is idealfor people

who have commitments like studies and outside of that want additional income. 66% of our riders work fewer than 15 hours a week. so this is the type of casual work that compliments a lifestyle elsewhere and that is what we want to ensure we can maintain into the future. the taxi hailing service uber said it could cope with directly employing drivers. that is something we could cope with, it would change the nature of the relationship we have with the drivers and that would probably mean we could exert more control over the relationship between us and the driver and that would look more like a traditional company, if you like. it would involve the setting of shifts, the paying of what looks more like a salary rather than keeping fares and things like that and that is how we would try to balance it. he also responded to the decision not to renew uber‘s london licence. i think we are all aware of the fact

that people use it and that weighs heavily on our response but hopefully we can address the concerns of tefl. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, alicia mccarthy. don't forget you can catch up on all the week's programmes via the bbc iplayer. the care quality commission, or cqc says england's health service is "straining at the seams" and faces a "precarious" future. it said so far the quality of nhs and council care has been maintained but warned standards were likely to drop. its annual report highlighted staffing and bed shortages, a falling number of nursing home beds, rising numbers not getting support for their social care needs, and an increase in detentions under the mental health act. in the lords a peer raised the findings with the minister. 1.2 million people are unpaid carers who are themselves over

the age of 65. this calls for radical fundamental response rather than the usual green paper, sums of money. it is not enough. this country faces a crisis of demographic change. what we are trying to do is put more funding in, use it to recruit more staff and raise quality now we have this national threshold and hopefully tried to decrease variation and then look for long—term solution that is going to solve this problem, and we've all been wandering around for the last 20 years. as a care providerfor the last 17 years, may i say to the noble lord what we need is to pay their staff a proper wage. so that they can have a life that is notjust about existing. my lords, i am told constantly that local councils are being given extra funding. it isn't trickling down to the providers.

i think there needs to be a serious look festival at the level of funding but also what we are entitled to pay care staff because with brexit around the corner we are going to need more of our own home—grown talent to provide those places. lady verma. well that cqc report and the state of england's nhs was raised earlier in the commons by the shadow health secretary. jonathan ashworth feared a winter health crisis was on the way. already over 80,000 elective operations have been cancelled, an increase on last year, a & e attendance is higher than last, so his bed occupancy and the cqc has warned that the system is straining at the seams. winter is coming, last week the tories made commitments in spending but not a penny act of the nhs. this winter will the nhs do worse than last year or can we be set for another crisis made in downing street. what the cqc actually said today is that the majority of health

and care systems across the nhs provide good or outstanding quality. the safety of care is going up and performance is improving. but he is right that we are always concerned about winter. let me tell him things happening visit to help prepare the nhs. £1 billion more going into the social care budget, a new programme for a & e departments, 2400 beds freed and increasing clinicians at call centres. let me remind him but our nhs is seeing 1800 more people every day with an four hours. that is something to celebrate. the health secretary, jeremy hunt. back in the lords, peers held their first big debate on the data protection bill. among other things it will give people new rights to require major social media platforms to delete information held about them at the age of 18 — and update data protection laws. we have three objectives.

first, with all this change we need to maintain trust. data must be secure with transparency over how it is used in a proportionate but rigorous enforcement of regime in place. secondly, we must support future trading relationships, the free flow of data across international boundaries, subject to safeguards must be allowed to continue. thirdly we must ensure that we continue to tackle crime in all its guises and protect national security. it will empower people to take control of their data. it will support uk businesses and organisations through the change. it will ensure that the uk is prepared for the future after we have left the eu. and most importantly it will make our data protection laws fit for the digital age in which an ever—increasing amount of data is being processed. messi the government claims the bill will bring our data—processing was up—to—date and ensure we can

remain assured that our data is safe as we move into a digital world. we will probe that assertion in committee over the next weeks, with particular reference to the needs of businesses to have certainty about the rules applied in this sector in the medium and long term, and the consumers, especially vulnerable people and children will be better supported and protected in this brave new digital world. overall the minister said the right things the governments amendment to an interrupt and flows of data buzzed brexit but this bill comprehensibly fails to set out clearly how it will deliver that outcome. the elephant in the room always in discussing a bill like this is how we get the balance right between protecting the freedoms and civil liberties which underpin our functioning liberal democracy while protecting that democracy from the various threats to our safety and well— being. the sophisticated use of lit technologies by terrorist groups

and organised crime means that we have to make a sober assessment about exactly what powers our police and security services need to combat the terrorist attack, stop the drug or people trafficker or the money—laundering. lord mcnally. a foreign office minister has told mps that the independence referendum in catalonia was illegal and was held in breach of the spanish constitution. an unofficial vote took place in the region over whether or not catalonia should break away from spain and become an independent country. but there was violence after the spanish government sent police to the region to try to stop the poll from taking place. over the weekend, 350,000 people gathered in barcelona to protest against independence from spain. they waved spanish and catalan flags and carried banners saying "together we are stronger". in a debate in westminster hall,

