it comes as she visted european leaders in an attempt to rescue her brexit deal. now on bbc news, tuesday in parliament. hello there, and welcome to tuesday in parliament. deferred, not cancelled — the prime minister's deputy says mps will get a vote on theresa may's deal. every member here will have to confront the hard but inescapable choices which now face our country today. the labour leader's under pressure to call a vote of his own. we need to do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time to have a motion of no—confidence, in order to get rid of this government. a former minister offers a third way.

maybe it's time for some sort of government of national unity. but it's notjust about brexit. there's a passionate warning about threats to the world's wildlife. unless we wake up as a world, these animals are going to be extinct. all that to come and more. but first, this was the tuesday mps were due to decide the fate of theresa may's brexit deal. instead, as you may possibly have noticed, on monday, the prime minister pulled the so—called meaningful vote because she feared a heavy defeat. instead, mrs may began a tour of european capitals, beginning her day in the netherlands, and laterfitting ina stop in berlin for talks with angela merkel. she will visit ireland tomorrow. mps did spend a large part of the day discussing her deal after the speaker agreed to a request from the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, to hold an emergency debate on the decision not

to have a vote. this runaway prime minister is not even seeking to negotiate. she confirmed she's only seeking reassurances. mr speaker, our prime minister is traipsing around the continent in pursuit and search of warm words, when she can get out of the car to hear them. i would say it really is, mr speaker, if i may say so, the unspeakable in pursuit of the unwritten. a waste of time and a waste of public money. because of her own unworkable red lines, the european commission says it will not renegotiate with her. and the prime minister concedes she is not negotiating either. so what on earth is she doing traveling from capital to capital in europe? it can't be christmas shopping, i'm sure that's not the case. so what on earth is she doing in europe? but worse than that, mr speaker, it shows that once again she is simply not listening.

theresa may's deputy said she had spent 22 hours before mps during the last month, and the meaningful vote had been deferred, not canceled. my right honourable friend the prime minister is determined to do everything in her power now to secure the safeguards and assurances for which so many right honourable and honourable members have called. and, as in every step in these negotiations, she is motivated by the national interest, and by nothing else. and when we know the outcome of the talks now under way, the government will bring the debate and the decision back to parliament. at that point, mr speaker, not only the government, but the house, every member here, will have to confront the hard but inescapable choices which now face our country today. surely he will agree with me that, after yesterday, the prime minister has shredded her credibility,

and many, many people on both sides of the house now find it almost impossible to believe a word that she says, because she asserts one thing one day, and then the opposite the day after. she sends her cabinet out to assert the vote is going on, even as she's planning to pull it. surely he must understand that we cannot go on with this prime minister at the helm. is the problem not now that ministers do not know themselves whether they're telling the truth to this house of commons? because they are not being told the truth by the prime minister. this is now a question of trust, and that is the reason that the dup are not supporting the government. it's notjust a question of policy detail, it's a question of breaking trust. ministers don't even know when they're telling the truth or not to this house anymore. david bevington says the decision was approved by the cabinet, but he wasn't the only senior

figure under pressure. will he not do the right thing now and table a motion of no—confidence in this government, so we can be shot of them? jeremy corbyn! mr speaker, i table this motion today with the member supported the tabling of. we have no confidence in this government. we need to do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time to have a motion of no—confidence in order to get rid of this government. as the prime minister tried to break the deadlock on the continent, in the commons, one former cabinet colleague did float some possible solutions. i don't know how we test the parliamentary opinion if we don't have a vote. maybe we need to get together a special select committee of senior members of parliament to hammer out what we need. maybe it's time for some sort of government of national unity. maybe it's time for a free vote in an eventual vote on the deal, avoiding usual party political constraints. what i do know is that, with 108 days to go until this cou ntry leaves

