over the poisoning of the spy sergei skripal in britain. the un secretary general, antonio guterres, has warned tensions are pushing russia and the west towards a new cold war. doctors in the uk say yulia skripal, who was poisoned in the attack along with her father, is now out of danger. the bbc understands that her health is improving rapidly, and she is now conscious and talking. sergei skripal remains in a critical condition. with exactly a year to go until the uk leaves the european union, theresa may has been visiting england, scotland, northern ireland and wales. the prime minister said she believed the uk would have a bright future after brexit, and insisted that leaving would mean more money for hospitals and schools. now on bbc news, thursday in parliament. hello and welcome to the programme.

coming up. the government says it will pay for legal advice for the victims of the contaminated blood scandal — as mps hear they're still suffering, decades on. that is one of the most awful things i think i have heard in my time. with a year to go until the uk leaves the eu, can brexit get the pulses racing? they are keen to export fava beans to china by the department for international trade is not talking to them. and ministers are told to do more to close the pay gap between men and women: the government is all talk and no action when it comes to pay equality. but first, the government's announced it will pay for the legal advice of those affected by the contaminated blood scandal. about seven and a half thousand people, many with haemophilia, were given blood products infected with hepatitis c and hiv in the 1970s and 80s.

of those about two thousand four hundred people have died. last year, the government announced that a full inquiry would be carried out into the scandal. the minister told the commons that the government wanted to make sure that all those who wanted to contribute to the inquiry could do so. i can confirm that ministers have decided that reasonable expenses incurred and respective legal representation for the purpose of responding to the consultation of debt blood in crete prior to the setting update will be awarded. any claims will be handled by the solicitor to the inquiry and will be for him or her to determine those expenses. i hope that is good news to the house this morning. i know that share the inquiry is keen to ensure that all of those impact affected by this tragedy have a chance to make their voices heard. i know last night he lee mack held a meeting with interested groups and he is continuing to engage

with those affected. he wants to ensure the consultation process is as user—friendly and inclusive as possible and indeed, such that legal advice should not be a necessity for being able to respond to the consultation on the terms of reference. he wants to ensure everyone has the chance to share their views which will the terms of reference. the mp who's spear—headed the parliamentary campaign for justice for the victims of the scandal was pleased with that news. but she raised a letter which had been sent to victims by the cabinet office, comparing the contaminated blood inquiry to the one being held into the grenfell tower fire. the letter of the 23rd of march trusted by her civil servants which try to contrast grenfell tower which have been granted exceptional funding for legal assistance to the families that are affect did, saying that that was somehow more deserving than this group of people. i think has caused an enormous amount of hurt and the community.

of course you want to make sure that the rent fell families find out what happened and 71 lives were lost in that case but in this case, 2400 people have already died and says the announcement that the inquiry last year, another 70 people have died. many people are living with hiv and hepatitis c and many are co—infected. the letter of the 23rd of march has caused offense and which you be able to on behalf of the government apologize for that? i am sorry for any concerned the husband caused from it. well i would return to by way of explanation is that actually cabinet officers were expressing the normal position under the inquiries act which is, ministers will decide by exceptions to be a will to provide funding for this parliamentary stage of any increase. i have already explained that we certainly do see this

tragedy as exceptional and therefore ministers have made the decision that i've conveyed to the house today but i hope by way of explanation that it is clear that actually the normal position under the inquiries act is that there would not be such funding but we have decided that there ought to be. i start with the word of my constituent, the miracle of childbirth tainted, forever seen as a sadness. an empty vessel of a lost light. its opportunities of normal happiness and future gone forever after which she was advised she should be sterilized. how tragic. this happened 30 years ago and she still lives. i wanted her voice to be heard by her the minister. she is not told a soul to this day. i'm sure she will walk on the legal aid. can the minister say more about how

much longer she will need to wait for final answers to be given? that is one of the most awful things i think i've heard in my time in this place. it speaks for itself. the minister said the mp could reassure her constituent that the start of the inquiry was only weeks away. it's a year to the day that the uk will leave the european union. marking the day, the international trade secretary was at the despatch box answering questions from mps. the first one came from a scottish nationalist. liam fox was in an upbeat mood. in 2017, the uk exported more than £22 billion worth of food and drink products to the world, an increase of almost 10% in the previous year. i may leave the eq as three will exactly one year to date we will freight uk farmers from the constraints of the common agricultural policy and provide future opportunities for scottish

businesses and emerging markets. can he give us one example of fake country in the world that is given a guarantee that scottish food experts will be treated with exactly the same way as a market of half a billion people within the eq. if you look at produce such as salmon, our exports are almost exactly 50% eu, 50% not eq. if you look at the markets where experts for salmon are growing, you will see japan, taiwan and vietnam are up 63%. the great british breakfast cereal gets all its wheat from farmers within a 50 mile radius.

