with prosecutors, who accuse it of a "shocking pattern of illegality". new york's attorney general accused the trump foundation of engaging in a shocking pattern of illegality. the charity's lawyer described the attorney general‘s statement as misleading. here in britain, the cabinet's agreed to activate plans for a no—deal brexit. £2 billion is being given to government departments to help them prepare for the uk leaving the eu without a deal. 3,500 troops will be put on standby to help maintain essential services if needed. manchester united are seeking their fifth manager in five years after sacking jose mourinho. it follows the club's worst start to a season in 28 years. the controversial portuguese, known as the ‘special one' has faced a barrage of criticism over his signings and the team's style of play. you are up—to—date on the headlines.

now on bbc news — tuesday in parliament. hello, and welcome to tuesday in parliament. another day, another emergency brexit debate. so where is theresa may? why is the prime minister not in place to defend the inaction of her government? it is an outrage. the brexit secretary tries to sell her deal to mps. it is a good deal. the only deal. i believe it is the right deal for the country. and a robust exchange of views on the committee corridor. as i have tried to be very clear, that is whenever we have intelligence, whenever we have intelligence. is ita yes, ora no? all that to come, and more. but first: you may be wondering why mps didn't spend the day debating whether they have confidence in the prime minister.

some of them were wondering, too. after all, less than 2a hours earlier, the labour leader had tabled a motion of no confidence in theresa may over her decision to postpone the vote on her brexit deal untiljanuary. the motion is clear, this is the prime minister's failure. the government has not had the courtesy to come to the house to inform right honourable members on whether there will be a debate on the motion. it appears that the government has made an announcement to everyone else. can i have your guidance, mr speaker, on whether you have heard from the government about whether they have agreed to find time on the no—confidence motion. and whether you have heard before everyone else whether the government is not allowing a debate on this motion. butjeremy corbyn's motion of no confidence was in the prime minister herself, rather than her government. i should make it clear that there is a strong convention that the government makes it clear, if tabled by the official opposition.

however, and this is important, no such convention applies in relation to this particular motion, which is not a conventional no—confidence motion. downing street had challenged labour to table a full no confidence motion one that would be swiftly debated and could lead to a general election. tory mps pondered why they hadn't. the problem for the leader of the labour party is that he does not want an immediate motion of no confidence, because if, as is likely it was lost, he would be forced by his party to go for a referendum. they are playing games. one of mr corbyn's critics on the labour benches was also unhappy. many of us are very unhappy with the way her majesty's government have been conducting themselves aren't frustrated that we have not

seen the tabling of this house has no confidence in her majesty pass mike government. is it possible for a backbench mp to table a motion of no confidence in her majesty's opposition, given the mess they have made of tabling motion of no confidence? confusing even their own backbenchers, between a motion no confidence in the prime minister and the government. a massive shambles of the entire process. two motions of no confidence, one in the government, and one on that lot over there. we are seeking to bring forward a motion of confidence in the prime minister with the objective of bringing forward the meaningful vote on the eu withdrawal bill, to hold the prime minister to account for failure. so, the prime minister avoided possible censure. but the speaker had already granted an emergency debate on her brexit discussions at last week's eu summit, in response to a request from the snp. and their westminster leader was not happy that theresa may had not shown up in the chamber.

where's the respect from the prime minister? why is the prime minister not in her place to defend the inaction of her government? it is an outrage. an outrage, mr speaker, that the prime minister hasn't got the gall to come to this house and debate these important matters. it's an insult to the people of scotland and it's an insult to the people of this house. mr speaker, we are in uncharted territory. a government found in contempt of parliament. a prime ministerfacing weekly resignations, barely surviving a vote of confidence from her own party. still in office but not in control. perhaps more troubling, we are three months away from leaving the european union. we are sleepwalking to disaster. there is no majority for the prime minister's deal. the snp leader had a direct message forjeremy corbyn. i have to say to him that the leader of the opposition has become the midwife for brexit.

