and campaigner meghan markle in the spring. the prince proposed to his girlfriend of 18 months over dinner earlier this month. buckingham palace has announced that the queen and duke of edinburgh are "delighted for the couple" and wish them every happiness. pope francis has met myanmar‘s military chief on the first papal visit to a country widely accused of the ethnic cleansing of rohingya muslims. general min aung hlaing has claimed there is no religious discrimination in myanmar. officials are watching closely to see whether the pope even uses the word rohingya. they've warned him not to. the bbc has spoken to young rohingya girls who've become victims of sexual exploitation as refugees in bangladesh. more than 600,000 rohingya muslims have now fled violence across the border from neighbouring myanmar. just gone 2:30am, it's time to look back at monday in parliament. hello and welcome to monday

in parliament, our look at the best of the day in the commons and the lords. on this programme: fresh out of the blocks. the new defence secretary takes aim at labour. a party whose leader doesn't believe in a deterrent to be lectured on defence spending is a little bit rich. but labour is unimpressed with the government's latest industrial strategy. this will do nothing to help those who work in large low wage sectors or people who do not live in london, cambridge and oxford. and the long—running debate over university funding. some mps say, don't place the burden on the students. both students and universities are victims of the government's chaotic

policy and free—market ideology. but first, just in case you haven't heard, prince harry and the united states actor meghan markle have announced they‘ re engaged. the couple made a fleeting appearance in the gardens at kensington palace in london, when harry, the fifth in line to the throne, said that meghan was ‘the one‘ from the first time they met. the couple are expected to marry in the spring, but don't expect a bank holiday. naturally, parliament couldn't be left out of the celebrations. congratulations came swiftly from, as you might expect, the speaker. i should like to make a short statement. following the announcement from clarence house today of the engagement of prince harry to meghan markle i am sure that members from both sides of the house willjoin me in congratulating the couple on this most happy occasion, and wishing them all the very best for their future together. hear, hear. a few seconds later came the very

first words in the commons of the new defence secretary. may i start by congratulating, on behalf of those who work in our armed forces, his royal highness prince harry on his engagement to meghan markle? prince harry has acted as a proud champion of service men and women in the armed forces. most notably with his commitment to the invictus games. i am sure we would all like to echo your words, mr speaker, in wishing the two of them the very best in their shared future together. on to the issue of when the new queen elizabeth—class aircraft carrier will be brought into service. does my right honourable friend agree with me there is a sense of urgency as we are not only planning a global future for ourselves, and this will require a greater presence around the world, but with the royal wedding coming as early as next year,

and with the absence of the yacht britannia, is there the possibility that the new prince and princess will require something to sail around the seas with? laughter. mr speaker, i certainly wasn't anticipating that line of questioning from my honourable friend, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, but he is absolutely right, that this new class of aircraft carrier will give a powerful expression of national ambition and intent. harriett baldwin answering there. but all eyes at defence question time were focused on the performance of gavin williamson. his job move at the start of the month from government chief whip to defence secretary had attracted plenty of comment. and in recent days, there've been reports of conservative discontent over threatened spending cuts to the armed forces. so what conversations had the new defence secretary had with the chancellor? i have regular meetings with the chancellor.

i am yet to have a formal meeting with the chancellor but i am looking forward to doing so to discuss our shared future. i want to congratulate my right honourable friend on taking up office in this vital position. when he does speak to the chancellor will he take the opportunity of reminding him that in the cold war years we spent 5% of gdp on defence? now we spend barely 2% of gdp on defence. and perhaps a target nearer to 3% of gdp on defence might prevent our armed forces being further hollowed out. i will always listen intensely and very carefully to what my right honourable friend says. i have always seen 2% as a base, as against a ceiling, and i will be taking on board his thoughts and comments going forward, in terms of further discussions that i have. i welcome the secretary of state to this place

and i echo his and your good wishes to his royal highness prince harry and meghan on their engagement. mr speaker, you cannot do security on the cheap. with expert after expert highlighting serious gaps in defence funding it was surreal last week to hear the permanent private secretary say that the man in charge had made no formal pre budget requests to the chancellor for more money. it is one thing to ask and not get, but another not even to bother asking. did i hear correctly today? would the secretary of state confirm for us that he actually did not make any representation to the chancellor before the budget? what we have to do is to ensure that we understand what the needs are for our defence, our armed forces, going forward. the honourable lady may wish to rush into things and actuallyjust demand and demand and demand. what i want to do is to make sure that we have the arguments ready,

