hello. it's thursday. it's nine o'clock. i'm joanna gosling. welcome to the programme. debenhams is to close up to 50 of its department stores, putting around 4000 jobs at risk. it's just announced losses of almost £500 million in the worst performance in the group's 240 year history. we'll be looking at the latest casualty of the high street. president trump has said politicians and the media need to be nicer to each other and stop spreading negative stories after several explosive devices were sent to high profile democrats and the news channel cnn. the media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and often times false attacks and stories. have to do it. the president's critics have called his comments hypocritical because he often uses vicious language against his opponents and the media, including cnn.

the wife of a british student detained in the united arab emirates accused of spying tells us the foreign office isn't doing enough. matthew hedges denies all the allegations. his wife daniela tejada joins us shortly for her first tv interview since he appeared in court in abu dhabi yesterday. and new research suggests children are more likely to wake up when a smoke alarm goes off if the sound is a recording of their mum's voice, rather than a beeping sound or siren. wake up! the house is on fire! researchers say nine out of 10 children in the study woke up to the sound of their mother's voice compared to only half of those exposed to a conventional smoke alarm. hello.

welcome to the programme. we're live until 11 this morning. a new report says only one in seven councils pays enough to the companies that provide carers in your own home to enable them to offer basic standards of care. do you use a home care service? or do you work as a carer and are struggling to get by because you earn less than the national living wage? do get in touch on that and all the stories we're talking about. use the hashtag victorialive. if you're emailing and are happy for us to contact you and maybe want to take part in the programme please include your phone number in your message. if you text, you'll be charged at the standard network rate. our top story today: debenhams has announced plans to close up to 50 stores across the uk, putting around 4000 jobs at risk. the retailer says it's acting to strengthen its business after posting an annual loss of almost half a billion pounds. the closures will take place over a three to five year period. the bbc‘s business correspondent, theo leggett, is here.

he is coming. bray has up—to—date. this is not good news for debenhams. it is not quite as bad as it looks with that figure of merely half a billion pounds. a lot of that is to do with accounting adjustments and so on. do with accounting adjustments and so on. even if you strip that out, debenhams profits have gone down by 65% and the problem for the company, as with so many major retailers, is that people are buying more and more of their shopping online and they are not going into department stores where everything was traditionally under one roof, and that is costing it. so they are going to be closing a lot of stores and there are lots ofjobs at risk, 4000. is that going to be enough to save debenhams and turn things around? it is a very good question. their rivals are in much the same position. house of fraser went into administration and we re fraser went into administration and were bought out by sports direct a

couple of years ago and bhs collapsed completely. there are clear pressures on the company. what debenhams is trying to do is get rid of the stores that are not making enough money, including ones which don't make profit at the moment and ones which the company things over the next three to five years will become unprofitable. running a department store is an expensive thing. these are large buildings in city centres with high rents, high cost leases, and so trimming back on that might make the core stores, the ones in really good locations, more profitable. it is also a good way of sending a message to the owners of these properties that they might wa nt to these properties that they might want to reconsider the rent they are charging, and perhaps make the leases a bit easier. and it is part ofa leases a bit easier. and it is part of a bigger picture problems on the high street for lots of retailers. absolutely. it is notjust department stores having trouble. like the technology firm maplin has gone underfor like the technology firm maplin has gone under for example. coast is like the technology firm maplin has gone underfor example. coast is in trouble. toys "r" us as well. it is

up trouble. toys "r" us as well. it is up and down the high street. the big problem is that people are doing more and more of their shopping online. it is the likes of amazon and asos making money, growing bigger and bigger, and traditional stores who have got to pay for the properties they retail from which are suffering. it is something we have been talking about on the programme recently and we will talk about it later again. thank you. do let us know your thoughts about what you want on high street. what works for you? do you do your shopping online and what is your favourite way of getting what you need? annita mcveigh is in the bbc newsroom with a summary of the rest of the day's news. good morning. president trump has criticised the us media and appealed to politicians to show greater civility, after explosive devices were sent to high—profile democrats and the headquarters of the news channel cnn. the fbi says it intercepted a total of eight suspicious packages, none of which exploded, and no—one has come forward to claim responsibility. donald trump called for politics to be more civil at an election rally.

his opponents have accused him of hypocrisy. the home office has been accused of a complete failure of leadership as police forces in england and wales struggle to cope. the home affairs select committee says the police service is at risk of becoming irrelevant as neighbourhood teams are stripped back and many crimes go unsolved. the bbc has been heavily criticised on the issue of equal pay by a group of mps. the culture select committee said the corporation was guilty of opaque decision—making and unequal treatment of women and that proposed reforms to pay don't do enough to address underlying problems. 0ur media editor, amol rajan, reports. it was the culture select committee that grilled bbc bosses at the start of the year when the case of carrie gracie, the corporation's former china editor, drew widespread condemnation. while their conclusions carry no legislative weight, the strength and breadth of the criticisms are striking. the mps say the bbc‘s grievance procedures have been poor.

they say there is still a shocking bias towards men when it comes to top pay. and they say the bbc should publish the salaries of those paid out of its commercial arm, bbc studios. one of the biggest concerns we've had is not just the fact there is this discrepancy in pay, but that many women have found it incredibly frustrating and difficult to take these grievances up with the bbc. it's been a tortuous process and a long process and some feel there is no end in sight to that. what we've said through our report is the commitment the bbc should give now is to say that for the current complaints lodged with the bbc, they should now be resolved and settled within the next six months. the bbc says these findings are well out of date, that while there is still work to do on equal pay, its gender pay gap is lower than across the rest of the media and has fallen dramatically. and that it has gone radically further on transparency than most companies across all sectors. in the last year our gender pay gap is one of the lowest in the media in the uk, if not the lowest. it's come down in the last year by 20%.

and we're the only organisation in the uk committed to getting our gender pay gap down to equal by the end of 2020. the bbc says it wants to set the highest standards and is held to them. with many grievance procedures still outstanding, and some high earners leaving because they don't like the exposure, the big headache created by salary disclosure shows no sign of abating. amol rajan, bbc news. it's claimed just one in seven councils in the uk is covering the minimum cost of providing home care to elderly and disabled people. the uk homecare association, which represents care providers, says visits are often cut short as a result. local authorities blame a lack of government funding, while ministers insist extra money has been put into the system. the wife of a british academic, matthew hedges, who's being held on a spying charge by the united arab emirates, has told this programme that the foreign office has failed to offer adequate support.

the phd student appeared in court in the uae yesterday. in a hearing that lasted about ten minutes, his lawyer asked for an adjournment for the court to consider his defence that the material retrieved from mr hedges' electronic devices is all publicly available and not secret. police say they are treating the disappearance of a mother of five as a possible murder investigation. 46—year—old sarah wellgreen was last seen in the new ash green area of kent, on the evening of october 9th. hundreds of villagers have joined police and forensics teams in her search. urgent action is needed to halt a decline in the performance of the nhs in scotland. that's the warning from the scotish public spending watchdog. a new audit scotland report says that there are increasing staff problems, rising drug costs and a maintenance backlog with fewer resources at its disposal. the scottish government said

it was already taking forward recommendations with increases in frontline staffing. smoke alarms which use a recording of a mother's voice rather than a high—pitched beep may be significantly more effective, according to american researchers. 176 children took part in the nationwide children's hospital study which found only half woke up to the blaring noise of a conventional smoke alarm. but nine in ten woke up to the voice alarms. researchers now want to test whether any voice will do or if it has to be the mother. the duke and duchess of sussex have arrived in fiji's western coastal town of nadi as their official royal tour of australia and the south pacific continues. prince harry unveiled a statue commemorating a british—fijian soldier who died in the 1972 battle of mirbat at an event attended by the country's president and members of the armed forces. that's a summary of the latest bbc news. more at 9:30am. thank you. let us know what you

think about that research on smoke alarms. that study is really interesting. it has found that children are much more likely to wa ke children are much more likely to wake up in a smoke alarm in their house has a recording of their mother's boys rather than a conventional beeping sound. as it ever happened that your smoke alarm has gone off when your children were asleep but they slept through it and you had to get them up? let us know what you think about that. you can use all the usual ways of getting in touch including the hashtag victoria live. now let's get some sport. good morning. pep guardiola has been speaking ina morning. pep guardiola has been speaking in a wide—ranging interview. tellers what he has been saying. —— tell us what he has been saying. it's very rare that we get to hear a premier league manager speaking so openly about their life, especially one as enigmatic as pep guardiola. he's seen as the current gold standard in football coaching,

winning a massive 24 trophies in his 10 years as a head coach. last season city won the premier league title with a record—breaking points and goals tally which means, of course, that so many people are keen to pick his brain. welljournalist guillem balague has done that for bbc radio 5live. his exclusive interview had some light and shade with pep telling us about his favourite music including oasis and their song don't look back in anger calling it a masterpiece. now, you may remember, there was an impromptu rendition of the song by a number of people who attended the vigil to those who lost their lives in the manchester bombing attack in may of last year. guardiola's wife and two daughters were in attendance at the ariana grande concert that evening and he shared his experience of that night. she called me but immediately broke the line. she told me something happened.

but the people didn't know what happened. and broke the line. we tried to call her again. it doesn't work. we went to the arena. afterfive minutes, six minutes, she called me again. "we are out!" of course, life is like this. we were maybe in a better position than the other ones, unfortunately, for... it's the times we live right now. guardiola went on to say the moment the song was sung by people in manchester was a touching moment for he and his family and showed it was a song of the people. the gallagher brothers noel and liam are of course huge manchester city supporters. it is great that he is relaxed enough to be able to talk so openly as much as he was talking about it in that interview. as you say, he is doing so well and giving people that a lot to celebrate. he knows he is a popular man in that city. yes, he expressed how comfortable he is in the role. the interview covers his views on things like the refugee crisis and the importance of innovation in humanity.