the leader of the opposition is letting the government off the hook. he has it within his gift to bring forward the no confidence motion that will test the will of the house. but crucially will allow his party to move on to the issue of a people's vote. yesterday's stunt was an embarrassment. the brexit secretary insisted the meaningful vote would not be held this week. as the prime minister set out yesterday, we intend to return to the meaningful vote debate in the week commencing january seventh and to hold the vote the following week. that is consistent with our crucial next step of responding to the concerns expressed by mps on the backstop. and i make no bones about accepting, as the prime minister has done, that the deal which the government secured was not going to win the support of the house without further reassurance. and that is the message the prime minister has been clear

in her meetings and communications with eu leaders. this deal will come back to the house in the new year when we have had time to respond to the concerns expressed to date, and hold those further discussions with the eu 27. there is broad support across the house for much of the deal. it is a good deal. the only deal, and i believe it is the right deal and offering for the country. i hope members of this house will look again at the risk to jobs and services of a new deal. the risk to our democracy of not leaving. members will choose to back the deal when it returns to the house. the reality is this. the government is running down the clock. but running down the clock is not governing. it's certainly not governing in the national interest. observers sometimes say to me, the prime minister is resilient. but this is not resilience. this is reckless. there was impatience, too,

on the conservative benches. do not delay the meaningful vote until the new year. mps in this place would be happy to delay recess. frankly, i'd be happy to sit through christmas and into the new year if it meant we could find direction on brexit for businesses and people who want certainty about where this country is going. there is nothing more important for this house to debate right now and we have to now find a route through. justine greening with a solution that may not go down well with all her colleagues. the cabinet has decided to "ramp up" preparations for a no—deal brexit. ministers approved £2 billion to go to government departments to help if the uk leaves the eu on 29 march without a formal agreement. they will also send letters to 140,000 firms advising them about preparations. the defence secretary has also told mps that thousands of troops will be "held at readiness" to help with a no—deal brexit. gavin williamson said regulars and reservists will be available

to support government departments. could the secretary of state confirm if he has had any approaches from other government departments about using world—class armed forces personnel in the event of a no—deal brexit? we have, as yet, not had any formal requests from any government department. what we are doing is putting contingency plans in place and what we will do is have 3500 service personnel held at readiness, including regulars and reserves, in order to support any government department on any contingencies they may need. gavin williamson had been in the commons to set out the details of a long awaited defence review, the modernising defence programme or mdp. he rejected opposition taunts that his plans were "waffle" and "underwhelming", unveiling plans to boost spending to improve the combat

effectiveness of our force, we will reprioritise the current defence programme to increase weapons stockpiles and we are accelerating work to assure the resilience of our defence systems and capabilities. mr williamson announced a £160 million "transformation fund" to support new military capabilities. i will look to make a further £340 million available as part of the spending review. i know that members will be relieved that this review has finally been published. all 28 pages of it, ten of which are photos or graphics, some six months after it was originally promised. given his commitment in the summer that this would lead to a major programme of top—down transformative reform, it is staggering that the end result is so underwhelming. this review does nothing to solve the affordability crisis

that is facing the mod. a crisis that the secretary of state has completely failed to get to grips with in his year in office. this government is investing more and more in defence. last year we had a budget in defence of £36 billion. next year we'll have a budget of £39 billion and the government has committed to spend an extra £1.8 billion over and above on defence. these are all incredibly positive steps. the 1.8 billion that he references is only for this year alone. it hardly shores the mark of a sustainable programme. mr speaker, it's also remarkable that he leaps between spending, between what he's going to spend, and wanting more money from the chancellor. it shows that the moralizing defence programme has spectacularly missed the point of why it was initiated in the first place. at the reality that he has

to face from 2015, is that it is a small army, ships and dog because they can't have crews, efficiency targets met and a black hole in his equipment plan. when is the real money going to come forward? as i have pointed out, that we are seeing an increasing budget. and actually what we're doing in terms of what we've outlined is investing in those capabilities to make sure that we have better availability of the assets, whether that is ships whether that is armoured vehicles, whether that is submarines and whether that's aircraft, and we're also investing in stockpiles to make sure that we have the depth of stockpiles that we actually need in order to deal with increasing threats around the globe. several tories called for increased spending on the military.