the european union, if the government cannot sort this out on this matter of great national importance, then parliament must step in, must stop posturing, and actually get down to work to hammer out a deal. thank you. earlier, mps try to find out when they will finally get to vote on that brexit deal. and made claims that ministers might find a loophole to avoid having a vote at all. under the eu withdrawal act, if no deal is reached by 21 january, including if the deal is rejected by mps, then the prime minister must make a statement to parliament. some mps wondered if the existence of any deal could let the government off the hook. a brexit minister tried to reassure mps that they would still get a say. so it is our clear intention that this house will consider this matter before 21 january, and have the opportunity to decide on the deal. but let me also say this clearly. in the unlikely and highly undesirable circumstances that

as of 21 january there is no deal before the house, the government would bring a statement to the house and arrange for a debate as specified by the law. i am confident that we will have a deal that this house can support, and i hope that the statement puts the rest of the concerns of honourable members about the government's commitment to meet the spirit as well as the letter of the withdrawal act, and to respect the will of this house. robyn walker was answering an urgent question from a senior labour mp. now that the government has pulled the vote, we don't know when a vote will come or even whether a vote will come on the deal. number 10 official spokesmen said this morning that it will come by 21 january, and the minister said it will come by 21 january. however, yesterday morning the environment secretary who was sitting on the frontbench told us and confirmed that the vote was 100% going to happen. and yesterday, at ten — at 11:00, number10 spokesmen said the vote is going ahead.

by 3:30, the prime minister had pulled it. these warm words are therefore not enough when so much is at stake. if members opposite continue to oppose any of the very generous compromises that are being put forward, at what point, at what point will he withdraw the offer of £39 billion for the bureaucracy in brussels, and spend it preparing for the full, clean, world trade organization brexit that over 70 million people have voted for? mr speaker, it's been made very clear in the last 2a hours, by many member states of the european union and byjean—claude juncker and donald tusk, that there is no question of any meaningful renegotiation. so can i ask the minister now for a cast—iron guarantee that the initial deal will be brought back to this house for a vote before 21 january? mr walker said he'd already said he would bring forward a motion, and he rejected her call for another referendum. in 108 days, we run out of road, and the only red line that has not

been laid down is the one in front of the cliffs edge falling into a chaotic no—deal. can i urge the minister and the government to bring forward the meaningful vote to next week? because by then, at least, we will know what cosmetic changes have been made. the minister said it would not be right to rush into the vote before theresa may had sought assurances in europe, but mps remain suspicious. is the government's strategy to continue to give us a meaningful vote, or is it instead to run down the clock and, in the words of the godfather movies, in the face of no—deal, to make us an offer that we can't refuse? robin walker said the government would make a statement of mps even if there were no deal. brexit also dominated questions to the chancellor, with philip hammond under pressure to rule out leaving european union without a deal.

he also faced repeated warnings about the impact that brexit can have on businesses. the initial focus was on the increasing difficulties faced by retailers. the chancellor does not like it when i use what he calls my synthetic passion. so very quietly, today, can i beg him — can i beg him to ta ke very seriously indeed where we are as a nation? it looks like we are heading for financial meltdown. will he do something to stop this madness? well, there's a couple of points here. first of all, i should just say to the honourable gentleman that i was actually congratulating him the other day on his display of synthetic anger, which is one of the best in the house. i'm pretty sure. on the wider point, the high street is facing challenges because of the uptake of online retailing across the uk, at a faster rate than in any

other large economy. and that means our high streets are going to have to adapt, and the government can't save the high street from the need to change. what it can do is support it as it goes through that process of change. yesterday, businesses lost 2% of their value, uk firms have got no sympathy for a uk government that is feared to put its shoddy deal before this house. will the chancellor stand by the words that he said previously? remaining in the european union would be a better outcome for the economy. will he, mr speaker, find some backbone and make that case in parliament? my constituency, one of the most successful companies in our country, is committed to having a fair deal for us to do brexit, not a no—deal, because they feel it's vital that it should be an orderly retreat, and not chaos. and does he agree with me that