but he did take time to speak about his relationship with the manchester city fans. having managed the european giants barcelona and bayern munich, there is a slightly different feel to his time in manchester. if other big teams were hoping to land him one day, it seems unlikely. i will be mancunian for the rest of my life. i will be a manchester city fan. it will not be possible to train another team in england like manchester city. i feel big love from the people here. i like to do it better, to seduce them, to make a better club, where they can believe we are strong enough to do better things. but it is what it is. and you can be seduced by him. the into your podcast is available to download from the bbc sport website and you can listen to it on radio 5 live this evening at seven o'clock. all sport to come later. thank you. some breaking news that we are just hearing about facebook. it has been

fined over the cambridge analytica gamble. this just out from the information commissioner's office. —— scandal. they are finding facebook half a billion pounds over the cambridge analytica scandal. in july the office said they intended to impose their maximum penalty over facebook‘s failure to ensure that cambridge analytica had deleted data it had harvested from millions of users. that was an interim ruling and now with discussions from the company, the information commissioner has confirmed that the fine will be unchanged. there is a lengthy press release that they have put out and i willjust read you a little bit, talking about why they have find facebook. it is the largest amount they could have find them, after considering representations from the company. the independent commissioner's office says that between 2007 and

2014, facebook processed the personal information of users u nfa i rly personal information of users unfairly by allowing application developers access to the information without sufficiently clear and informed consent and allowing access evenif informed consent and allowing access even if users had not downloaded the app but were simply friends with people who had facebook. people who had facebook app but were simply friends with people who had facebook fail to be personal information secure. you will be aware of this —— facebook failed to keep personal information secure. you will be aware of this because it has been widely reported. we will bring you more on that as we get it. the wife of a durham university phd student held on a spying charge by the united arab emirates tells us that the foreign office has failed to offer adequate support. daniela tejada — who's giving us herfirst tv interview after matthew hedges' latest appearance in court — says her requests to meet foreign secretary, jeremy hunt, have been declined.

mr hedges was arrested in may and has reportedly been held in solitary confinement ever since. the uae government says he was detained after surveillance of his electronic devices by its security services. daniela tejada is with us in the studio. welcome and thank you forjoining us. how are you doing today? he has had his latest court appearance. yes, he had it yesterday and we were told that during the court appearance his lawyer got to present his defence. he stated that he is an innocent man and as a matter of fact information that he had gathered, as i have been saying the past six months, is not confidential. add any information that he could have potentially shared in his phd thesis or through his research is not secret information. the judge excepted the defence and will re—evaluate all the evidence presented against matt and on the

zist presented against matt and on the 21st of november he will be giving his verdict on the matter. how is he? i last spoke to him on sunday. he is still in solitary confinement. he is still in solitary confinement. he was hospitalised for about a week before his last court hearing on the 10th of october. and we still don't have clarity about that. he did however ex press have clarity about that. he did however express that his conditions had been improved as of late. and now while he is in solitary confinement, he has a tv, and he has finally been given the books that i got for him back injuly. finally been given the books that i got for him back in july. a spokesman for the uae has said that he is being accommodated in the lowest security remand centre, which isi lowest security remand centre, which is i guess what you are describing, although he is still on his own. they also say he is being treated well and there has been a full

welfare review carried out on him which has concluded he has been provided with constant medical attention and psychological care. do you accept that? i don't. i think that the great part of the uae statement about the way they have treated matt, an innocent man, who is being kept in solitary confinement for doing academic research, is not accurate. i think that in many instances, such as saying that he has been provided with psychological assistance throughout, those are outward lies. and in other parts of their statement, there are lots of semantics that just leaked to fallacies —— leap to fallacies. this was a man doing academic research and academic research only. he was not only detained but heavily interrogated about access to a lawyer or a ccess interrogated about access to a lawyer or access to conceal it advice and he has been held in

solitary confinement for six months. they say he is able to contact family and legal staff by phone. how much contact would you say there has been? he is only able to contact anyone when he is allowed to. from my experience, that has been once a week sincejuly. my experience, that has been once a week since july. two my experience, that has been once a week sincejuly. two to my experience, that has been once a week since july. two to five—minute calls to me where he has not been able to discuss anything pertaining to his case or his interrogation. that plays into semantics again. he has had very limited contact. he has only had three consulate visits and the first one was five minutes into his detention and only lasted five minutes. the second one was nearly four months after. that does not constitute regular access. he met his lawyer at his second court

hearing. he only saw him once before his third court hearing. so he had no legal advice before his court hearing? none whatsoever. and has been able to speak when he speaks to you openly about what that has been right? -- like? not with me and not with the staff and i think with his lawyer very limited peking and they got to see each other three days ago. what is he able to say when he speaks to you ? ago. what is he able to say when he speaks to you? he is only able to talk about his welfare which is very concerning. he has been in great distress on repeated occasions. he expressed suicidal thoughts at one point. he said to me that is only mechanism to let go of his nerves was through self induced vomiting. so he had been vomiting once more than once every day for three and a half months. this after the news was

made public is now physically stopped. they physically stop him from vomiting when they see that he is affected. how do they do that? it is affected. how do they do that? it is self induced vomiting due to his anxiety and panic attacks. i assume whenever they see that he is going to vomit, they physically stop him. although they have reassessed his medication after months of me insisting that he needed external medical assessment, he still is in distress if he still feels the need to vomit. the fact that he has been physically stopped from doing so while somewhat helpful for our morale is not speaking greatly about the way the situation is being handled and the way that he has been treated. you have said there is another court hearing on the 21st of november. do you have a sense of the

timeline here in terms of how long this could go on for? i have absolutely no clue. since may when he was detained, we have had to play things on a day—to—day basis because we don't really get any notice about what the procedure will be, how it will be handled, let alone the timeline. i was only told he would be going to his first court hearing five days before the hearing with a weekend in between, and i was given pretty much no information about his charges or why he was taken to court. but i was still asked to look for external legal services, which of course i was not able to do, and thatis of course i was not able to do, and that is when he was given a state appointed lawyer. what support have you had from the home office? the foreign office has been heavily involved. they have actively advocated format‘s welfare. —— for

his welfare. i feel the presentations have been infrequent and even though they have been taken to the highest instances they have not been particularly effective. i see a direct correlation between having made the news public and matt's treatment being marginally improved. i simply think that the foreign office could have a more active role not just foreign office could have a more active role notjust in advocating for matt's well for but now that he has been accused falsely of being a spy has been accused falsely of being a spy for british intelligence, the foreign office have a duty, if not publicly due to policies, to privately advocate for matt's rightful freedom and explicitly state he is not a spy for us or any intelligence, for that matter. how much is being done on that front? do you know? i have had several

discussions with the foreign office. as far as discussions with the foreign office. as farasi discussions with the foreign office. as far as i know, all of the presentations made by everyone including the foreign secretary have been with regards due procedure, proper treatment and a just outcome. due procedure has already been compromised. there was no due procedure when he was detained without notice of why he was being detained. there was not due procedure when he was heavily interrogated for two weeks without legal counsel. there was no procedure when he only had a five minute visit after five weeks of being detained. and so on and so forth. so there has not been due procedure. the fact that there are now court hearings does not take any of the violations to matt's rights asa human of the violations to matt's rights as a human and as a prisoner back. spokesman for the government says that he is guaranteed the right to a

fair trial by the uae constitution, which always presumes innocent until proven otherwise. well, that is not what the uae‘s foreign minister's tweets suggested. he tweeted about it after the first court hearing was announced, and the second court hearing was announced on the news was made public. and his tweets implied that matt is essentially guilty. on the one hand, and on the other, there is absolutely no guarantee of a fair trial if a man has been heavily interrogated without legal counsel from the beginning. asi without legal counsel from the beginning. as i said, he only met his lawyer on the second court hearing and he only saw him once before he was able to present a defence. as much as the uae claims that they are guaranteeing a fair trial for matt, this is

that they are guaranteeing a fair trialfor matt, this is not possible any more. you want to meet the foreign secretary, jeremy hunt. have you asked to do so and been specifically told no? i have done so three times. i have not been specifically told no. but rather my requests have been dismissed. what is the difference? they haven't been addressed. there is just is the difference? they haven't been addressed. there isjust no response. oh, no response. ok. literally no response? how have you got in touch with him?|j literally no response? how have you got in touch with him? i have got in touch with him through the due foreign office authorities via email andi foreign office authorities via email and i have done the request on three occasions that i also wrote to his office directly. i was granted a meeting with foreign minister bert but to this day i have not been

given a meeting with the foreign secretary. and no response at all must leave you feeling quite frustrated. how important is it to you to meetjeremy hunt? do you understand why there is no response so far? i understand that naturally being the foreign secretary he is a very busy man but we are not talking about an innocent british academic‘s rights being violated in a most outward and outrageous manner only. we are talking about an innocent british academic who is being accused of being a spy for the british intelligence services. that immediately makes this a state matter. it is notjust about an individual. because it is britain's integrity being brought into question through these accusations as well. i will read the statement from the foreign office. jeremy hunt, the foreign office has said,

was unavailable for interview this morning but they have given a statement saying they remain deeply concerned about matthew hedges and they are in regular contact with the emma ratti is regarding his ongoing legal case. we continue to press the consular legal case. we continue to press the co nsu la r a ccess legal case. we continue to press the consular access and we remain in close contact with his wife and lawyer. —— with the uae. close contact with his wife and lawyer. -- with the uae. there is no lie in any of that statement. they have made requests in relation to his welfare and contour access and regular consular access has not been granted since may. and matt's welfare has only marginally improved as of the last two weeks when the news was made public. and as i said, i see news was made public. and as i said, iseea news was made public. and as i said, i see a direct correlation between one thing and the other. i have been in regular contact with the foreign office authorities, but having regular contact does not mean having