in this era of slightly looser cabinetjoint collective responsibility, whatever they care to call it, that he might accept the fact that the defence select committee's target ultimately of a return to 3% of gdp is what's really needed in terms of defence expenditure. i welcome the fact that there are no cuts in capability. the secretary of state held the line and he will now go into battle against the chancellor for more resources in the comprehensive spending review. given the chancellor's legendary tact, when he the other day attacked over half of tory backbenchers for being "extremists", can i tell him if he now goes toe to toe with the chancellor for more defence spending, he'll have 117 allies that he didn't know he had. the former defence minister, mark francois, looking forward to future battles. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, david cornock. labour says the "fantasy accounting" of the chancellor has been ended

by a decision on how student loans should be recorded in the nation's public finances. when student loans were trebled under the coalition government, students took to the streets to protest. since then, there's been a debate over the level of fees and the loans needed to repay them. the office for national statistics says the unpaid portion of loans should be counted as government spending, so adding £12 billion to the total of national borrowing. when the issue was raised in the commons, the debate quickly widened to how students‘ education should be paid for. the shadow chief secretary said the government had been engaging this is a technical accounting decision by the ons, whose independence we support and whose diligence we commend. it's for the independent obr to decide how to reflect this decision in future forecasts. the ons decision yesterday makes the case for real reform of our higher education system more compelling. instead of tinkering around the edges, flirting with cuts

in fees that would benefit the richest graduates and cuts in places that would only hurt the poorest students, isn't it time for real reform, a system that's publicly funded and genuinely free at the point of use? chief secretary. i've been very clear in my response. this is fundamentally an accounting decision. it doesn't affect our decisions on the policies of higher education and these bodies that we're talking about, the ons and obr, are independent bodies. it's right that the government doesn't make decisions on how to treat those figures in our national statistics. the shadow chief secretary said the government had been engaging in fantasy accounting. it isn't technical and it blows a potential £12 billion hole in the chancellor's spending plans. at the last budget, the institute

for fiscal studies warned the chancellor that he was gambling with public finances and it seems that he has lost the bet. part of the ons thinking is based on the fact that the amount that you have to earn before you start to repay has been increased very substantially under this government, saving hundreds of thousands of students £300—400 a year. but of course the effect of it is that less of the money is repaid quickly or indeed at all. the ons has confirmed that this is an accounting trick, happily used by this government to cover up the true extent of the deficit and the mismanagement of the public finances. if this was in the private sector, the finance director would now be being hauled over the coals. so when is the government's finance director going to admit that they were wrong and apologise to both students and the public? as i've said, the government no longer marks its own

homework on these issues. it's down to the independent obr to produce that forecast. mps have been told that servicemen and women are nervous about taking time out for mental health issues, for fear of damaging their careers. lieutenant general richard nugee was speaking to the defence committee, which is investigating mental health care for the armed forces. we know that when someone gets grievously injured abroad, there are national trauma centres for these terrible physical injuries to be rehabilitated by specialists. can i askjackie and kate to explain what facilities there are within the nhs, or to the best of your knowledge, within the private sector, that could approach this level of care for people who are grievously mentally ill? running through all our treatments is that the best hope for recovery is where those who are suffering

mental ill health have access to support networks and most the time that is their families. so we would look at more where the person is going to be treated rather than have a national centre. that said, you are absolutely right, chairman, that there are particular challenges with ptsd and trauma which would have come from serving in operational theatre, and we still need to develop our understanding about that, i think it's fair to say. we've had evidence from individuals who said that when they started to explain what had caused their trauma to civilian psychiatric staff, they ended up having to comfort them, because it was so upsetting to people who had no actual appreciation of the terrible events that had caused the trauma in the first place. i read the transcripts of those who said that they had to,

in effect, comfort those who were meant to be counselling them. part of this is because actually we haven't suffered from this sort of trauma for a very long time, and therefore what we need to do is make sure that people are more aware of it. and i think it will get better as more experience comes through. are you satisfied that the message has got through to some of the bravest and best people in uniform that if they come forward and say, "look, i can tell that i am overdrawing my well of courage", mixing with the other metaphor, are you satisfied that they understand that they can do this without permanent detriment or indeed any detriment to their military career? i think there is less stigma but that does not mean there's no stigma. i think people are still nervous of it, despite every protestation

that they will be looked after and their careers won't be damaged. i believe people still believe that their careers might be damaged and therefore they would be nervous of doing so. if it is simply the case that you are in need of a respite, that that will not harm your future career? we put people on light duties for a sprained ankle or whatever it is, in a physical sense. we can do exactly the same and do exactly the same for mental issues. we need to make sure that that message is understood both by our doctors and by the individuals. yes. now, is fast, throwaway fashion taking its toll on the environment and society at large? that was the question faced by mps on the environmental audit committee, as they continued their inquiry into the issue. this latest session focused on the treatment of the workers behind the garments. a newspaper investigation found that people employed in the textiles

industry in leicester, mostly women were being paid on average £3.50 an hour. a business minister was asked when she knew that workers weren't being paid the minimum wage. as i have tried to be very clear, and that is wherever we have intelligence, no no no, wherever... it is a yes or no, yes or no answer? you're saying wherever... if we find out... that's a yes or no, minister. you've had three attempts to answer it. did you know before this inquiry began that there was widespread nonpayment of the minimum wage in leicester? well, as i've said, as i've tried to be really clear, wherever we know that there potentially is a breach, we will investigate. we know that there are already ongoing, still ongoing joint investigations in the leicestershire area around noncompliance. when did those investigations start? there are currently ongoing investigations. when did they start? i'm afraid, because they are ongoing investigations, i can not go and will not go into the specifics of those investigations.

