the headlines: exit polls in ireland's referendum on abortion suggests a substantial majority support liberalising the country's strict laws. with the votes still to be counted, taoiseach leo varadkar — who supported the campaign — says it looks like ireland "will make history" when the result is declared on saturday. the film producer harvey weinstein has appeared in court in new york charged with rape and sexual abuse. the prosecutor said mr weinstein used his position and power to violate young women. his lawyer says he intends to plead not guilty. he's been released on a one million dollar bail bond. president trump says he's having very productive talks with north korea to reinstate the summit talks. in his latest tweet he said the meeting with kimjong—un might take place next month after all. the summit had been called off because of what he called the open hostility shown by north korea. now on bbc news: the week in parliament. hello and welcome to the week in parliament, where after more tough talk on brexit — a conservative mp cuts to the chase. how are the european union negotiations going? as mps debate how to tackle knife and gun violence — a minister points the finger at the uk's growing drugs habit. united kingdom is fast becoming the biggest consumer of cocaine in europe. after yet more appointments

to the lords and a row over cutting the size of the commons, i've been talking to two experts on how we ended up with such a super—sized parliament. and is it time to ban puppy sales via pet shops and dealers? poor hygiene standards throughout the chain frequently mean puppies are infected with bacteria and parasites that can even be transmitted to humans. but first, let's round up the week's brexit news. theresa may's cabinet is still trying to thrash out how we might trade goods with the eu after brexit with as few taxes and delays as possible. one of the major sticking points is how to resolve the issue of the border between northern ireland and the republic. on tuesday an immigration minister appeared before the northern ireland committee to talk about passports. caroline nokes told mps that she'd not read any irish history in a "very long time" and was "probably giving birth" when the good friday agreement was being signed. can ijust ask you if you read it?

not in its entirety. so it is crucially important to the british government to uphold the belfast agreement, looking at passports and the issue that we were asking for evidence and inviting evidence this afternoon, didn't see fit to lead the belfast agreement in its entirety? i haven't read the whole document. have you ever read it in the whole 20 years? have you ever read it? i haven't. but 20 years ago i think i was giving birth. well, that session also covered the smuggling of diesel across the border. and future border customs checks came up at another committee the next day. the cabinet is considering two options — one known as maximum facilitation or max fac which would rely on technology — the other is a new customs partnership with the european union. the most senior tax official — the head of hmrc —

told mps that under max fac companies would have to pay £32.50 for each customs declaration. so you've got 200 million customs declarations that 32.50. that's 6.5 billion. and the same for goods coming from the eu — taking the total to 13 billion. you have then got the question about what might be the requirements from the european union on rules of origin. is this cheese from cheddar? so that is quite difficult to estimate that, but it would be reasonable to think it is several billion pounds more, so i think you have to think about the highly streamlined customs arrangement costing businesses somewhere in the late teens of billions of pounds. i have started to lose count now! so somewhere between 17 and 20 billion. meanwhile the governor of the bank of england said households

are on average £900 a year worse off in real terms since the vote to leave the european union in 2016. he said spending had been... influenced heavily by way real incomes have gone, and the biggest drivers of that have been the referendum induced fall in the exchange rate. and at prime minister's questions, theresa may faced a blunt inquiry from one of her own mps about the way brexit was being handled. how are the european union negotiations going? they are going with purpose and good intent on both sides and we have negotiators over in brussels this week doing further work on those negotiations and we are determined to deliver a good brexit for the united kingdom. the prime minister and the leader of the labour opposition both agreed we should leave the single market and the european customs union and the public should not

have a final say on the brexit deal, so will she dispense with possession of party political point scoring, and then that spirit publicly thank the leadership of the labour party for their help and support in making brexit happen? can i say to the right honourable gentleman, first of all i am not so sure about the possession of the labour party because they are talking about a second referendum, but secondly, can i say, none nobody knows more about party political point scoring in this house than the liberal democrats. on thursday, mps were eagerly awaiting another bit of brexit news, following rumours that the eu withdrawal bill would return to the commons onjune the 11th. the flagship bill that puts eu law into uk law to stop a legislative black hole opening up has been much changed in the lords, where peers have defeated it 15 times!