it was a famous should redish brand before we evenjoined the eq and it will remain a famous british rant after we leave the eq. our kids prospects enhanced once we leave? 0ur exports are determined largely by the growth of markets. and the imf says that 90% of global growth in the next ten to 15 years will be outside the european continent. that is where the big possibilities for uk exporters are including in food and drink. the ministers colleagues are fond of talking about pork markets and china but can i urge him to pay attention to the pulse markets there. they are keen to export fava beans to china but the department for international trade is not talking to them. the chinese want these beans but there is some obstacles. liam fox said he would investigate whether there were any technical impediments that could be "swept away". the questions moved on to steel and the imposition of tariffs by the united states. liam fox set out his current position.

we welcome the united states granting and e0 wide exemption from the tariffs applied under section 232 for a limited time period, we continue to argue this is not an appropriate mechanism to deal with justifiable concerns in relation to the overcapacity of steel worldwide. 15% of uk steel goes to america and quite frankly, a pause on imposition of tariffs is not good enough. i would like to know from him, what steps is taking to make sure that pause becomes permanent. we are working with the european union to ensure a permanent exemption. i spoke to the commissioner yesterday. in this case of the uk, the uk is responsible of i% of america's steel import. some of our steel goes to the american defence projects which would make it to... 0n the basis of national security quite absurd. from steel to pottery.

the ceramic industry stands to play its part to boast global exports to the uk. we need protection from chinese dumping of tiles and tableware. what he looked favourably to the moments i have tabled to make sure the protections we currently have are read into british law? his party voted against setting up the trade remedies authority to implement them. and there was a characteristically quirky question from one conservative brexiteer. could the secretary of state told the house what he will be doing it 365 days' time? watching the clock. you're watching thursday in parliament with me, mandy baker. there's less than a week to go

until all employers with more than 250 staff have to reveal their gender pay gap, the difference between how much they pay women compared to men. so far less than half of firms in the private sector have published their figures. at women and equalities questions mps wanted to know what more could be done to close the gap. reporting is an important first step but what matters now is that employers take action. while not mandatory we encourage players to publish a plan alongside their figures. it's clear from the most recent figures that the requirement on companies to publish is not making a material difference to women's pay. what the gender pay gap at 18.4% and a corridor of a million paid less than the national minimum wage, with the minister agree that the government is all talk and no action when it comes to pay equality and to achieve pay parity we need much tougher measures.

i would say to her that the gender pay gap although completely unwelcome is at its lowest that we have ever seen. it is not 9%. the gender pay gap reporting that we have now mandated to how to drive but down. the response to the governments gender pay audit has been slow. does the minister agree that as labour has proposed, companies should prove they are taking timely action to close their pay gaps as mac? 0r faces substantial government fine. i share the outrage at some of the sizes of these pay gaps but i feel that gives more weight to the fact it was right to bring forward this legislation last year. revealing these pay gaps is exactly how we will start to get proper action. what sanctions are available for those companies who failed to meet their legal obligations? amber rudd said there could be fines

for companies that failed to report. and the government was encouraging firms to put forward their own plans to close the gap. another conservative turned his attention to the bbc. the corporation has reported a gender pay gap ofjust over 9%. the national average is nearly 18.5%. more disgraceful than its continued programming a brexit coverage is the way in which the bbc discriminates against female employees. though my honourable friend invite the director general into her office for an interview without coffee to make it quite clear that this continued maltreatment of female employees must stop immediately. we will indeed be discussing the question of pay equality with the bbc. we are clear that as a public service broadcaster funded by the license fee, the bbc has a responsibility to set an example and pay and other equality measures in the workplace. getting this right is important for license payers as well as for all that talented women who work there.

the gender pay gap reporting has made me angry and it's made me angry not because its companies need to do more but all of us need to do more. does this secretary of state agree with me that... i think she is right. one of the benefits of the gender pay gap reporting is revealing what has been hidden before and a lot of issues to do with gender about we make certain elements much more transparent than they happened before. the honourable lady may be angry but i take the view we need to take and action will do more than being angry. a liberal democrat turned to the treatment of pregnant women in the workplace. apart from my obvious interest and this question i will remind my house as... it is two years now since the government published that ye hrc research that i commissioned

as minister in 2013 which showed that one in 25 pregnant women feel forced to leave theirjobs because health and safety risks are not addressed. it is more than time for concrete action to tackle this. will the minister bring forward legislation to give pregnant women a clear right to paid leave it their employer cannot or will not provide a safe working environment? she is right. we do need to do more. i understand the point she makes. i can't commit to the request she makes today but we are considering all options. andrew griffiths. the government has been challenged in the lords about a report that the home office had no record of more than 600,000 foreign nationals who should have left the uk. 0n the 12th of march, i suggested to a colleague that we would never have a system that works in the absence of fully biometric passports, visas and id cards.