an effective and concrete results. the only result that i accept is for matt's welfare to be a priority to the uae and for them to take him out of solitary confinement, for him to receive dignified treatment, but most importantly for him to get his rightfulfreedom. he most importantly for him to get his rightful freedom. he is most importantly for him to get his rightfulfreedom. he is an innocent academic research. we asked for an interview with the uae ambassador but the embassy have not responded to us. you want the end of solitary confinement, and you wa nt to end of solitary confinement, and you want to meet the foreign secretary. what will you do from here? you said right at the beginning that actually, you were told to get legal representation, and presumably, that's very difficult from where you are here trying to coordinate that? how alone do you feel right now? fortu nately, how alone do you feel right now? fortunately, i don't just

how alone do you feel right now? fortunately, i don'tjust have the support of my family and friends and matt's family and friends, i can count on the support of nearly 500 academics around the world, who have come to advocate for matt's is right forfreedom. this come to advocate for matt's is right for freedom. this doesn'tjust affect matt but the whole academic community worldwide. the 1st and their passion for knowledge that they have is being silenced and falsely interpreted. they also have the support of matt's peers at both of his universities, in durham and exeter, where he started this whole academic journey exeter, where he started this whole academicjourney when he did his masters. so, i don't feelalone. academicjourney when he did his masters. so, idon't feelalone. i do feel disheartened by the fact that this situation has got to this stage. but i am ready to fight. and i'm ready to do anything it takes to get matt back. thank you very much for joining get matt back. thank you very much forjoining us, get matt back. thank you very much for joining us, daniela. get matt back. thank you very much forjoining us, daniela. thank you.

also coming up later, we have more on debenhams's plan to close up to 50 stores across the uk after posting a massive loss of almost half £1 billion. the body representing care companies has accused local authorities of attempting to get services on the cheap. it says only one in seven councils in the uk covers even the minimum costs providing home care for elderly and disabled people. we'll talk to one mum whose daughter has down's syndrome but who refuses to use the home care system as she doesn't trust it. get in touch with your thoughts and experiences on that. time for the latest news — here's annita. the headlines now on bbc news. debenhams has announced plans to close up to 50 stores across the uk, putting around 4,000 jobs at risk. the retailer says it's acting to strengthen its business after posting an annual loss of almost half a billion pounds. the closures will take place over a three to five year period. the bbc‘s business correspondent,

theo leggett, is here. sorry, we do not have that clip. the uk's data watchdog has confirmed that it's fining facebook £500,000 over the cambridge analytica scandal. the information commissioner's office has confirmed the fine after it said injuly it intended to impose the maximum penalty over the social media firm's failure to ensure that cambridge analytica deleted the data it had harvested from millions of users. the home office has been accused of a "complete failure of leadership" as police forces in england and wales struggle to cope. the home affairs select committee says the police service is at risk of becoming "irreleva nt" as neighbourhood teams are stripped back and many crimes go unsolved. president trump has criticised the us media and appealed to politicians to show greater civility, after explosive devices were sent to high—profile democrats and the headquarters of the news channel, cnn. the fbi says it intercepted a total

of eight suspicious packages — none of which exploded — and no—one has come forward to claim responsibility. donald trump called for politics to be more civil at an election rally — his opponents have accused him of hypocrisy. the bbc has been heavily criticised on the issue of equal pay by a group of mps. the culture select committee says in a report released today that the corporation is guilty of "opaque decision—making" and treating women unequally, while proposed reforms don't go far enough. the corporation said much of the report was out of date but there is "more to do". the duke and duchess of sussex have arrived in fiji's western coastal town of nadi as their official royal tour of australia and the south—pacific continues prince harry unveiled a statue commemorating a british—fijian soldier who died in the 1972 battle of mirbat at an event attended by the country's president and members of the armed forces. that's a summary of the latest bbc news.

a lot of you getting in touch on debenhams and what is happening on the high street. and your shopping habits in particular. on twitter, jez says that he buys everything from independent shops, online is not much cheaper. if you lose your high street —— if you do not use your high street, don't moan if it turns into a ghost town. it isa turns into a ghost town. it is a happy experience to wander around just browsing, do whatever it ta kes to around just browsing, do whatever it takes to save our shops. i shop online but mainly in a store. and julian texts, surely the elephant in the room is high business rates which should be replaced by a sales tax which would even the playing field for amazon versus the high street. now, time tojoin huw for a sporting update. good morning — here

are the headlines... it was a great night for mo salah at anfield. he scored twice in liverpool's 4—0 win over red star belgrade in the champions league, reaching the 50—goal mark in record time. they're now top of their group. tottenham's hopes of qualification appeared to go down with hugo lloris — their goalkeeper was sent off in their 2—2 draw with psv eindhoven, that leaves them third in their group with a single point. gloucester fly—half danny cipriani has been suspended for three weeks — reduced from six due to his good disciplinary record — after he was sent off for a high tackle in their cup game at the weekend. and british number one kyle edmund's good run continues, he's through to the last 16 of the vienna open, thanks to victory over diego swartsmann — he'll play fernando verdasco later. that's all the sport for now. studio: thank you. see you later. struggling department store debenhams has unveiled plans to axe up to 50 of its high street shops, putting around 4,000 jobs at risk. the closures will happen over

the next three to five years and the announcement comes alongside dreadfulfinancialfigures — the store announced losses of almost half a billion pounds in the year to september. well, joining me to talk about this is kate anckterill, a retail expert who is ceo and founder of gdruk, a retail trend consultancy. alsojoining us from birmingham is vin vara, former president of the british independent retails association and md of the tool shop group. a group of 12 hardware stores. and on the line is doctor helen watts, a consumer psychologist at the university of worcester. welcome to all the view. thank you for coming in. kate, what do you think on what is happening with debenhams? these huge losses today, the bulk of it being put down to one—off costs of more than £500 million but, nonetheless they are

closing a lot of stores. i'm surprised it's taken them this long to make this decision, which is horribly painful and i feel desperately for those losing their jobs and the towns with a gaping hole left in the middle of their high street. however, if we think on what has happened in america, in 2016, macy's announced the closure of 100 stores. in 2016, they were ahead of this. that was 15% of their store portfolio. and terribly bad news for macy's employees and customers. however, it's necessary. we are not needing as much high street retail as we did. where are the macy's now? they've turned it around, they are doing better and one of the interesting thing is they are doing is the embraced the idea of sales, discounted product, and brought it into their department stores in a new concept called backstage. in some of their new

stores, about 10% of floor space is a new and inexpensive range of clothes, it isn't the sales staff or the old things that did not sell in the old things that did not sell in the last season but new product at lower prices. it is a discount conceptin lower prices. it is a discount concept in competition with the likes of tk maxx, or nordstrom, they are growing and generating football. that has obviously worked for them, is that the template for what other businesses should be looking at, or, because macy's and debenhams department stores which is very different to smaller shops. department stores which is very different to smaller shopsm represents what is happening across the industry. if you are selfridge's or harrods, you are doing very well, you have very good sales per square foot because people with that kind of money have still got plenty of that kind of money. but it isn't extended across the high streets.“ you are in luxury, you are fine but

in discount, you are also fine but you are in a problematic position if you are in a problematic position if you are in a problematic position if you are aiming at the middle with metal prices. if you are not differentiating, sadly debenhams has not been. i think the new ceo is absolutely right to reduce the footprint and make the stores that they keep festivals of experience, and they need to be much more activity —based with dining, hairdressing, not just activity —based with dining, hairdressing, notjust buying stuff. we have reached a peak staff, and especially young people do not need more stuff. they want to spend their money on courses, holidays or learning things, not buying a new pairof learning things, not buying a new pair of shoes. how much have we changed, helen, from the days where going shopping, obviously it is still a leisure activity for many but things have changed. where are we now? following on from the previous point about young people, i think there are different sources of

information available to young consumers, like on social media, celebrity endorsements, we have people telling us now what looks good and what we should be buying. ultimately, one of the fundamental problems, i think, ultimately, one of the fundamental problems, ithink, for consumers ultimately, one of the fundamental problems, i think, for consumers and department stores is that consumers no longer need department stores to inspire them to give ideas of what to buy. consumers, especially younger consumers, they are primed on what they need to buy. because they already have that inspiration before they start shopping, department stores in particular need to work much harder at providing the reasons to visit and stay, and the reasons to visit and stay, and the reason to return, which is everything discussed. in terms of what is changing, fundamentally i think the social and economical landscape completely affects consumer behaviour. especially for families. families shopping have a

choice on what to spend their time on at the weekend. they are less likely to think, 0k, on at the weekend. they are less likely to think, ok, let's go shopping, let's go to a department store, when there are so many options. and it isn'tjust options, there are pressures for families to be doing things that are far more stimulating and activity related, taking children to sports and dance classes, swimming classes, that is another way to spend your leisure time. whereas historically, going shopping and visiting department stores was a way that you would spend your leisure time. it isn't seen that way any more. you are the former president of the british retail association. you can provide an overview and, specifically, you work ina an overview and, specifically, you work in a different area, the tool shop group, a different market. how do you see the difficulties and issues on the high street for retailers across the piece?”