that's what the prime minister's deal will achieve? yes, mr speaker, and that is indeed the express view of a vast majority of businesses in this country. i met the traveller association this morning and they had two requests for the chancellor. one — that he will out no deal, because implementing no deal preparations for their smaller members potentially put them out of business. and secondly, he wanted to hear from the chancellor and from the government when the immigration paper was going to be available, because without it they can make no business plans. well, mr speaker, ithink i have been perfectly clear and consistent in expressing the view that no—deal would be a very bad outcome for this country, and i will do everything i can to make sure that that is not an outcome we face. on the question of the government's future migration policy, a white paper will be published shortly. a month ago, the chancellor committed his support to a deal that guaranteed, and i quote,

"frictionless trade with the eu." will he now be absolutely straight with the prime minister and tell her, unless she comes back with a deal that does fulfill his promise of frictionless trade, it will not succeed in protecting our economy and could not be supported? mr speaker, the honourable gentleman can practice his synthetic concern at the dispatch box, but the remedy lies in his hands. there is a deal on the table that will end the uncertainty, and allow this country to move on. and our polling shows that that is exactly what the british people want. all he has to do is get behind it, vote for the prime minister's deal, and we can all move on. i just very gently say to the chancellor, to whom i've been listening with great care, it's quite difficult to vote for something if there isn't a vote. so... i'm only trying to help the right honourable gentleman, but it's a point that's so blindingly obvious, i'm surprised i have to state it,

but manifestly i have to. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, david. don't forget if you miss our daily round—up, or you just like to watch this one again and again, you can find all our programmes on the bbc iplayer. a former health minister has launched an attempt to legalise the possession and consumption of cannabis. the liberal democrat norman lamb wants the uk the follow the example of canada and allow people to buy a safe, regulated and taxed product. he said the government's recent decision to legalise cannabis based medicines but with restrictions on who could access them was not working. another constituent who was rapidly advancing parkinson's disease also uses cannabis. it's the only thing that helps him. he's also been told by his gp that he can't be referred to a specialist for cannabis to be prescribed. so, we leave this man, who is acutely unwell, having to break the law in order

to get relief from pain. this is surely cruel and inhuman. but a conservative warned the commoditization will end —— but a conservative warned that decriminalisation will send the wrong message to young people. i'm sure we can all agree that something does need to be done about the current situation with cannabis use and its current form that is wrong and unsustainable and doing a great deal of damage to our society. but i do not believe that liberalizing it in the way that it's just been proposed and decriminalizing it will be the answer. part of my view is largely informed by experience that i had personally, of seeking to help and support people who have been regular users of cannabis as i have seen very close up and first—hand the lives it wrecks, the impact on mental health that it has, and the costs that it not only has to the individuals, but to their families, to their communities, and the wider society. and mps voted by 66 vote

252 to block the bill. a ban on the sale of ivory in the uk is now set to come into law. minor changes were approved by mps in a short debate on the ivory bill, which is aimed at curbing elephant poaching and a growing black market in ivory. around 20,000 african elephants are killed by poachers each year for their ivory tusks. the ivory bill will make dealing in elephant ivory, including buying, selling and hiring a criminal offense. 0ne punishable by a custodial sentence of up to five years. and or an unlimited fine. but there were warnings that more needs to be done to preserve the world's wildlife. whether it be elephants, whether it be whales, or giraffes or any sort of species like this, unless we wake up, as a world, these animals are going to be extinct! and it's all very well and you know

we say it's difficult and it's tough, and this is a step forward, so i'm not criticizing the government, but it's tough and it's difficult. while it's tough and difficult, we will be the generation that see the end of these species of animals on our planet. and the bill later finished its common stages and now goes for royal assent. are the uk's mobile phone service resilient enough? that was one of the concerns raised in the house of lords during a discussion on the technical problems experienced by 02 last thursday, when data services were temporarily lost. 02 has promised to compensate customers. i ought to declare a small interest as a customer of 02 and therefore in line for a reimbursement of two days of my monthly subscription. my lords, there is a regular dialogue on interest of concern to both industry and government. dcms works closely with the telecoms sector on resilience issues,