understand the threats that this country faces, and make sure that we deliver for our armed forces. that is what the focus is going to be. i have many conversations with the chancellor. i am looking forward to many more going forward. i think i will take that as a no. this is serious. we are hearing that the marines may be cut by 15%, and the army reduced to 70,000, something which would seriously put our international credibility at risk. with his own backbenchers in open rebellion and one of his ministers threatening to quit over cuts just how bad do things have to get before the secretary of state does hisjob, stands up for defence, and tells the prime minister and chancellor that enough is enough? i will take many lectures from many people. but from the party that is led by a man that doesn't even believe

in the british army, from a man, from a party whose leader doesn't actually believe in the continuous at sea nuclear deterrent, to be lectured about defence spending is a little bit rich. this is the party, the conservative party, that is making sure that we deliver on 2%. we are the party that is making sure that we are increasing defence spending. gavin williamson. the government has called the alleged tampering of forensic evidence a "highly serious matter." two scientists at the randox testing services in manchester, which works for police forces across the uk, were arrested earlier this year on suspicion of manipulating data. more than 10,000 cases, including violent crime and sexual offences, may have been affected. some 50 drug—driving prosecutions have been dropped. a minister was called to answer an urgent question. criminal investigations

by greater manchester police into alleged manipulation of toxicology results are still ongoing, therefore the house will understand why i must be cautious in my response. i do want to assure members on all sides of the house that the matter is being treated with the utmost seriousness, given the need to retain public confidence in ourjustice system. the government's immediate priority is to work with the police and the independent forensic science regulator, to establish scale of this issue, and the potential impact on the public. does the minister accept that this is the biggest forensic science scandal for decades? does he further accept that involving, as it does, data which includes evidence used in sex cases, violent crimes, driving cases, and unexplained deaths, and the liberty of the subject, does he understand how concerned both victims and people possibly convicted on unsafe data are? is it true that minister did not

consult the chief scientific adviser on the decision to privatise the forensic science service, merely informed him of the decision two weeks before announcing it? and does the minister accept that many forensic scientists and other stakeholders believe that the problems that we're seeing now, the allegedly faulty data we are seeing now, flowed directly from the misconceived decision to privatise the forensic science service ? she is trying to squeeze this into a labour political narrative around public good, private bad. what i would simply say to her is what the independent regulator has expressed in her view that no reasonable set of quality standards could guarantee to prevent

malpractice by skilled but corrupt personnel. i would go further, i think there is general understanding and agreement that there has been increased stringency in standards and quality requirements for the forensic service. there is muttering on the benches opposite but this has been driven by the forensic science regulator. the minister does himself no credit when he sees it as a tribal issue. can i refer him to three, three, not one or two reports of the science and technology committee, all party, that criticised the home office, his government's home office for not consulting professor silverman who was the adviser to the home office? can i suggest he reads the evidence three times from dr tully, now the regulator of the forensic science service who said, murderers and rapists will go free because of the changes that his government made?

not one party, all parties came to that conclusion. does the minister agree that privatisation of vital elements of the justice system without proper oversight can lead to errors or deliberate tampering and the cost to both individuals affected and to confidence in the justice system outweigh any money saved? in order to reassure my constituents can the minister confirm that for most serious family and criminal cases it is highly unlikely that a decision would have been made solely on the basis of one individual toxicology test? i do believe that to be true and my understanding also in some of these family cases there would be more than one test taken. however i don't take away the uncertainty that may be out there in terms of people who have been involved in these cases. you're watching our round—up

of the day in the commons and the lords. still to come. the government unveils its new industrial strategy. the government's rejected a demand that student tuition fees in england are cut by nearly 70% and revert to £3,000 a year. mps have been debating an online petition calling for the reduction. it was signed by 164,000 people. in westminster hall, a number of labourmps backed the petitioners and some went further, pressing for fees to be scrapped altogether. universities are seeing a real terms funding cut. students are paying for the majority of the system, but seeing cuts to university funding from central government. both students and universities are victims of the government's chaotic policy and free—market ideology, which means the government take no responsibility for the destruction and dismantling of our once renowned sense of education, but degrade our institutions by starving them of state funding.

according to the sutton trust, eight out of ten students will never fully repay their tuition fee loans and the decision to raise the minimum earning level at which loan repayments kick in from 21,000 to £25,000 means 81% of graduates will not pay back what they owe. their report called fairer fees dentified typical debts on graduating as being around £46,000, rising to 52,000 for those entitled to take out maintenance loans to cover the cost of living. there are so many students leaving university with such high debts they will never pay them back. therefore, the loss to the exchequer is quite transparent. that would suggest the balance is wrong and there needs to be adjustments. i wonder if he in those days foresaw

cases like that of siobhan. she is on £27,000 and she pays £58 a month of repayments but if she does any overtime, that goes up to £115. she says, ifeel like i am being robbed every time i try to better myself in society. she wants to get on the housing ladder. she's being penalised. her loans go up and up. it is the student loans company who are taking what she earns. i accept there is a challenge here. i accept many people are concerned but the reality is many more students are going to university and many more students on low—income backgrounds are going to university compared to a number of years ago. so we have to be careful to have these debates on the facts. he argued that fees where fair. when i went to university in 1999, i was the second year of tuition fees. ipaid £1,000.