issues on the high street for retailers across the piece? i follow with my —— i agree with my fellow guests, but it is also running the business which is driving this down for us. in retail we employ over 3 million people in the country. the footfall is not there. a lot is going on and the main thing is those rates. we have a proposed manifesto like this one which we have taken to the treasury. philip hammond is looking at it. we have the budget coming up. i went around the country, in wales over the last few days, the confidence level is not fair. running the business, business rates, we need something sorted out about running the rates and the business. it isjust high. we need to look at it and level our playing field. sorry to interrupt, the business rates and the cost of bricks and mortar property versus what happens when you are operating

online, it has a big effect. also, what about the broader change in trends? people have money to spend but don't necessarily want to spend it on the high street? out of town stores, they are offering free parking, the high streets do not offer that and councils are charging. i would love to know what revenues are coming in, with the parking. they change their habits, people's habits. as the guests said, younger people know exactly what they are looking for. they are telling us what they want. if you look at what instagram and facebook is doing, customers are telling us what to have. we had to change, adapt and be training on multi—platforms. adapt and be training on multi-platforms. some comments now from our viewers, a lot of people getting in touch. helen on e—mail says she disagrees with our reporters account that people are buying more online than the high

street and that's why stores are going out of business. most of the time the stores are not stocking enough sizes or enough of the same clothes and store assistants say to go online. i recently tried to buy an outfit in debenhams but because i am plus size they only store it on mine. iwant am plus size they only store it on mine. i want to be able to try several in the shop so i do not have two sent back online deliveries when they do not fit. maybe the stores should rethink the size and shape of people in britain and stop what they need. another observation stated over the years, the cost of high street parking, the astronomical cost of car parks and the difficulty in getting into pedestrianised centres contribute. and joe says whenever a major high street stores suffers financial losses, it always opened the debate of high street versus opened the debate of high street versus online shopping, nobody ever mentions the impact that pryor has on city centre stores. walk into one

of their stores and it is always unbelievably busy —— primark. i'm sure those selling comparative goods at the low end of the retail market cannot compete. a further lack of adequate parking must also have an impact on sales, out—of—town shopping centres benefit in providing free parking. kate, that is what you were saying at the start. you are ok if you are high or low but it is those in between who are not doing as well. yes, and if you are between, you need to experiment with new retail, which is com plete experiment with new retail, which is complete integration between online and off—line. nike has an app they are trialling which recognises the individuals as they walk into the store. they say hello and suggest things to you... this is being done in china? it is being trialled by nike in america in seattle, 100

million people have their app, it has already reached critical mass so they add a complete recognition of they add a complete recognition of the individual as they walked into the individual as they walked into the store and eventually, they haven't specified how it will work but the items will be pushed towards you from moving walls, for example, that are relevant to you. from the apt, you can check out of the sizes and locations that may have the physical item you want. or, you can pre—order it and come back to the store later or the next day and it is in store later or the next day and it isina store later or the next day and it is in a lockerfor you which store later or the next day and it is in a locker for you which you store later or the next day and it is in a lockerfor you which you can open with the app. the apt allows, once every two weeks, for you to use a vending machine where you get a free gift. it is drawing people into the store and recognising them and com pletely the store and recognising them and completely optimising the local levitre based on what they know the local people want to buy. are we ready for something like that here? following on from that, that are a

lot of optimistic things and optimism in the sector. there is a lot of new innovation being trialled. the way the consumer in relating to shopping concerning these, trying the clothes on without knowing that you will be ordering them online. this is definitely the way forward for these department stores, and when consumers are receiving products that they have bought online, the person that would be delivering the service, they may be delivering the service, they may be integrating further personal assistance in assembling the item like home furnishings also won. integrating some kind of physical service attributes into the process as well, i think that's where department stores will have their unique selling point. at the moment, we know that buying things online, there's no risk any more. returning

items is quick and easy. i think the next trend is being able to pre—trial things before you buy things online. as i said, is all about time and the quicker the department stores recognise that time is one of the most valuable commodities of consumers, the better they fare in future. we haven't got time to, although it is quick and easy, to constantly box things up and wrap them up and send them back. we want to get it right first time. this is so interesting, it chimes with what helen was saying on the e—mail, about identifying the problem, she cannot always get the size she wants, but it sounds like it will get more tailored and personalised. thank you very much for joining personalised. thank you very much forjoining us, all of you. and thank you for your comments. keep getting in touch. facebook has been fined half a million pounds by the uk's data protection watchdog for its role in the cambridge analytica data scandal.

the information commissioner's office said facebook had let a "serious breach" of the law take place and had given app developers access to people's data ‘without clear consent.‘ we have talked about this quite a lot but before we talk about that fine, remind us of the background as to what happened with cambridge analytica and the data? this political insolvency cambridge analytica used a personality quiz on facebook and harvested the data of millions of people, including 1 millions of people, including 1 million in the uk, it is thought. facebook allowed a lot of developers to access their data for quite some yea rs, to access their data for quite some years, and eventually closed the loophole. the information commissioner is saying that should not have happened. they were not given the information and the data was not deleted as it should have been. facebook, basically, let users down. half £1 million fine, the information commissioner says that

is the maximum that they could have find facebook. it is the maximum, they are making that point today. it came up injuly, they said they would take consultations with facebook, they have spoken to them and decided it is still an appropriate find that they make the point that if this had happened today, when there are a new sweeping data protection regulations, ddp arc across europe, a much biggerfine could have been in place. —— gdpr. next time it could be a lot worse. thank you. only one in seven councils actually covers the minimum cost of providing carers in people's own homes, according to the uk home care association. the body, which represents home care providers, says it means workers often don't receive the national living wage, and companies aren't able to properly provide basic standards of care. the body which represents home care

providers says it means workers often don't received the national living wage, and companies aren't able to properly provide basic standards of care. by its calculations, the cost of support is just over £18.. ..for an hour — but it found that on average councils are paying just over £16. it's produced a report says that more than 400—million pounds per year is now needed. the government says it will set out plans to reform the social care system later in the year. welljoining us now is — ildi mcindoe — her 27—year—old daughter sarah—jane has down's syndrome. ildi has refused to use the home care system because she doesn't trust it and instead takes care of sarah—jane herself. also writer and disability rights activist — penny pepper. the managing director of eclipse homecare in herefordshire and worcestershire — rob greadyjoins us. tell us about your situation, you

don't trust the care on offer. yes, firstly we had the winterbourne scandal that came and that was shocking in itself and on the back of that, the government's promised to improve facilities in care homes. and, make them much better and obviously the care commission to look at it. unfortunately, we are still getting reports only to frequently, not only about the abuse in the winterbourne but also deaths happening in care or if they are in charge of care facilities or even in hospitals, i believe that the family, this is a personal thing, and fortunately i can still have that opinion. i believe ourfamily can take better care of my daughter than any stranger that may come in contact with her. we have no control as to who the people are and i know it will be said, we vet everybody and we have an interview bert if

that were the case, the people who we re that were the case, the people who were employed are the sort of people who have the same kind of caring attitude towards their charges as i have towards my daughter, then that would follow through, wouldn't it? obviously what you are talking about, your complete dedication to your daughter which everybody will understand, it does put a big strain on families and individuals who find themselves in these situations where they have to ca re to care for someone. have you tried it or is your concern based on stories that you read? do you have experience in using carers?” stories that you read? do you have experience in using carers? i have used carers but we employed them through the direct payment scheme, that means we can choose who we have caring. we have a friend is, in a bill is, pas, call them what you well. but from the age of 14, there

is the direct payment scheme. sorry to interrupt, that scheme, maybe not eve ryo ne to interrupt, that scheme, maybe not everyone is totally aware of it. why is that better than the other option? because you are in control of who the young person and the relative comes into contact with. it can still be a family member so long as they do not live with you. and with that person. you have got more faith in the type of care that they will be getting. penny, you use home ca re will be getting. penny, you use home care in emergencies only, why is that? what i would like to say, victoria, is if you read me this from a poem. it is grandad struggles in the morning, struggles in his own mess because

here's care scheme is not paid right. as an activist and a poet and writer, i would right. as an activist and a poet and writer, iwould not right. as an activist and a poet and writer, i would not be doing this. i wouldn't be doing this without pas, asi wouldn't be doing this without pas, as i prefer to call them. this issue goes round and round and round, i have been on payments for 30 years. the emergency care agencys that i use have been, quite frankly, unusable. can you give us an example of why? as i say in my activist poem, people do not turn up or they are not paid properly. it does not create a good environment for the delivery of good care. it goes on and on. another issue i really want to point out is that we are all likely to need some sort of care. we

are all likely to need this service around us. sol are all likely to need this service around us. so i don't know where we can take this. we need to decide whether we want to support ourselves and our own society. we will bring in rob, the managing director of eclipse home care in herefordshire and worcestershire. what do you think when you hear our guests talking about their lack of faith and trust in home care?|j talking about their lack of faith and trust in home care? i am obviously very upset to hear of personal experience were people have been dissatisfied with what has been provided but i can say that across the uk, we have many hundreds of thousands of brilliant, dedicated and professional home carers who the

vast majority of the time a fantasticjob in very difficult circumstances and, sadly, they are in circumstances where they can go down the road to any supermarket and burn £2 or £3 an hour more. why? because of the squeeze all governments have had on the funding of social care. the report you are talking about this morning, it absolutely highlights the urgent need for there to be more money put into social care. how important a factor is it? in terms of the quality of people being attracted to the service, how important is that level of pay? it's not a huge difference, £2 per hour? well, if you are trying to feed your family and it is your main source of income, that is a lot of money. many

people are providing absolutely excellent service. but recruitment and retention is very difficult. that means that we've got a lack of capacity. at this moment in time we have older people needing care in their own homes. it is leading to home care providers having to hand back we ourselves have had to hand back we ourselves have had to hand back and refuse work because we cannot do it at the price that is being offered and meet our legal obligations and meet the national minimum wage. i cannot understand why, as a society, we think that one of the most sensitive, delicate and importantjobs of the most sensitive, delicate and important jobs that you could ever wa nt important jobs that you could ever want done in your family can be done at the national minimum wage, or at