but what we're asking you as a committee, when the investigations start. we are in having currently still ongoing investigations involving suspected breaches in the national minimum wage. i'm afraid that's not going to work. we have been looking at this issue for the last three months. you're telling me the investigations are ongoing. that implies that either your people have just gone in or that theyjust didn't know about it. in regards to the whole investigations across the leicester area, we are still investigating those, we are still investigating. how many, minister? within the leicester area. how many? we've taken 2a, issued penalties across the whole sector on the 93. this year, i believe, on my naming and shaming list this year. i don't have any within the leicester area. so what you've just said

that is investigations into leicester are ongoing. there were 93 investigations last year. there were 24 penalties across this whole textile sector, but none, either last year, or this year, were in leicester. is that correct? this year, for this year i don't have any, from leicester on my or my list for naming and shaming. but as i've told you, there are currently ongoing investigations in the leicester joint working, with other agencies for potential breaches and other other issues that might arise from a national minimum wage breach. you know, we're quite happy when we have those outcomes, to provide further evidence to the committee, when action or when the outcomes of those investigations have been settled. but i cannot go into live

investigations and will not get drawn on that matter here. i think that's absolutely extraordinary, and i think the people watching at home will draw their own conclusions on that. and finally, is it safe to book a european holiday next year? a transport minister has tried to reassure travellers and her fellow members of the house of lords that planes would continue to fly after 29 march, and that people could continue to book their holidays with confidence. she was introducing air service regulations aimed at ensuring there's no disruption to flights should there be a no—deal brexit. several peers criticised the government's planning for brexit.

the awful spectre of a no—deal brexit grows every day, day by day, relentlessly. like lemmings, the government are heading blindly towards a cliff edge. there's paralysis in the house of commons. the prime minister seems to be totally manoeuvring to get what she wants, irrespective of what is best for the country. in britain, we have the third largest aviation industry in the world. we are a nation that loves to travel and we have a highly competitive aviation market based largely on cheap airfares. but if there's no deal, uk and eu airlines will lose the automatic right to operate services between the uk and the eu without the need for advance permission from individual states. civil aircraft are not at risk of being grounded after 29 march.

that would be in nobody's interest and is entirely avoidable. as donald tusk said earlier this year, he's determined to avoid that particularly absurd consequence of brexit that is disruption of flights between the uk and the eu, and that confidence is shared by industry and as well as the uk government. you can go and book that holiday now. lady sugg bringing us to the end of this edition of tuesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me again at the same time tomorrow as theresa may faces her last prime minister's questions of the year. bye for now. hello. after tuesday's rain,

most of us will get to see some sunshine in the day ahead, but there will be showers around, too. some across east anglia and the south—east as we start the day. plenty more packing into western parts of the uk as the day goes on, some of heavy and possibly thundery. a gusty wind as well before much of the day northern and eastern scotland, the east of england, after the early showers clear a way from the early showers clear a way from the south—east, will be dry. temperatures around 7 to 10d, some spots in the south reaching 11. for a time in the evening we will showers across the uk but then they become confined to southern and western coasts. at the 2nd half of the night, temperatures staying a few degrees above freezing. and then during thursday it is scotland, northern ireland, northern england, north and west wales with most other showers. further south and east you will avoid most of them. it is still breezy, it is still fairly mild. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america

and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: president trump agrees to shut down his personal charity — new york's attorney general accuses it of a "shocking pattern of illegality". stepping up plans for a no—deal brexit. britain's cabinet agrees to spend an extra £2 billion — and puts thousands of troops on standby. arctic ambition — a special report on the concerns over china's moves to finance greenland's future. the tiny population of this vast, empty country is not going to know what's hit it. and four months after its fatal collapse — plans for a new genoa bridge, from the architect renzo piano. he promises it will "last a thousand yea rs".