i recognise that is nothing like the amount of money being asked for today. i do accept that if you are going to benefit from it, if you are likely to achieve a greater amount of pay over the period over your working life, therefore you should be expected or should be hoped to pay a greater share of the amount that the cost to get you into that position. funding per student, per degree up 25% since the the funding reforms came in at the beginning of the last parliament. the university system is better funded than it has been than at any point over the last 30 years. it is the progressive nature of this system that is ensuring higher education is at the same time open to all people who have the potential to benefit from it. and in all of this, the government is ensuring that the costs of our system are split fairly between graduates and other taxpayers, with graduate contributions linked to income. the latest debate over student tuition fees. the government's published its latest industrial strategy, with a promise to tackle the problem of low—productivity that's holding back wages and living standards. the business secretary said his aim

was to make britain the world's most innovative economy by means of an infrastructure upgrade. and he dismissed the notion that governments should not draw up industrial strategies. there are still those who hear the words industrial strategy and associate it with the mistakes of the past, about twarting competition, shielding incumbents and continuing with the status quo. this is not the approach that we will take. our modern industrial strategy is not about protecting the past, it is about taking control of our future as a nation. he said leading scientists had identified for challenges. artificial intelligence and data driven economy, clean growth, the future of mobility and meeting the needs of an ageing society. whether we like it or not, these challenges are sweeping

the world and if we act now, we can lead them from the front. if we wait and see then other countries will seize the initiative. which of the policies detailed also focus on spending any handful of specified sectors in which the uk already has comparative advantage. this will do nothing to help the millions who work in large, low wage, low productivity sectors like retail, hospitality and care or people who do not live in the golden triangle made up from london, cambridge and oxford. the problem of the labour front bench is they think it is all about money. money is important but it is how and when you spend it that matters. what you need is an industrial strategy that is bold and has a huge vision. that is what this document has. does the minister realise that it is possible to convince the country that a tory government, a tory government, has got the capacity to introduce a decent industrial strategy? in 18 tory years whilst i was here, they closed down most of the shipbuilding industry, they got rid of the lot of the steel

industry, they closed every single pit, now they are buying a0 million tonnes of coal from countries we don't even trust. this is the actions of the tory government and remember, stop this nonsense about trying to tell the people that unemployment now is less than after a labour government, because the labour government after the second world war, it was down to 2.2%, 4a0,000, and when it was a million, it was ted heath who was in government. what a lousy bunch. what i would say to the honourable gentleman is it is the case that every time there is a labour government, it is this government that has to reverse the chaos that has been caused and revive the economy. greg clark. meanwhile, the government's industrial strategy was also being discussed in the house of lords. the reports by the ifs and the resolution foundation and the obr after the budget, forecast stag na nt growth for the next 10 years — it is a truly frightening prospect. there was very little in the statement about the urgent need for more skills training.

i am sure he will agree that we are not going to achieve growth productivity or implement this industrial strategy amassed we are able to greatly improve the level of skills amongst the workforce, especially in the area of construction where brexit is going to be certainly damaging in that we will have fewer european workers able to operate in this country, or those who will be likely to be willing to. i welcome the white paper that is so critical to the nation's fortunes. i hope it will gather consensus. this period of continuous political gloom, so it often seems, this is a reason to be cheerful. i welcome the industrial strategy council, that the select committee on science and technology was pushing very hard for. universal credit is a success story

producing remarkable outcomes, in the words of a top civil servant. the new welfare system, sometimes called uc, wraps up six different benefits into a single payment and is designed always to make work pay. despite strong criticisms, the new system was defended at the commons public accounts committee by sir robert devereux. he's about to retire after seven years as the chief official at the department for work and pensions. the committee chair started the session. i wanted to cover some of the issues around your department but starting off with universal credit which has been the biggest project that any secretary has had to implement. in short, would you say it has been a success so far? yes, the reason that the government introduced universal credit

is to get more people into work and all the academic evidence to pier reviewed by external parties, three times now, does demonstrate that it is getting more people into work. we have 8% of the population on universal credit. is that right? yes, the point i am making is that for a limited period, while you are still running the old system alongside the new system, you cannot properly compare whether this new system is better than the old one. particularly for the benefit of some of your visitors glistening, the regime we are changing has been consistently assessed as the best in the world, to over achieve against that is a remarkable outcome. is the system agile enough to make changes as it is buffeted by the very real experience of people on the ground? and how quickly will be changes be implemented? is the whole system able to change and how quickly will these changes be implemented? any programme that is as massive