at the national minimum wage, or at a price that doesn't even cover that. councillor ian, chair of the local government association's community well—being board, answer that point for us? one of the important things is carers to a fantastic job across the important things is carers to a fantasticjob across the country, providing that ultimate care for everybody. we welcome the report because it highlights one of the problems with funding that we have in the social care system. if you look back over the last ten years, co re look back over the last ten years, core funding for local councils has had £16 billion removed from the system. we've had to make really difficult decisions which has impacted on the services provided. we are asking that the government, through their green paper, to recognise that social care is a key element of health care across the system. it helps the national health service because if we can provide better ca re

service because if we can provide better care and make sure people don't have to go into hospitals, it provides a better service and saves money. we should be using that in the opportunity of the green paper coming up, the local government association has its own green paper in the summer where we are challenging these questions and it's about providing more funding for health care, health social care, so we can provide sufficient funds for these important people because they doa these important people because they do a fantasticjob. make no bones about it. as counsellors, we don't wa nt to about it. as counsellors, we don't want to not provide sufficient funds for companies. we understand there are problems when they are not able to provide the service that they should do and are unable to do. we need additionalfunds should do and are unable to do. we need additional funds so that we can provide the funds for the home care associations. thank you all very much forjoining us and sharing your views on that, get in touch with us from home if you have any experiences or thoughts that you would like to share.

last night was a lovely one for some beautiful sunsets. you are right and i have got some weather watcher pictures to show you, like this one in dorset. stunning. and look at the colours in the sky. this is another beauty. and as we flick through them you can see the locations and the names of the weather watchers at the bottom. some lovely skies. and we had clear skies last night with mid to high level cloud, with the sunshine reflecting off that. and another one. look at the colours in that! spectacular in north yorkshire. today there will be more cloud around than we had yesterday and for the rest of the week it will be colder with the winds moving to a northerly. that will happen behind this weather front that comes into the north west today and moves across as, clearing some time tomorrow morning. then the winds via tomorrow morning. then the winds via toa tomorrow morning. then the winds via to a northerly so they are coming straight from the arctic and we will

all feel that. the best sunshine to date will be in parts of east, especially in the shelter of the hills, to the east and south west of the midlands and south wales as well. the cloud thickens up in the west for the odd spot of drizzle in northern ireland and the odd shower in north west england. heavier and more persistent rain arrives in the north west through the afternoon. temperatures are roundabout where they should be at this stage in october. through the evening and overnight this weather front continues its descent south eastwards, with it. clear skies to follow in scotland, northern ireland and northern england and it turns colder as the winds via. the head of the weather front, still quite colder as the winds via. the head of the weatherfront, still quite mild. the highest temperatures in the south tomorrow will be in the morning because as this weather front crosses us all and bushes into the near continent, taking rain with it, temperatures will go down. we

are getting arctic air tomorrow so snow on the hills and temperatures lower than they have been. on saturday, frosty is note to start with dry weather around and northerly winds. —— frosty note to start. the east and south east will be more prone to the showers on saturday. temperatures might say about six to ten but when you add in the winter chill, it is going to feel much colder than that. temperatures will feel more like low single figures. just before i go, don't forget that the clocks go back early on sunday. hello. it's ten o'clock. i'm joanna gosling. welcome back. the latest casualty of the high street. debenhams announces plans to close up to 50 stores, putting around 4,000 jobs at risk. it's after the retailer reported annual losses totalling nearly half a billion pounds. if you're in luxury, you're fine.

if you're in discount, then you're fine. you're in a problematic position if you're selling to the middle at middle prices, especially if you're not differentiated, which sadly debenhams is not. britain is in danger of becoming a two—speed society with some groups excluded from prosperity and rights enjoyed by others. so says a report by the body set up to counter discrimination in the uk. but how much further do we need to go to level the playing field? we'll get reaction from some of those who the report says face inequality in their day to day lives. and why mum's voice may make a better smoke alarm. wake up! the house is on fire! we'll have all the details of that us study which says smoke alarms

using a recording of the mother's voice like that, rather than a high—pitched beep, may be significantly more effective. let's go straight to annita mcveigh with a summary of the day's news. good morning. debenhams has announced plans to close up to 50 stores across the uk, putting around 4,000 jobs at risk. the retailer says it's acting to strengthen its business after posting an annual loss of almost half a billion pounds. the closures will take place over a three to five year period. the uk's data watchdog has confirmed that it's fining facebook £500,000 over the cambridge analytica scandal. the information commissioner's office has confirmed the fine after it said injuly it intended to impose the maximum penalty over the social media firm's failure to ensure that cambridge analytica deleted the data it had harvested from millions of users. the number of attacks on prisoners and prison staff in england

and wales has increased to another record high. the figures cover the 12 months to the end ofjune, where there were over 32,000 attacks overall, up 20% on the year before. assaults on staff rose 27%. president trump has criticised the us media and appealed to politicians to show greater civility after explosive devices were sent to high—profile democrats and the headquarters of the news channel cnn. the fbi says it intercepted a total of eight suspicious packages, none of which exploded, and no—one has come forward to claim responsibility. donald trump called for politics to be more civil at an election rally. his opponents have accused him of hypocrisy. the bbc has been heavily criticised on the issue of equal pay by a group of mps. the culture select committee says in a report released today that the corporation is guilty of opaque decision—making and treating women unequally, while proposed reforms don't go far enough. the corporation said much of the report was out of date but there is more to do.

the wife of a british academic, matthew hedges, who's being held on a spying charge by the united arab emirates, has told this programme that the foreign office has failed to offer adequate support. the phd student appeared in court in the uae yesterday. in a hearing that lasted about ten minutes, his lawyer asked for an adjournment for the court to consider his defence that the material retrieved from mr hedges' electronic devices is all publicly available and not secret. we're not talking aboutjust an innocent british academic‘s rights being violated in the most outward and outrageous manners. we are talking about an innocent british academic who is being accused of being a spy for the british intelligence services. that immediately makes this a state matter. the duke and duchess of sussex have arrived in fiji's western coastal

town of nadi as their official royal tour of australia and the south pacific continues. prince harry unveiled a statue commemorating a british—fijian soldier who died in the 1972 battle of mirbat at an event attended by the country's president and members of the armed forces. that's a summary of the latest bbc news. more at 10.30. thank you very much. ijust want thank you very much. i just want to bring you some of the comments you are sending in on shops on the high street after the news that debenhams is closing a lot of its stores and 4000 jobs are at risk. what is going on with a high street and what are your habits? an anomalous text: what happens at the internet goes down for a long time? —— anonymous text. works, no shops. use them! and this one: the writing has been on the wall for high street stores and retailers have been too slow to

react to the blindingly obvious. shops will become showrooms. it would be a shame to tax online businesses. and this one: why do shops close at 5:30pm, when people finish work? make it an early evening experience and then go for a drink. thank you for all those messages. they're all the usual ways of in touch. in a major new report released today, the equality and human rights commission, the body responsible for promoting equality and non discrimination in the uk, is warning that britain is in danger of becoming what the report calls a two—speed society with some groups excluded from prosperity and rights enjoyed by others. in a moment we'll be focusing on some of the specific areas covered in the report with our panel of guests.

but first, to get an overview, we'rejoined by rebecca hilsenrath, chief executive of the equality and human rights commission. thank you very much for coming in, and we are particularly struck by the phrase that you are using, two speedh society. explain what you mean. what we have found is good news and bad news. the bad news is pretty bad. some good news on education. we have got better attainment throughout and more ethnic minorities in some cases getting education and degree level qualification. some good news in employment. more women, more black people and for pakistanis and work, and more women getting betterjobs. and of course gender pay gap regulations, the gender pay gap closing and more transparency. and more people engaging in politics, more people engaging in politics, more people engaging online before services online, including the

elderly and disabled. but there is a big but. for disabled people we are seeing them falling out of the mainstream in terms of disadvantage starting at education and going all the way through in terms of work and housing and health, and a spike in disability hate crime, and that also goes to domestic abuse and sexual violence. in terms of ethnic minorities, some ethnic minorities, black caribbean groups and black african groups, pakistani and bangladeshi families, more living in poverty, more experiencing extreme deprivation. and for gypsy and roma traveller groups, the worst outcomes across the piece. some startling and shocking findings on child poverty. we are seeing three in ten children in the uk are living in poverty and that goes up to five in ten for some ethnic minority groups that i mentioned. infant mortality rate is rising for the first time since the 19905. rising for the first time since the 1990s. for women we are still seeing

them being held back at work. we are seeing bullying, sexual harassment and domestic violence. and before i end, it is important to look at what happens when things go wrong. what we are seeing is a downward turn in access to justice so if you have got access to justice so if you have got a problem with housing or social security, you're not going to get a lawyer and you can't address your rights. that is why people will get entrenched and if things go very badly wrong, we are seeing a problem in terms of conditions in detention, where we are seeing two thirds of prisons in england and wales overcrowding, a rise in self harm, and a real concern about the well—being of prisoners. the haves and have—nots, if you like, and the real concern is it is getting entrenched and if we don't act now, it will get worse and the gap will widen. why is it that inequality increases in a society like ours in 2018? what is going on? there is a range of regions and i

have mentioned so justice, there is a range of regions and i have mentioned sojustice, which is key. if we have rights but we can't increment them, things get worse. we are talking about successive governments here, and it is notjust a moment in time. and we also need to look in society where we are still seeing prejudice and bullying. we are still seeing attitudes that hold people back. there is also that brexit moment. what we are seeing now, what we think, is the data we are producing is a milestone, a benchmark, so we can see what britain post—brexit will look like. we have called for the government to give an assurance that we will not see a regression in rights but what we have got to understand is we are moving away from the protections that the eu offers, and the question is what will it look like going forward ? is what will it look like going forward? ok. we will be talking to you again in a little while with others with wider perspectives on the subject and more focus on the aspect you have been talking about. thank you, rebecca. see you again in