ministers‘ attempts to reverse those changes when it returns to the commons could prove tricky given the government's small working majority. sojune the 11th or not? can the leader of the house confirm what the government chief whip said to the 1922 committee, that they were roald dahl be back —— to the 1922 committee, that the withdrawal bill be back on 11thjune, and it seems that the respected journalist faizal islam is actually giving business out. he treated the withdrawal bill the customs bill, is now going to be debated on 11th june. i made very clear i am to bring back the very important brexit within weeks, certainly within weeks, and the honourable lady will know that in this place the discussions take place and the business is announced through very long—standing

conventions through the usual channels and that is indeed the case on this occasion. there has been no announcement of any committee through any private meeting. there has not been any announcement. but a government source later suggested the bill would be back in the commons on the 11th ofjune. what can be done to tackle the rise in knife crime on our streets? knife crime rose by 22% in england and wales in 2017, according to the office for national statistics. the figures, which cover crimes recorded by the police, also showed an 11% increase in firearms offences. the government has produced a serious violence strategy but labour said the rise was down to the fall in police numbers. they have cut 21,000 police officers since 2010. i reject utterly this connection. we would have to swamp the streets with policemen. there would have to be policemen available at every violent incident to make that form of difference.

we would be back to cromwell saying if i arm one in ten, will that be enough? the minister turned to the role of drugs. the united kingdom is becoming the largest consumer of cocaine in europe. there is a high demand by the consumer. no longer the preserve of the yuppie or the rich. you are seeing it in rural communities and in communities that previously would not have been using cocaine in london. it is a high margin, high supply drug, and it is fuelling the increased violence. for many who end up selling drugs or even killing are dying because of drugs gangs, the downward spiral starts with something really simple, like being befriended by a really cool older boys. a new best friend. they get chicken and chips or new trainers, and they take the guests and respect, but it doesn't take long before the guests become debts and that respect, domination. by the time realisation

dawns, too late. we have got to find a way of giving our young people resilience to grooming. and that means peers, teachers, youth workers, role models. making them aware of where accepting that gift of chicken and chips may lead. we have also got to educate those people who think that drug use, that occasional line of coke at some middle—class party, is some victimless crime. it is not. there is an absolute causal relationship between that so—called victimless crime at some party or some club and the kid that lies bleeding out in the stairwell of a block of flats in south london. and until we look people in the eye and remind them of that fact, this problem, as much as we try to mitigate it, will not go away.

now let's take a look at some westminster news in brief. mps joined the commemorations to mark the first anniversary of the manchester arena attack. 22 people were killed and hundreds injured when a bomb was detonated at the end of an ariana grande concert on the 22nd of may 2017. prince william and prime minister theresa mayjoined families of victims at a service in manchester cathedral. the commons speakerjohn bercow, led mps in a national minute's silence. in a moment, we will all stand to observe a one—minute silence, to remember all those affected by the terror attack in manchester a year ago today. on monday, nearly a year after the grenfell tower fire, the public inquiry into the tragedy began. relatives of the 72 people who died

are being given the chance to commemorate their loved ones during the inquiry. among the first to speak was marcio gomes, whose son logan was stillborn in hospital after his family escaped the fire. and the sister of denis murphy — anne marie — described him as the "linchpin to our family". in the commons, the housing secretary said everyone need to reflect extremely carefully on the testimony given by the victims‘ relatives. i know this will be an incredibly difficult time for all those affected. the whole house willjoin me in sending our thoughts and prayers and i am determined to ensure no community suffers again as they have done. the government has been off the pace at every stage since the fire. more than 11 months on, how is it that two thirds of the glenville survivors are still in hotels or temporary accommodation. the government has launched

a consultation on tackling air pollution. michael gove called it ambitious, enabling the creation of clean air zones and cutting emission from wood burners and other fuels. but critics say it does little to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport. we need action now to tackle this public health emergency. in her desire to begrudging, she felt to share with the house the detail of our ambition. the speakerjohn bercow has defended remarks he made about the government's management of parliamentary business. it was reported that mr bercow called the leader of the commons, andrea leadsom, "a stupid woman". i used the word stupid in a muttered aside. that adjective simply summed up how i felt about the way that that a pause back business had been conducted. a ban on the sale of

puppies by pet shops and third party dealers in england is being considered. more than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for a change in the law. poor hygiene standards throughout the chain frequently mean that many puppies are infected with bacteria, viruses and parasites that can in some cases even be tra nsmittable to humans. for example, rabies and inappropriately vaccinated imported pups. all exhibit significant behavioural issues, such as separation anxiety, house soiling and nervous aggression. it is not known how many puppies die before they are even sold. the puppy market is very lucrative, which means they're are large financial incentives for breeders and sellers to minimise costs in order to maximise profits. in the lords, peers said the northern ireland parties should be locked away until they reached a deal to break the deadlock over power—sharing. there's been no assembly for 16 months. in the interim, major decisions have been taken by civil servants. but recently a high courtjudge ruled that a decision to approve an incinerator on the outskirts