a conservative mp said the vote was an attempt to undermine the rule of law" — something which should not be understated. the reason it must not be understated is because the rule of law is the essential foundation of any democratic society. and it is not a hypothetical question but one of importance to the european union and to us all. summers said to me that if the events of catalonia had occurred further away, not a member of the eu, perhaps a poorer country, that politicians would have been on their feet, preaching democracy and democratic values at those people. the silence from so many eu leaders is extremely concerning. surely in this parliament we must be careful about taking sides on this. this is essentially a matter for the spanish government to resolve with the catalans and it does look as if there's goodwill on both sides and we must urge both sides to reach a peaceful settlement. geoffrey clifton brown.

some mps have claimed that the commons is being reduced to little more than a talking—shop. the accusations came during an emergency debate on ministers‘ approach to parliament. there have been reports that the government didn't intend to participate in non—binding votes on 0pposition days. last month, conservative mps abstained in a vote on health service pay. a former whip — or business manager — explained the government's thinking. the debate is about what constitutes a fair pay rise, what is affordable. but to think we were going to fall into the trap of voting against a motion that would enable a lot of labour mps to put out leaflets saying that we were against a pay rise, they are playing a political game. we know what the game is. i'm going to be very fair comme mr speaker. it is what we would do if we were in their position! it is not ourjob to fall into that trap and make their life easy for them. 0urjob is to get on with governing and make the right decisions which is what we did.

i am a new mp. i am still learning my way around but i did not expect my new role to be reduced to being a member of a talking shop. does he not agree that not allowing a vote on the opposition debate reflects the deep disregard for parliamentary democracy? the government is going to stop behaving arrogantly, except its minority status with a bit of humility. it went to the people a few short months ago to ask for a mandate, to ask for an increase in its majority, that's what they did, taking advantage of what they saw as a crisis in the labour party. what happened? it came back as a minority. it lost its majority. so maybe responding with less arrogance and more humility would do the some good when it's like this. by having the secretaries of state to open the debates and senior ministers to close the debates, taking into account the views expressed and listening to those whose expressed,

it cannot possibly be the case that the opposition can require the government benches to vote against a motion in order to prove that they were listening. what a daft thesis. the leader of the commons, andrea leadsom. and that's it from me for now, but do join me at the same time tomorrow for another round up of the day here at westminster, including highlights from prime minister's questions. but for now from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye. hello there. is shaping up to be very wet wednesday indeed for some parts of

the country, particularly up towards the country, particularly up towards the north and the west. some heavy rain, some strong winds as well, courtesy of a slow—moving weather front. you can get that across west wales to start the morning. across the south—west of england, just a few spots of rain here and that, and are largely dry start across the south—east up into east anglia. there will be a fair amount of cloud, but some hazy sunshine. it will be breezy, temperatures around 14 degrees. some brightness up across the midlands and north east england, also some bright skies to start the day across northern parts of scotland, but with some hefty showers from the word go, some heavy rain there across the south—west of scotland. rain for a time thinking southwards and eastwards across northern ireland, 14 degrees in belfast. a pretty mild start to the day. the wettest weather, though, will be across the hills of north wales and north—west england. now, in some of these areas as we go

through wednesday, over the whole day we could record 50 millimetres to 100 millimetres, or even a touch more, over some of the hills of cumbria. so that could well be enough to give some issues of localised flooding. that rain will be blown in on this strong south—westerly wind. you could see gales and exposed spots. largely dry down to the south—east, but generally fairly cloudy. could be the odd spot of rain. further north and west, brighter skies. the odd spot of rain. further north and west, brighterskies. sunshine but some heavy showers at times in temperatures of 14 to 17 degrees. this is slow—moving band of rain cleared out of the way by wednesday night and by thursday we will see clear spells, showers into the north—west. quite the breezy night, but even so it could turn quite chilly out there, especially in some spots in the countryside down towards the south. but first a nice looking dave the most part. we will see some spells of sunshine, marched driver parts of north england and north wales. figure cloud for england later in the day and some outbreaks of rain and highs of 12 to 17 degrees. wet and windy weather will return to the north—west during friday. very soggy for some of these hills and north—west england and

perhaps south—west scotland. notice, though, down to the south—east. with a bit of brightness you could well get those temperatures up to around 20 degrees. and as we head towards the weekend, that is a theme that will continue. warm air wafting up from the south. could get to 23 in the south. kulda to the north—west, with some rain. —— cooler to the north—west. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: deadly wildfires rage on across the wine region region of california. at least 15 people have been killed. catalonia's president signs a declaration of independence, but the spanish government dismisses his offer of talks. fresh allegations against harvey weinsten the hollywood producer denies claims he raped three women. it's the ultra—stinky fruit which is loved and loathed in equal measure.

now scientists reveal the secret behind the durian‘s overpowering aroma.