a little bit. for now we want to focus on people with disabilities. rebecca was describing some of the findings of the report, which suggest they are finding themselves increasingly excluded from mainstream society. as she was saying, it starred in education and continues through life. the disability pay gap persists and the likelihood of people with disabilities being in low paid opportunities exists. they face poorer health and a lack of access to suitable housing. let's speak to storme toolis, a wheelchair user who has cerebral palsy, madeleine close who uses a guide dog, and sheron carter is ceo of habinteg housing association, which specialises in accessible housing. i will start with you, madam. it was a really depressing picture, listening to what rebecca was saying about disabled people in society

today. you are visually impaired. how do you find it on a day—to—day basis? i think there are lots of problems. access to information, access to transport, there are lots of barriers with trying just to live independently and a normal life. do you feel like you are treated like a second—class citizen? you feel like you are treated like a second-class citizen? yes, very much so. things like guide dog taxi refusals, having to stand up for your rights, the attitudes, prejudice, discrimination. and then if you do make a complaint about a problem, authorities and local authorities in particular are slow to respond or do not respond. when you say about having to stand up for your rights, rebecca was saying that rights are being available doesn't mean that they will be in fermented and it is tough to stand up for your

rights. how much do you have to do it? -- rights. how much do you have to do it? —— doesn't mean they will be implemented. you do it almost on a daily basis. the difficult thing about the equality act is the emphasis is on the disabled person to ta ke emphasis is on the disabled person to take the action and you have got to take the action and you have got to gather evidence to prove your case, and that is tricky. you just wa nt to case, and that is tricky. you just want to get in the car and go home. you don't want to have to ask to see the taxi driver's exemptions, argue the taxi driver's exemptions, argue the law with them, then go and find witnesses and tracked down cctv, and all those things. just because they have refused to take you home. gosh. storm, what are your experiences?” would say, yes, it is difficult of course, but for me i fight my battles in a much more private way. a lot of things happen to me that i

forget about and that is just because of the kind of person that i am. i have never been the sort of person to let my disability get in the way of me doing things. i think it has become so ingrained that i have forgotten about it. i am saying that it bothers me a lot less than it might bother madeleine because i don't even think about it any more. it isjust the don't even think about it any more. it is just the way don't even think about it any more. it isjust the way i live my life. i work as an english teacher, and i have found that i can't get access to work, which means that essentially i am being left in incredibly vulnerable positions, in a job which is on the front line of public services to society. i am employed to teach children. i am on my training yearand employed to teach children. i am on my training year and i am a salaried memberof my training year and i am a salaried

member of staff, but also because i am still being sponsored by my university, i can't get the provisions of having assistance during my working day, which means that i am left unable to prepare my own meals at work and things like that. that doesn't stop me doing the job. i still do the job and i still do the things i need to do. i am just so used to adapting things that i don't make a point of it. i think for me it is also about your own attitude. i think you can get a lot further if you have got a can—do attitude. one other thing is rebecca was saying that for disabled people and inequality, it starts right back in education, and it is compounded thereafter. what with the messages you are getting as you were growing 7 you are getting as you were growing up? i was you are getting as you were growing very you are getting as you were growing cky. you are getting as you were growing up? iwas very lucky. i lived you are getting as you were growing up? i was very lucky. i lived with very supportive pushed me to me to

go to mainstream school and to university and i did all those things. i think it does depend on your access to information. but i don't have a negative experience of education. i have been able to be educated and i now work in a public service front line job. i am not the right person to say. you are absolutely other ibiza because everybody‘s experience equally valid. —— you are absolutely the right person. of course i was bullied at school. people made comments about me. but i didn't play very much attention to it. i can't give you information and say this happened to me and it was awful because i don't live my life on a day—to—day basis thinking this is so exhausting. and when i do, i do it very privately and in my own way and by myself. it is my own personal

thing that i don't share with a lot of people. i wouldn't class myself as an activist. i would say that my activism is being myself.” as an activist. i would say that my activism is being myself. i am hearing you quietly getting your own way. is that how you feel?” hearing you quietly getting your own way. is that how you feel? i do it quietly. sharon, what do you make of the report? it reports what we already know. we know that one in five people in britain have a disability. it is well—known that we have an ageing population and people are living longer. so within that context, it is difficult to see that we are making adequate provision for their needs within this country when only 7% of the homes in britain have

even basic accessible standards. and what i mean by basic accessible standards is a level thresholds to get into the home, a reasonably wide doorway, and having the toilet on the ground floor. these are the things all covered by legislation and should be happening? with their legislation, all providers of new homes are obliged to build homes to that very basic accessibility standard. what that means for the average disabled person is that they may be able to get into that house, but they can't get around it adequately. so we hear many stories. a lot of tenants have had this experience before being housed by us, where they have been housed but they become imprisoned in one part of the home. you may be able to get into the front room, you may be able to get to the toilet area, but not necessarily because the corridors are quite narrow and access to other

parts of the homes are quite restricted, and we often find disabled people are housed but enclosed in one very small area. we hear lots of stories about it increasing the rate of depression for people living in those circumstances. it increases pressure on theirfamily circumstances. it increases pressure on their family because you will have family members who are then having to carry people around the home, provide an extra level of care, and when somebody is living in an accessible home there is more independent and people can get around the home will ease a bleak —— more easily and it takes pressure off the whole family. are these things that you identify with, both of you? very much so. friends that are wheelchair users, i have got to visit them rather than them visit me because they cannot get into my home. we have become quite isolated. and few people actually know a disabled person outside their own

family, so they don't necessarily socialise or no disabled people to socialise or no disabled people to socialise with. they're all sorts of barriers with things like that. for me, i live on my own in an accessible and modern and very nice flat. i have people over to my house, which i'm very lucky to be able to do. but i don't necessarily go to parties at other people's houses because of me not being able to use the bathroom. or if i did go, i would go in a very small wheelchair which would mean i would be required to be pushed around and carried up and down. i personally don't like to do that so i choose not to go to those things. there are so many things to be angry about, and to be honest i don't want to waste my energy being angry about it. so i have learned as an adult

how to manage my life in a way that works for me. great stuff. thank you all very much. we are going to keep talking about the report and move on to other areas covered in the report. it says that people from certain ethnic minorities such as people with indian heritage have continued to succeed in education and at work, but others are more likely to live in poverty and experienced severe deprivation which damages the health and education and work prospects. on gender pay, women's equality has progressed significantly in some ways, but there are still many factors older women back at work, some stemming from gender stereotypes at school. bullying and sexual harassment are widespread in the workplace and in education. nonetheless there are more women in higher paid occupations and the gender pay gap is decreasing. stefan cross qc, is a lawyer and equal pay campaigner. dr zubaida haque, is deputy director of the runnymede trust,

which is a race quality think tank. alika agidi—jeffs is a youth worker and artist who goes by the name infecta. and still here is rebecca hilsenrath, chief executive of the equality and human rights commission. thank you all for coming. what do you pick out of this report? this is a really good time to take stock, on anniversary of the race relations act. and it is a great time for this report to come out. it shows a mixed picture. on one hand, in relation to black and ethnic minority groups, they have been doing extremely well in educational attainment with much higher proportion is getting degrees and on. where we have the issue is that social mobility promise that if you get the degree, then you get the jobs, it is not happening. it is not happening with women and it is not

happening with women and it is not happening with women and it is not happening with ethnic minority groups and that is a real problem. it is not translating into the labour market. where we also have an issue, and this explains why there are differences between ethnic groups exceeding in the labour market, so indian and chinese groups are doing quite well in comparison to bangladesh and pakistani and black caribbean groups, and the reason for that is because of the impact of poverty and deprivation. child poverty was something that the report raised and it is something that the runnymede trust have been talking to the government about. basically lobbying the government about it for a long time. deal with child poverty. child poverty has got worse under this government. the government has removed child poverty targets. which were brought in by gordon brown? he set a target. this government has removed the targets, removed the child poverty commission, disbanded that, so it is very difficult to tell. but we know

in relation to ethnic minorities approximately 50% of afro—caribbean children are in poverty, black children are in poverty, black children are in poverty. close to 60% of bangladeshi and pakistani children are in child poverty. and we know that 60% of children across the board, who are in child poverty, are in working households. so the big question to ask ourselves is to what extent is the unfairness and the racial inequality to do with institutions and institutional barriers and institutional racism and to what extent is it to do with government, governmental policies, like the budget policies, immigration, remember windrush, and to what extent is it to do with those policies making things worse for ethnic minorities? you are youth worker. what other kids that you worker. what other kids that you work with saying to you about their experiences? first and foremost,

they are exceeding in school but they are exceeding in school but they are exceeding in school but they are more likely to be expelled. their experiences they are the most likely wants to go to university but when they go to university, they don't get the job. quite frankly, there are a lot of things that could have been done to solve all of this. one word was reparations but that never got dealt with seriously. whoever is watching at home, whoever feels empowered to start a campaign about it, and can—do reparations for individual people, do it to redress the imbalance is going on. there is a lot of disparity. people feel like there is no hope even when they tried their best. they are still being pushed out. to simply be treated as another human being. the people of colour.. —— for people of colour, period. it is not about black, asian, mexico. it is people of colour. there is a frustrating feeling that you can do your best, played by the rules, and still not get your deserved to dues. but on