as this will encounter changes along the way. the fact that we have embarked on brexit, we have had grenfell tower, lots of things happen in life and you have to adjust it. did you give advice of the payments of the housing elements to ministers? we advise ministers and all of their policies to stop did you highlight that aspect? i have had for secretaries of state and the last three have been aware of the issue. can i thank you... can ijust take two minutes to say something back to the committee? i have appeared 30 times now. it will not take me very long. i will be indulgent but i am aware of time. i have been here a long time. first of all, more than you might

imagine, the system you preside over does work. publicly accountable to parliament does keep everyone on the straight and narrow. everybody knows that day to day decisions have got to be right and it does not typically getting out the real work. secondlyjust in the method of scrutiny, i do think possibly the committee might want to think of one thing. all of the hearings i have done has been about the certain project, and very rarely do you ask me about the circumstances and totality of many of the things i have been doing. lastly, i would say that despite all of that, i am incredibly proud of the stuff of the things my colleagues have done. in the last six years, we average is to our costs and staffing by 60,000 people as we have become more efficient

and taken out 50 million phone calls per year and become more digital, all of which has improved our customer service and reduced our complaints. we managed to become finalists along with shell for project company of the year. the thing that underpins all of that and i would leave as the most important thing to my successor, ultimately the success of the department relies on the motivation and hard work of the people who are employed by me. it has gone up by six percentage points and it is that engagement and their pride in what they do and belief and making a change to people's lives that has been the change and that is going to be true to the success long after i have retired. thank you for listening to me. sir robert devereux in reflective mood. and that's it for this programme. mandy baker will be here

for the rest of the week. but for now, from me, keith macdougall, goodbye. hello there. monday brought some of us something a little bit milder. that is not a sign of things to come. during tuesday, and indeed the rest of the week, we are back into this feed of northerly winds, all the way from the arctic. cold air sweeping southwards right across the country. quite a few showers, as well, and where those showers have been falling through the early part of the morning, there is certainly the risk of some icy stretches across parts of northern ireland and into scotland. take it easy on untreated roads and pavements. some of the showers across scotland will be wintry. some rain, some sleet, some hail, and some snow, the snow mostly over high ground at this stage. showers beginning to push into the east coast of england. but, through north—west england, down into the midlands, a dry start, yes, a cold and frosty start in places,

with temperatures ofjust one or two degrees at 8:00am in the morning. showers continuing to feed across west wales, into devon and cornwall. most of these showers will be falling as rain. a few showers across dorset, perhaps into hampshire, as well. but for east anglia and the south—east, a dry start, yes, but a chilly one — three, four or five degrees. a lot of crisp sunshine, then, to come during the day on tuesday, but the showers continue to feed in across eastern areas, drifting that bit further south, perhaps into east anglia, parts of the east midlands, as the day goes on. these showers wintry, particularly over high ground. a few showers out west, as well. even in the sunshine, feeling cold — five to eight degrees. now, as we go through tuesday night, the showers continue to feed in across eastern areas. these showers wintry, mostly over high ground, but perhaps starting to turn wintry to slightly lower levels at this stage. temperatures hovering around freezing, or a touch below. there will be frost for some of us on wednesday morning. so this is how the weather pattern looks. high pressure to the west, low pressure to the east. that is what is feeding the northerly winds down

across the country. strong, biting winds on wednesday, particularly towards the east, where there will again be plentiful showers, and late in the day, we may even start to see some sleet and snow to pretty low levels. some sunshine, too. not as many showers at this stage in the west. three to seven degrees, that is your lot. thursday a similar day, but if anything, a colder day still. some snow is possible to fairly low levels in the east. a few showers in the west, as well. plenty of sunshine in between. but add on the strength of the wind, this is what it will feel like, many places feeling sub—zero during thursday. so, for the rest of the week, a cold wind. yes, some crisp sunshine, but some wintry showers as well. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name's mike embley. our top stories: a bachelor no more. britain's prince harry is engaged to his american girlfriend meghan markle. they'll marry next spring. we are a fantastic team,

we know we are, and over time we will try to have as much impact about the things we care about as much as possible. i am very excited about that, yeah. pope francis arrives in myanmar — the first papal visit to a country accused of the ethnic cleansing of rohingya muslims. and more than 100,000 people near mount agung in bali are ordered to evacuate. this is the volcano right now. it could erupt at any moment.