of belfast was "unlawful", as civil servants had no power to approve the planning application. one peer reckoned that could have a big impact. i understand there will be an appeal, that'll take six months, and then another appeal, that'll take six months. i have to tell the minister, northern ireland does not have that capacity. we do not have that time. the one question that is being asked on northern ireland today is, who is actually running northern ireland ? the people of northern ireland deserve an executive focused on the issues that matter to them. education, health, schools, farming, all the obvious stuff. we need to get the executive back up and running. the parties themselves need to do so. at the moment, the pilot light is on but no one is twirling those knobs. we need to get the executive restored. lord duncan. now, do we simply have too many mps and peers? there was an urgent debate at the start of the week over the government's handling of a bill

from a labour mp which would, in effect, halt plans to cut the number of members of the commons from 650 to 600. at the same time, the latest list of new peers has been released with 13 names — the majority of them conservative, which will take the total to 793. so how does the uk parliament shape up compared to other countries? here's julia butler. britain is thought to be the only democracy in the world with a second chamber larger than its first. let's take a tour. australia has 150 seats in its house of representatives, and only 76 places in its upper house or senate. canada now, its house of commons has 338 members, making it more than three times the size of its senate. and what about france? its national assembly has 577 deputies, with 348 in the senate. in fact, the only assembly bigger than the house of lords

is china's national people's congress, with 2,980 deputies. julia butler. well, one mp clearly thinks we've got too many members of the lords, as he made clear at prime minister's questions. after all these defeats, apparently we need the right type of crony. there are now over 800 cronies, donors and aristocrats in that circus down the corridor, embarrassing this nation and mocking any notion of democracy. how many more is she going to appoint, and when enough be enough? can i say to the right honourable gentleman that actually the total size of the house of lords has fallen since i took office injuly 2016. from the sound of what he says, he is making a bid for himself to be put in the house of lords. he needs to speak to his leader.

so what chance of the house of lords and the house of commons becoming a bit smaller?. we brought together dr catherine haddon from the institute for government, and professorjustin fisher from brunel university. i began by asking catherine haddon how we got to where we are. it has been a long journey. many years of house of lords evolving into the version that we'e still got, that hasn't really changed that much. you really need to go back to the late 1990s, which is when the biggest reforms of the house of lords came in. at that point we were actually nearer 1,300, so it is quite reduced since then. however, after the reductions, it started to creep back up, because the majority for any party in house of lords, it means that the only way that prime ministers can try and get their way is to appoint yet more peers, and so that is what we keep seeing prime ministers doing. and we have seen this week that theresa may says her appointments have been far more modest than previous prime ministers. they have been far more modest, but not as far as a commission that the house of lords

themselves had last year, which said that they ought to go, and that is the key issue. at the moment, to reduce them to the 600 that they want to get to, you would have to have an almost two out, one in policy. that would mean huge restrictions on the number of peers that prime ministers could appoint, and she has not been quite willing to go that far. it is true, she has appointed fewer than her predecessor, david cameron. meanwhile, talking about getting numbers down to 600, there is a move to get the number of mps down from 650 to 600. that's right. this came about really as a result of the expenses scandal. david cameron's response was that he wanted to cut the size of parliament by 10%. in fact he put the figure up from what would have been 585 to 600, effectively a random number, and a not terribly intellectually coherent approach to the size of parliament. what makes you say that? there were two driving forces behind the act in 2011.

one to equalise the size of the constituencies, because there was a view, that was supported by evidence, that the electoral system or the distribution of the electorate tended to favour labour. but then there was also a reduction in the commons. the equalisation of constituencies had some intellectual rationale behind it. the reduction in the number of mps, with a number plucked out of the air, had no basis. there is a feeling that cutting the number to 600 might benefit one party much more than the other. is there any truth in that? which party would come out on top? the estimate at present seem to suggest that the conservatives might have some electoral advantage from that. largely because many of the large reductions that we have seen from the initial reviews would be in places where labour does well, such as the northwest and in london, as well as in wales. that is not the purpose of it. the purpose is to equalise constituencies and to reduce the number, and overtime any

advantage can shift from one party to another. david cameron famously said that one of the things he wanted to do was cut the cost of politics. would it save much money? yes, by definition, having fewer mps would save money. whether or not it would make parliament more efficient is a moot point. for example, one of the problems with parliament is that there is too much going on, rather than not enough. tackling with issues like brexit, it becomes a great strain in of appropriate scrutiny. —— in terms of appropriate scrutiny. the house of lords particularly has had a lots of criticism in the press because of the way it has voted on the eu withdrawal bill, and the number of defeats it has inflicted on the government. do you think that is likely to do the lords long—term damage, or is this something that is just going to blow over? will party leaders look at this and think, actually, i don't want to have this problem in the future, i will do something about the lords? many prime ministers end up getting into some kind of battle with the lords over the key issues.