the flip side, people of colour need to use the consultation system that we already have. get involved in local mps, democracy, voting. make use of it while we still can. that is what i am more targeted towards. we can sit here and theorise and talk about this all day long but solutions are what people need. i think one of the simple solutions from a governmental side, even though it sounds like a wishy—washy thing, is to do some form of reparations and thing, is to do some form of re pa rations and attack thing, is to do some form of reparations and attack the imbalances and use that money to finally give people back a pharaoh ground to start with and then secondly... because you can't say that the kids aren't doing what they need to. they are exceeding in school but they will be expelled at the drop of a hat. it is for younger adults to help older adults, and get involved in the tasks that communities need and take ownership. you are an equal rights campaigner,

the message coming through today is it does not matter what equal laws that are, it doesn't always equal quality on the ground. we have seen that with equal pay situations as well. we have another 50th anniversary, it was 50 years since the dagenham strike, and this week we had the biggest equal pay strike everin we had the biggest equal pay strike ever in glasgow. because those inequalities still exist. what happened was a mixture of positives and negatives. so, you have a group of women who have succeeded and moved up, that you have a huge number of women who remain at the bottom. for them, it number of women who remain at the bottom. forthem, it has number of women who remain at the bottom. for them, it has not changed. in fact, things have gotten worse. an example from my profession, depay of senior partners

and lawyers in the city has quadrupled in the last 15 years. —— the pay. for legal aid lawyers it has gone down by 40%. guess which pa rt has gone down by 40%. guess which part of the profession is male and which is predominantly female? but if you do cut the pay stats, it looks like it is hugely improved because some people have moved up but others have either gone down or state level. the gap is smaller but the reality is completely different. how do you address it? is that transparency? that's my view, the pay gap regulations do not address it, it is a completely different issue. there is no proper pay transparency. i have to say that the bbc is the best example of this, i'm afraid. because it had to have proper transparency, where you actually listed where individuals

we re actually listed where individuals were in the organisation. it still isn't full transparency. not for the bbc, they only need a certain level but the fact they had a degree of transparency exposed a degree of injustice, which exposed injustices at lower levels but the gender pay gap for the bbc is actually less than the national average. to address equal pay you need to have proper pay transparency and none of the political parties are committed to addressing that issue. the government itself has said they will wait another five years and see how the gender pay gap regulations play out but the issue of equal pay is put on the back burner yet again. there are no simple answers to anything but it seems to be a way of making sure equality law is acted uponin making sure equality law is acted upon in the way it should be. what would you say are the answers to making britain a fairer society?

obviously causes are complex, there is no easy fix. we had a numberof had a number of regulations in our report saying we are happy with the 100% compliance because it helps in terms of understanding what's going on. and it enforces a national conversation. i agree with the comments made by you, we have called upon the government to look at apprenticeships and make them more available to women and to minority ethnic communities. we are looking at attitudes in school, it starts at the beginning. and what our schools doing about bullying? we are looking at the government to look at pay gaps, notjust at the government to look at pay gaps, not just in at the government to look at pay gaps, notjust in relation to gender but ethnic groups and disability groups because what we are seeing, it is absolutely right what you were saying about those working and still in poverty. the nature of work and

poverty has changed. we have huge ove rla p poverty has changed. we have huge overlap where we have to look at what people are earning not only when they come in but what promotion and the pay gap looks like within organisations. coming back to the earlier conversation you had, disability pay gaps are important but we've asked the government to look at the work they were doing in relation to disabled groups because they have said they want to put more disabled people into employment in the next ten years. we have asked them to set an interim target and focus on what they are looking at. we we re focus on what they are looking at. we were also talking about what employers are doing. we have asked them in our report to make jobs flexible and make flexible working available. that will help women and other groups looking at employment. and to end sexual harassment. we talked about it earlier. we have asked the government for a manual

duty upon employers to take steps to protect employees from sexual harassment. we need workplaces where people are safe as well as owning the appropriate amount of money as we have all agreed. am afraid we are out of time. it has been great to have you on. the message is a lot has improved. and teach kids about the true history of their culture. it will help, black, white, mixed race, male and female. if they learn truly where they came from, as opposed to the slave trade, that will also encourage them to strike high when they become young adults. let me bring in some comments from viewers before we wrap this up. thomas on e—mail, i'm 17 and a full—time wheelchair user. i can't go on holiday on an aeroplane. i can't just go on holiday on an aeroplane. i can'tjust go out go on holiday on an aeroplane. i can't just go out for go on holiday on an aeroplane. i can'tjust go out for the day. my

vehicle is expensive and my education is not comparable to mainstream. two speed societies here to stay because they lack of funding, compassion or the will to be equal. compassion is free, we should all be showing up. blossom says she only gets £73.10 per week with no help from prescriptions, help with transport costs, physical disabilities get a lot more than if you have a mental disabilities. even benefits forms are geared towards physical disabilities. another says that she was inspired by the young lady with cerebral palsy. i believe in a positive attitude. i am the parent of a young person with cerebral palsy. i see my beautiful girl and not the disability. it's a shame others haven't. they make some of the world's biggest computer games — and are often credited with changing the face of gaming, by creating interractive worlds for players to explore —

called ‘open world games.‘ but rockstar have also attracted controversy, with the grand theft auto series featuring criminality, violence and prostitution. tomorrow sees the long—awaited release of red dead redemption 2, a wild—west game where you play a cowboy conflicted by his own ideas and his loyalty to the criminal gang that raised him. bbc radio 1 newsbeat‘s steffan powell went to meet rockstar north‘s co—studio head rob nelson to talk about the release and the future of gaming. i didn't do nothing! damn fool! all of our games build on one of the games that have come before them. and this game i think more than any other is a product of every game that we‘ve made, hopefully the good bits of the games we‘ve made and the things that we‘ve tried to do. i think, going back to even before i was around, grand theft auto 3 and that feeling of that game that i had and i think other people

had, where it surprised you and you were just, like, i can get out of the car? i can walk around? i can drive and interact with this world? i think it was sort of a huge leap forwards. i think we are always striving for that with every game we make. so you were mentioning there that grand theft auto was a big leap, grand theft auto 3 was a big leap forward in the industry at the time. i found, i think so. i think other people would agree with that. so do you think... and is that the aim for this title then? to have a similar sort of impact in terms of a leap forward? i think a leap forward for ourselves. it is for other people to decide whether it‘s a leap forward for games. you know, the desire to make these worlds more believable and more interactive and deeper is what drives us. this world has its consolation! how important is a good story for you in your games? because there is an argument to say that the industry is moving away from it and story—driven games are becoming less popular and it is all about online these days.

i mean, a good story is extremely important. but a believable world is most important, you know, and the story is part of that. but i think for us, what we really wanted to push for on this game i think was making sure that the story didn‘t feel like it started and stopped when you were engaging with it doing "missions" for story missions, and then you were playing two characters. the character that does the story and then your character that goes out in the world and does what you want it to do. we wanted to try to continue, i think, hopefully as we always do, but to blur those lines and the game is the story and the story is the game. you coming, buddy? things have changed quite dramatically in the last eight years, haven‘t they, since the last one? yes.

so, do you notice trends and things like that and think, oh, we might want to introduce that because it seems really popular or works well? i think we are always paying attention, but are we influenced on a big scale by anything? we are influenced by the world and we are influenced by anything and everything but not, i wouldn‘t say specific gaming trends. we are influenced by the world. so, the obvious example here, the obvious question, everybody is now seemingly making a battle royale version of their game, for example. yes, yes. so would that be something you would consider or you would think about when that is happening and the trend is kicking off? no, that wouldn‘t drive us that way. with gta online we have different sorts of modes and things like that. so, i mean, we sort of, we try to do our thing as much as we can. you know, if it‘s something that will work for us and it will feel authentic, you know, like an authentically made things from us, we will do it. well, ain't this a rare treat? that's a nice horse.

there‘s been some reaction online to sort of the hours it took to get things finished. yeah. how do you feel about that reaction? i mean, it‘s something that we try to manage as best we can as we try to make the stuff that we‘re trying to make. it is something we‘re trying to get better at all the time, you know. i think it‘s, you know, a comment that was taken out of context. and i think, you know, does the team work really hard? yes. do we want it to be something that is... that continues and that is a standard work practice? no, it‘s something we‘re always trying to get better at and we‘re trying to get better at it now and we‘ll continue to address it. being rockstar, everything you do, the expectation is very high.

people are expecting, especially having some of the previews that have come out and some very nice words have been written about the game. what is the pressure of that expectation like? you‘re aware of it but you can‘t think about that. because, if that‘s directing your decisions, i don‘t know if you‘re going to make the right decisions. so, we are aware, we know each other really well, we are all really into what we‘re doing and what we are striving for. so, we‘re just trying to build on the thing that we made before and trying to do better than the last time. and if you want to see more on that release, watch the radio 1 gaming show on the bbc iplayer. coming up... how heavily do your children sleep? would they sleep through this? the house is on fire!