in the light of the news this morning, over the past two years there have been 600,000 visitors to this country for whom the immigration department has no evidence of exit and a separate 210,000 for whom would they do have evidence of exit, but didn't know they had come to this country in the first place. would the noble lady consider — consider — bringing in a comprehensive biometric system in order to protect this country and marriage, immigration and immigration out? the noble lord is right, of course, that we do need a system that works. and of course, there will be enhanced biometric evidence on the new passports and we constantly update the passport in order to keep it secure and keep it up to date

in terms of some of the details we require it. the recent report shows the current system of border control remains in chaos. can the government assure us that there will be a effective schemes in place by march 2019? and can the government tell us how many extra staff and how much additional cost this would take over the next year? in the spring statement, the chancellor announced the home office will receive £395 million. much of this spent on the border. the recruitment of additional staff is under way to bring existing staffing levels in the uk working on routes to 1500 by april 2018 and he announced, as i said,

the home office received £395 million of that funding to fund the eu exit preparations. does my lords think that a minister will be able to stand at this box or the box or at the other place and say "we counted them all in and we counted them all out?" that would be ideal, my lords. she told me on the 19th of december last year that the number of staff in the border force had fallen over the last four years by 845. last week, the home secretary said there would be an extra 1,000 staff. subsequently, it transpired some of those would be to replace those that were currently leaving the border force. will there actually be an increase in the staff compared to 2012 and what level does the noble lady

think will be adequate to deal with the situation that will face eyes on the borders after you exit? there will be 1,000 roles in total being advertised across the border force. but as i've said, and of course, we announced and have almost finished recruiting an additional 300 front line border officers we announced last year to prepare for brexit, but as i have said across this despatch box to the noble lord on several occasions, it isn'tjust been skilled personnel that we need at the border, it is technology, innovation and it is intelligence that will provide us with the big picture at our border. lady williams. labour has accused the government of turning a blind eye while turkey took advantage of the fight against the so—called islamic state group to seize territory in syria.

the accusation came as the international development secretary updated the commons on the fight against is, which is also known as daesh. today, i can inform the house that the daesh has been all but destroyed as a territorial entity in iraq and syria. it's lost over 90% of the territory it once held across both countries. the united kingdom has led the way alongside our allies, the united states and the government of iraq, in creating the global coalition against daesh. which has enabled this progress. but our work is not yet done. daesh still holds pockets of territory in syria and we encourage all partners, including turkey, to remain focused on the counter daesh campaign and avoid actions that undermine our shared efforts. with its loss of territory, daesh could still pose a threat as an insurgency. they will continue to try and direct and inspire terrorist threats around the world. that is why we will remain a leading

member of the global coalition. i ask her if this is really the strongest language that the government will use to condemn turkey's incursion into northern syria ? that incursion is neither legitimate norjustified. it has no basis in international law and should never have been allowed in the first place. mr deputy speaker, this government has stood by while turkey and its band of rebel militias have a marched into another country on the pretext of combating terrorism. we do recognize the legitimate security concerns but what i would is that we would support a de—escalation of the situation there. after turning a blind eye to turkey's disgraceful actions, will the government condemn the turkish intention to... will the british government at least stop selling arms to turkey?

i think the manner that they are now directly counter right to their daesh operation. i would take issue with the honourable gentleman's characterisation that we are turning a blind eye to this. far from it. my honourable friend, the minister for the middle east has been speaking most recentlyjust last week with members of the turkish government on these matters. mps overwhelmingly backed uk air strikes against islamic state in syria in 2015. the shadow minister said the situation had changed and called for a fresh debate. the united states has made clear that the objective of coalition forces in syria is to carry out what they call stabilisation activities in what they call liberated areas in the north of the country, and use those areas as a base to achieve the eventual transition of syria from the assad regime. what everyone thinks of those activities, one thing is clear —

they are a million miles away from the new mandate, military action given to this government, which was exclusively to stop syria becoming a safe haven for daesh. the minister did not respond directly to mr carden‘s calls for a vote. finally, it's autism awareness week and during a debate on the issue, mps felt that the needs of autistic people were not properly appreciated. the thing that would make that biggest difference to their day—to—day lives to if people understood autism. i have a personal aim that all people that play a role in public services, no matter where in this country, should be trained to appreciate the challenges faced by autistic people. in the workplace, in schools, public transport and other public spaces. if we all show up just a little more awareness about autism can affect others, then we can make great strides in helping autistic people