via the electronic communications resilience and response group, which leads on resilience activity and emergency response. the industry has a good track record of enhancing resilience, and we will be working closely with 02 on the wider sector to understand the causes of this incident and what lessons can be learned. he will be aware that 02 is not the only recent example of lack of resilience of systems, but that the work undertaken by the government in preparation for a possible hard brexit has revealed that a very large proportion of british business is driving extremely close to the edge of chaos. in terms of how little it would take to disrupt, seriously disrupt, their business and our lives. will he encourage his colleagues and encourage business once brexit has passed us to maintain the revisions they are making

against the possibility of difficulties in the cause of us running a more resilient society than it is apparent that we have been doing? in terms of telecoms, which my department is responsible for, i can assure my noble friend that we will continue to work with the electronic communications resilience and response group, and, by coincidence, a meeting of that group next week, where we can learn lessons, where we will find out exactly what happened with the 02 outage, and the disaster — it wasn't disaster recovery — the emergency response worked well, and i can assure you we will continue to do that whether we are — whatever happens as far as brexit is concerned. if i come from abroad and was using a foreign mobile phone, it would not have

affected me, the outage, because my phone would have switched to a different network. would it not have been possible to arrange if such a thing happen again that our phones in this country domestic phones could also switch to a different network? i'm not sure my friend is entirely correct on that. the problem was a third party software supplier to 02, ericsson, and it did have affects worldwide, so there's no guarantee that his foreign phone would have worked. i hasten to add, that was only for data, not voice. doesn't this episode highlight the need to reconfigure the universal service obligation, which is failing so badly, to include mobile telephonic, it doesn't at the present, and to make sure that the whole system focuses more on infrastructure capacity, reliability and service ? well, as the noble lord knows perfectly well, the universal service directive, which is the basis for the universal service obligation,

does not include mobile, it only includes fixed line service. and, therefore, it would be impossible under the european law to include mobile. mps have been told that ministers considered ending a private firm's contract to run birmingham prison after a riot to two years ago. the damning report this august described widespread violence, disorder and appalling squalor. it led to the jail being taken over temporarily by the prison service. conditions were said to have deteriorated following the riot in 2016. the head of the prison and probation service told thejustice committee officials knew there were problems. we were clear that the birmingham position was not acceptable prior to the inspection coming in. the first learning point i think for the committee, for all of us, which is important, is we should not underestimate the impact of a major

riots and how difficult it is for a person to recover from riot like that. but michael spur said he wanted to give gas a chance to get on top of the issues. do you think you were too easy—going in retrospect? no, i don't think were easy—going with them, i think, the fact, as i mentioned, to take in the capacity down at their cost was quite a significant thing, that's £1 million it cost gas on that contract over the last... on the £450 million contract? that's over the life, it's not a fair comparison to use that, is it? some people think it might be. pardon? some people think it might be, that you would outsource the risk and your department was stating property decreased the risk. i think the life of the contract, that's the 15 year contract, and the cost of the life of the contract, i talked about a year and i think £1 million

out of £24 million per year is a fair comparison. how bad would it be before a contract was lost? what is your measure of failure? termination was absolutely an issue that we were contemplating in this case, we were going to the process, my desire, all of our desires was for g4s to be able to successfully improve birmingham. because that would be better for everyone, and that's genuinely we are trying to work with g4s to achieve that. but, to be absolutely clear, it became — the challenge with significant. i came to the conclusion, as did colleagues, that, in the end, additional support was necessary that could only be provided from the public sector. g4s was asked if the company was still making money from the birmingham contract. can i make it very clear that we do not profit from birmingham, we have not made a profit, some of the reasons for that are, as i said earlier, the maintenance that has cost us much more money than