tony blair, david cameron both had their defeats and their problems with the lords. we have already seen a number of times when threats of reform have come because of that kind of behaviour, the last was the strathclyde review which looked into the lords as a statutory instrument, secondary legislation. but whether it will really lead to the kind of fundamental reform is a much trickier question. it depends on many other things. it would take a much greater political will from both parties to want to get lords reform through than there is at the moment. finally, briefly, that would seem to be the thing, having to get both parties to work together. jeremy corbyn has said that his peers that he appoints will have to vote in favour of abolishing the lords. he may well say that, but he has not appointed very many of them. don't forget, the reform that the blair government made, removing most of the hereditaries, was the most significant reform we had seen in decades. the idea that you can get rid of the house of lords and given

that the amount of parliamentary time it would take, the lack of interest in it from the general public, i think it would be very unlikely that any government would seek to do that. they would be much more likely to try and impose new restrictions on lords' behaviour. all right, thank you both very much for coming on to the programme. now, what's been happening in the wider world of politics this week? robbie hawkins has our countdown. at five, conservative mp douglas ross kicks us off, taking a tumble while running the line and the scottish cup final, as his mp colleagues were happy to remind him. i was very much impressed with his skills in the scottish cup final the other day. his recovery technique was absolutely superb. it was the highlight of the game for me. at four, new labour peers include a civil rights campaigner, with daughter kate already in the commons, that makes three generations in office. at three, live peer news prompted questions over lords‘ numbers and how many the lib

dems should lose. 50. 60? any advance on 60? laughter. at two, a statement on m&s‘s problems had mps lining up to list what they were wearing. some took it a bit too far. i‘m tempted to say knickers, but i‘m not sure if you might rule it out of order. and at one, a russian prank caller targeted foreign secretary boris johnson, claiming to be the new pm of armenia. mrjohnson rumbled the prank after 18 minutes of chat. robbie hawkins there. mps and peers have now gone off on their whitsun break, but as we heard earlier in the programme, when they return they‘re due to start considering all the changes made to the government‘s flagship brexit bill by the house of lords, beginning a round or two of parliamentary ping—pong. so, what is it and how does it work? our man at the table is gary connor. first the bill goes...

back to the commons, where mps look at changes that their colleagues in the upper house have made. if mps agree with the amendments, the bill can quickly become law. i beg to move that the house agrees with the lords in amendment two, and following that brief moment of disagreement with their lordships, i am pleased to say that we are now encouraging the house to agree with their lordships in all other amendments. but if some or all of the changes go against what the government wants, then the bill bounces back... to the house of lords, along with reasons why the government doesn‘t agree with them. during parliamentary ping—pong, the text of the bill is still physically transported from one chamber to another and back again. parliamentary clerks act as messengers between the commons and the lords, and use norman french to indicate what stage the discussions have got to, although they set out the reasons why an agreement can‘t be reached in english. the game between the green team in the commons and the red team in the lords has a number

of possible outcomes. the bill will continue to bounce backwards and forwards as lords insist their amendments remain and mps disagree. if all players dig their heels in and no compromise can be found, time runs out and the government loses the game and the bill is lost. sometimes the government agrees with the lords‘ amendments, peers get their changes, the government gets its bill through, so both sides are winners. and, on other occasions, the government may get its bill passed by letting some amendments remain on the condition that others are withdrawn. but what usually happens is the party whips from both houses discuss their objections behind the scenes and try to find some middle ground. a compromise will be made and the bill will be allowed to pass, and both sides can claim victory. gary connor, limbering up for parliament‘s return on june the 4th. and we‘ll be back with you then — every weeknight at 11 on bbc parliament, for a full round—up of the day at westminster.

hello again. we start the day with a lot of cloud for most of us. misty conditions for the hills in the south, with a few passing showers. in england, the south—west midlands and wales. those showers will fade with time. after a cloudy start that cloud will break up, sunshine coming through. it will feel warm in the afternoon. highs of 22 in edinburgh, 26 in london. saturday evening, really big thunderstorms working up from the near continent. main risk areas are central southern england, the south—west, the south—west midlands and across parts of wales. lots of

lightning. we could see 30 millimetres of rain. lots of rainfall for just millimetres of rain. lots of rainfall forjust one hour. the risk of some localised flooding. those storms over time will push north while weakening has overnight. it will remain muggy in the south, fresher conditions in the north. some of the weather on the way for sunday. —— similar. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is gavin grey. our top stories: exit polls in ireland‘s referendum on abortion suggest a big winforthe campaign to liberalise the law. the official count begins later. hollywood mogul harvey weinstein is charged with rape and sexual abuse. his lawyer says he‘ll plead not guilty. it‘s on, it‘s off — and now it could be back on again as president trump says he is having very productive talks with north korea. exit polls in ireland suggest that

people have voted strongly