feel at home and welcome in our communities. a conservative mp explained that her son has asperger‘s syndrome, a high—functioning form of autism. james had an amazing teacher when he was six or so. he wasn't diagnosed, but she assessed and could see his meltdowns coming. she said to bring in a beanbag. ok, isaid. idid. he couldn't see or he was in the wrong place. she said whenever it all gets too much to him, which was all the time, someone was much to him, which was all the time, someone was prodding him, someone was talking to him, he couldn't see or hear, he was allowed to get up and leave his desk and go and sit in the beanbag behind the desk. the teacher knew where he was because that's where he went. other children didn't know, they didn't care. they carried on with the school activities. it gave him a safe place which was invisible to everybody else but they knew he was safe. he was safe. when he was seven or eight years old and undiagnosed, nobody thought he would make it.

a labour mp was upset by people who claimed to be able to treat autism. some very wicked people prey on people's stress and concerns and sell treatments for autism that's really should be banned. they use social media. it is a disgrace to our society that people prey on a family that is very stressed with a child or member with autism. another labour mp highlighted the problem of loneliness. four out of five people who are artistic and responded to the survey said that they felt lonely and socially isolated some of the time. that is really shocking and upsetting to hear. this is also bad for the parents of children with autism who tell the national autistic society that they fear going out because of public ignorance or experiences of being judged because of the behaviour of their child, as honourable members have already mentioned. it is definitely bad for the rest of us who lose out on the potential,

the untapped potential, that autistic people have to offer us as friends, colleagues and participants of civil society and as leaders. understanding autism. and that's all for now. parliament's taking a break for a fortnight, but alicia mccarthy will be here at 11:00 on friday night for a look back at the last few months at westminster. but for now, from me, mandy baker, goodbye. hello. make no mistake, there is a lot of weather of varying types to come this easter weekend. some of it could cause some problems, too. there'll be some rain around at times. notjust that — some snow. easter monday looks a troublemaker, we'll see that in a moment. temperatures on the cool to cold

side of average but there will be some drier, sunny moments too. we'll detail all of that as we look throughout the entire easter weekend, starting with good friday. there will be some snow showers affecting parts of northern scotland from the word go, recovering to some of the higher routes, an area of hill snow moving from north—east england across other parts of eastern scotland. heavy showers developing in southern england, reaching into parts of wales, the midlands, east anglia later in the day, maybe with a rumble of thunder. single—figure temperatures. colder still in easterly winds across the northern half of the uk. just one or two showers but sunny spells into northern ireland. the moisture with these showers starts to feed up the bit further north into saturday morning. an increasing chance of seeing a bit of snow into the tops of the welsh hills, maybe into the pennines going into saturday morning. these are your overnight temperatures. still some of the snow showers in the hills in north—east scotland as well. now, for saturday, the reason we are seeing some rain and hill snow is this area of low pressure. but tonight, it's going to edge its way eastwards but it's still going to get into parts of england and wales.

some outbreaks of rain and some hill snow into the pennines. so all of this has to slide away eastwards during the day. some western parts may start to brighten up. still, as wintry showers move north, north—east scotland, south—east scotland getting along quite well, although still be rather cloudy. still a chilly breeze across the coast towards the north—east. the single—figure temperatures once again. but look at this — easter day, sunday. well, the winds are lighter, for a start. you may catch the odd shower, a frost to begin with, a few fog patches clearing. a few sunny spells around — most places are actually dry. the rain and the strengthening wind coming across south—east england later in the day — that is a sign of things to come for easter monday. here comes another area of low pressure. certainly got some moisture associated with it, it's feeding northwards. quite chilly air on easter monday. and that means rain, yes, but feeding into the colder air, the chance for some snow as it spreads further north, as well, maybe notjust on hills. some of that could be disruptive, as well, but there's still a lot to play for. of course, easter monday is several days away. butjust an early heads up that if you are travelling

on easter monday, you do need to keep across that forecast because of that risk of snow that could cause some disruption. and we will, of course, keep you updated over the next few days. that's your latest forecast. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: moscow expels 60 american diplomats. the un warns the spy poisoning case is pushing russia and the west towards a new cold war. yulia skripal, one of the victims of the salisbury nerve agent attack, is now conscious and talking. her father sergei remains critically ill. theresa may promises to make brexit a success for everyone and insists it will mean more money for schools and hospitals. the battle for blue skies: beijing cuts pollution by half,

in the hope of a brighter future. and a tearful apology from australia's sacked cricket