we had anticipated. it's ourjob to actually do—over, and then we deal with the commercial aspects thereafter. will you be handing the prison back to g4s on the 20th of january, as planned? not if that prison is not a stable, clean, safe prison, we will not be handing that prison back unless we are absolutely confident that that prison is now fully under control and g4s is able to run a safe, decent prison in the future. with the current fee bridal atmosphere here at westminster, it is perhaps not a surprise that sometimes tempers start to fred —— febrile. —— it is perhaps not a surprise that sometimes tempers start to fray. and additionally, unparliamentary language, is used. during the response from the leader of the opposition i said

to my colleague, the honourable lady that i wish the leader of the opposition would answer the question. it then prompted the honourable gentleman to turn around to me and call me a piece of shit. mr speaker, he then went on to defend that, telling a generalist, telling a journalist he was just putting me in my place. the member is a labour veteran, david skinner. i do not favor anybody being abused, i hope the honourable gentleman will understand if i say i have very high regard for him and i have known the honourable gentleman for 21 years and i hold the honourable member in the highest esteem and i'm not going to stand here at this chair and criticize a member for conduct i did not witness. and the speaker's warning to mind our language ends this tuesday in parliament. i will be back of the same time tomorrow with highlights of prime minister's questions, among other things —

i do hope you canjoin me then. bye for now. hello. you can expect a definite chill in the air over the next few days, particularly as a biting wind picks up. but, for western parts of the uk, there is a little bit of rain in the forecast. what we've got on the satellite picture from a little earlier on is this stripe of cloud. it's a frontal system pushing in from the atlantic. it is bringing some outbreaks of rain, but whereas we might noramlly expect a front to sweep through, bringing rain for all of us, this front is running up against some resistance, this area of high pressure blocking the front‘s progress. so it won't get much further than the south—west of england, wales, northern ireland, south—west scotland. here some rain, but elsewhere, wednesday getting off to a largely dry if rather cloudy start, with the odd fog patch. through the day, we should see bright conditions spreading from the east, so more in the way of sunshine,

but with that, some colder air spreading in from the east, as well. so the mildest weather will be in the west, 10 degrees in belfast, in stornoway and in plymouth. now, as we go through wednesday evening into the night, we'll see more and more clear skies filtering through. still a bit of patchy cloud, but where the skies stay clear and starry for any length of time where you are, it is going to get a little bit chilly. you see the pale green and blue colours here on our temperature chart. 0ur towns and cities around about two, three, or four degrees, but some spots in the countryside can expect a touch of frost. and then into thursday, well, this weather battleground continues. frontal systems still trying to bring rain in from the west, high pressure blocking their progress, and around this high, at this stage we're going to have an increasingly brisk east or south—easterly wind, and that is going to make it feel cold. so on thursday, any wet weather really confined to the far south—west of the country, particularly parts of cornwall. elsewhere largely dry, apart from the odd shower, just sprinkling in across the north sea coast. there will be some spells

of sunshine, but look at the strength of the wind, particularly in some southern and western areas. and temperatures — well, on the thermometer, not particularly impressive. but add on the strength of the wind, this is what it's going to feel like. if you're spending your day in the channel islands, it'll feel subzero, norwich and birmingham feeling like freezing. a very, very chilly feel to the day. now, on friday the winds will be lighter, it may not feel as cold, even though the temperatures will still be quite low. a change, as you can see, though, as we get on into saturday, because those fronts in the atlantic will make a bit more progress by this stage. we'll see some windy weather, some very wet weather for some, and as the front runs into cold air, especially over high ground in the north, there could be some snow. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: at least three people are confirmed dead, several others wounded, in the french city of strasbourg.

a gunman opened fire near a busy christmas market and is still on the run. 0ne eyewitness overlooking the scene filmed the immediate reaction to the attack. what happened was, i heard two distinct noises, but i took them to be firecrackers. but when i turned around a corner, i did see one person on the ground with an apparent headshot wound, at least one. the french president has been in emergency session with security staff in paris, as the manhunt closes down parts of strasbourg. britain's prime minister tours europe trying to rescue her brexit deal.