wake up! the house is on fire! we‘ll be discussing research which suggests children are more likely to be woken by a fire alarm if it‘s a recording of their mum‘s voice rather than a conventional beeping sound. more than 188 children every day in england are being put on protection plans to keep them safe, officialfigures released within the last hour, have revealed. a child protection plan is a plan drawn up by the local authority which sets out how the child can be kept safe and details the support that the family need. the government figures also found that in the year to march 2018, there were more than 198 thousand investigations into possible harm of children. it‘s important to point out that not all of these investigations would have resulted in any action. with me now is — nastasha finlayson — chief executive of become, the charity for children in care. also, in our carlisle studio we have andy bilson — emeritus professor of social work at the university of

central lancashire — who is committed to developing systems that reduce what he considers to be the ‘unnecessary removal‘ of children from their families. thank you very much forjoining us. so, natasha, a lot of kids going into care. what do you think about the levels and whether the right thing is always being done by these kids? i have never met a child in ca re kids? i have never met a child in care who says they wished they hadn‘t been taken into care. we had to remember it is really hard to be taken into care. there are a lot of processes and professionals involved. they caught, a judge, social workers and a lot of professionals talking to that child about what is happening in their lives. children are put into care because they are experiencing extreme neglect, abuse, and extreme family dysfunction that means they are not able to thrive in that environment. it is not a decision taken environment. it is not a decision ta ken lightly. environment. it is not a decision taken lightly. are there clear lines? sometimes we cover cases in

the news that end up with awful outcomes were a child is in a situation where it seems that the threshold should have been the child was not kept in that situation. is it clear where the line is and how difficult is it to make these evaluations? i think it is a very ha rd evaluations? i think it is a very hard judgment for these professionals to make, either social workers or the courts. often there will not be a body of substantial evidence one way or another, especially if it is a young preverbal child or baby. you will find professionals are on the side of caution, especially following the baby p case where social workers we re baby p case where social workers were vilified with tabloid saying there was blood on their hands. there was no doubt that has had an incredible legacy. the barometer swings, previously there were claims that actually there was too much emphasis on keeping kids with their

families, and that was due to the case going much further back in time. let‘s bring in andy. where would you say that things are, are they where they should be? firstly, i think they where they should be? firstly, ithinkl they where they should be? firstly, i think i live in a different universe to your last speakers. i do a lot of work with children in care. many of them do not want to be in care. many of them. i think that is the starting point for me. can you explain that? is that because they do not like the care that they are getting or because they actually wa nted getting or because they actually wanted to stay with their parents and they were forcibly taken away?” think a variety of reasons. as you say, one is they do not like the places there are. although many of those are doing their best for these children and they also want to be with their real mums and dads, as they call them. for large with their real mums and dads, as they callthem. for large numbers with their real mums and dads, as they call them. for large numbers of children, that is the issue. even where there has been some issue with

neglect or so on. sometimes a child may, obviously it is completely understandable that a child will wa nt to understandable that a child will want to be with their parents, but sometimes hard decisions need to be taken where others can see it is not the right or the best environment for the child? of course there are times when children need to be taken into care, for their protection for their best interests. but it is my opinion that we do that far too often. basically, the problem is we are not supporting families enough. that is what these figures that have come out today show. they show we have moved into an approach where we are constantly investigating people. the figures today show there were 198,000 investigations, a huge number, and over 130,000 found

nothing. those children in those families got a service which constituted purely an investigation. they did not get help. most of the pa rents were they did not get help. most of the parents were refused help after being accused of abusing their child and found not to have done it. this isa and found not to have done it. this is a system which is increasingly doing that. the number of investigations... what is the answer? obviously where allegations are made, they need to be investigated. in order to make sure it is properly scrutinised. yes, the answer is we have a system that moves everything towards investigation. from the start, when a call comes in from a concerned teacher or health visitor, quite often what happens is they are onto call ce ntre often what happens is they are onto call centre and are not greatly put through to a social worker so they are not discussing the situation. they want to talk up the case, in

their view, then it pushes into child protection, and once there, you get these investigative responses. they are doing harm to children and families. to be accused of abusing your child is harmful and creates a real stress on parents. these are usually parents already struggling, parents like, in your la st struggling, parents like, in your last piece, about poverty. usually they are struggling with poverty, maybe mental health issues, or other issues. they need help and support, and increasingly we have cut this. we have cut everything from domestic violence refuges right through to front line services for children in need. all of that is gone and now we have an increasing number of children investigated. these figures show that we have doubled the rate

at which we respond to children coming in through the front door investigative leave. ten years ago it was 15% of referrals treated with an investigation. these cost a lot and do nothing. we could keep going, i‘m afraid we are out of time. thank you to both of you. the minister for children and families gave us a statement saying i know there are pressures on councils but today‘s data shows more vulnerable children and families are getting support to develop their needs. we are developing, testing and sharing support through our £270 million children social care programmes on top of the £200 billion available to councils for local services, including projects that help families at risk of breakdown and reducing the need for child protection measures, repeat referrals to measures or referral care. a us study has this morning has

found that children are more likely to be woken by the sound of a fire alarm with their mother‘s voice rather than a standard high—pitch alarm like this... alarm sounds the us team studied 176 children at a sleep research centre in columbus, ohio, and tried three different "voice alarms" on each, as well as a commonly used tone like the one we‘ve just heard. wake up! the house is on fire! so a familiar sound like that of a mother‘s voice is more likely to rouse a sleeping child, according to the us researchers. they found nine—in—10 children woke up to the voice alarms, compared to only around half who work to the traditional sound. earlier i spoke to professor niamh nic daeid — a forensic scientist

at the university of dundee — who has carried out similar research. it was looked at in terms of the work we did at the university of dundee, we looked at it off the back ofa dundee, we looked at it off the back of a very tragic fire that happened in 2013, which was known as the philpott case, and it happened in derbyshire where six children were killed in a fire. one of the questions that was asked was whether or not the smoke alarms within the property would have roused the children from sleep. we did a piece of work with derbyshire fire and rescue services to try and assess that. what we found, as a result of the study, was children aged between two and 14 or 15, around those ages, they did not wake up very easily to conventional smoke alarms. we found a smoke alarm sound that would wake them up. the research today was carried out in the us, which found similar results. in the us, they

found the mother ‘s voice is most effective at waking up the children. you used a voice, not a mother ‘s voice, the voice of an actor. tell us how you did it. and, what importance do you think it shows about voice versus other noises for waking a child? that's right, the sound we used, we used a combination. the first part of the sound we used was a low tone, which is similarto sound we used was a low tone, which is similar to the kind of sound you hear when a truck is reversing. the intermittent buzzing all beeping noise which was combined with the voice of a female actor. we found this combination woke up young children about 80 to 90% of the time. in the us, they used a recorded mother ‘s voice. we did not find it necessarily needed to be the mother‘s voice. one of the reasons why we wanted not to record

necessarily the mother‘s voice is because if you sell or provide devices forfamilies, because if you sell or provide devices for families, you are placing responsibility on them to record the voice. we wanted to see whether a pre—recorded voice would work as well and we found it would. we can speak now to dave coss, a watch commander with derbyshire fire and rescue service — he‘s investigated fires with extremely tragic outcomes. this gave rise to the research that neave was involved in. what was your experience earth kids waking up or not to fire alarms? good morning. secondly, it is neave that was my supervisor for the research that we did. from experience, following the tragedy in 2012, it came to light

and we spent quite a bit of time looking at other cases. it became clear there was an issue that children sometimes do not wake up to a normal smoke detector. it is fascinating, to discover through this research that they are more likely to respond to a voice. obviously it is important to identify. have you come across many other cases yourself? where kids just haven‘t woken up. other cases yourself? where kids just haven't woken up. personally i know of about four cases, where we can more or less say that children have not responded to the sound of a smoke detector. and presumably it is important that everyone in a house wa kes important that everyone in a house wakes up, it could be at a stage where it is not feasible for a pa rent to where it is not feasible for a parent to go to every bedroom and wa ke parent to go to every bedroom and wake someone up if there is a fire blazing? our aim is we want every household in the uk to have working

smoke detectors to give them as early as possible an opportunity of being alerted to a fire and escaping without injuries or problems. that includes the entire family. parents will be listening to the research linking, crikey, i have an old—fashioned smoke alarm, not an old—fashioned smoke alarm, not an old—fashioned one old—fashioned smoke alarm, not an old —fashioned one but old—fashioned smoke alarm, not an old—fashioned one but a standard smoke alarm that makes the noise. what if it isn‘t effective enough at waking up my kids, what advice would you suggest for those wanting to make sure their children are safe? firstly, there is new research being carried out but says a normal. pa rents carried out but says a normal. parents will always wake up to the detector, the advice we are saying, we have said it since 2012, that if the smoke alarm goes off in your household, just be mindful to make sure that the children have woken up as well. rather than just waking up and getting yourself out, make sure your children are out as well. dave,

thank you. we have had a really busy show today. thank you for all of your comments. and your involvement in the programme. it is always very welcome. bbc newsroom live is coming up welcome. bbc newsroom live is coming up next. have a lovely afternoon. goodbye. hello, just like recent days, the further north and west you are, we have more clout today. towards eastern parts, that‘s where there is the best of the sunshine. clear blue skies in eastern areas this morning. it is likely to stay sunny in the afternoon. more clout further west in wales, north england, scotland and northern ireland. it will intensify in scotland later on today. temperatures are down a little compared to yesterday. but

they are set to go even further. we have patches of rain moving south across scotland. that‘s the start of cold air moving in. all the way from the arctic, you can see these blues taking over the uk. northern parts, where you have clear spells, those temperatures get down to three or 4 degrees. it‘s about 7—9d further south. things will clear quickly, we have sunshine for many of us on friday. showers around coastal areas but a big drop in temperatures. goodbye. you‘re watching bbc newsroom live — it‘s 11am, and these are the main stories this

morning: debenhams posts record losses and plans to close up to 50 stores — putting 4,000 jobs at risk. i think it is not a surprise to our customers that customers are chopping less in our stores and more online, we are addressing the structural shift in the industry. president trump condemns the us media for their "endless hostility" and calls for greater civility in politics, after suspected explosives were posted to high—profile figures. the bbc comes under heavy criticism from mps on the issue of pay, as it‘s accused of failing in its duty to give staff equal pay and opportunities. the director of the cia is reported to have heard audio recordings of the the murder of the journalist jamal khashoggi inside the saudi consulate in istanbul.