to cover—up the details of a controversial phone call to the ukrainian president. in the call, which has triggered an impeachment inquiry, the president pushed for the ukrainian government to help smear his main rivaljoe biden. he's dismissed the impeachment proceedings as another witch—hunt. the hong kong government has tried a new approach to diffuse tensions in the city. as protests continued, chief executiver carrie lam held the first in a series of public consultation sessions. it's hoped the meetings might help bring an end to the four—month crisis. borisjohnson says tempers need to come down after furious scenes in the uk parliament on wednesday. but despite strong criticism, the prime minister has refused to apologise for his own controversial language.

it's about 2:30am. you're up to date on the headlines. now on bbc news, thursday in parliament. hello again, and welcome to thursday in parliament, as the speaker appeals to mps... to lower the decibel level and to try to treat each other as opponents, not as enemies. the prime minister's warned that words have consequences... cos we all get abuse, and i've had a death threat this week that literally quoted the prime minister and used the prime minister's name and words in a death threat that was delivered to my staff. and another commons vote. can boris johnson break his losing streak? the ayes to the right, 289. the noes to the left, 306.

all that to come, and more. but first, as you know, there are often angry exchanges in the commons. but on wednesday night, that anger reached new levels. labour mps criticised the prime minister's choice of language. one referred tojo cox, the labour mp who was killed by a right—wing extremist days before the eu referendum, saying mps face death threats from people using similar language. we stand here, mr speaker, under the shield of our departed friend, with many of us in this place subject to death threats and abuse every single day. and let me tell the prime minister that they often quote his words, surrender, betrayal, traitor, and i for one am sick of it! we must moderate our language, and it has to come from the prime minister first! so, i would be interested in hearing his opinion. he should be absolutely ashamed of himself! cheering

ithink, mrspeaker... i have to say, mr speaker, i... applause i have to say, mr speaker, i've never heard such humbug in all my life! he later said the best way to honour jo cox was to get brexit done. that prompted more angry scenes. and when mps gathered on thursday morning, the speaker had his say. i think there is a widespread sense across the house and beyond that yesterday, the house did itself no credit. there was an atmosphere in the chamber worse than any i've known in my 22 years in the house. on both sides, passions were inflamed, angry words were uttered, the culture was toxic.

john bercow said it ought to be possible to disagree agreeably. two senior mps, kenneth clarke and harriet harman, had approached him about a review of westminster‘s political culture. it was not, he said, a matter for partisan point scoring. it is about something bigger than an individual or an individual party or an individual political or ideological viewpoint. let's treat a bit on that basis. —— let's treat of it on that basis. and in the meantime, may ijust ask, and that's all i'm doing and all i can do as your representative in the chair, ask colleagues please to lower the decibel level and to try to treat each other as opponents, not as enemies? later, a labour mp asked an urgent question prompted

by boris johnson's comments. it was left to a junior minister to reply. british democracy has always been robust and vibrant. healthy, respectful debate is vital to our democracy. freedom of speech is a fundamental british liberty, but it is not an excuse to threaten or abuse anyone whose views you do not agree with. that liberty is compromised when a culture of intimidation forces people out of public life or discourages citizens from engaging in the political process. let me make clear and say with no equivocation such behaviour is wrong, unacceptable and must be addressed. i don't just want to probe into the idea that we all get abuse and no doubt we're going to hear a lot of that today, cos we all get abuse and i've had a death threat this week that literally quoted the prime minister and used the prime minister's name and words in a death threat that was delivered to my staff. when i hear of my friend's murder, and the way that it has made me and my colleagues feel and feel scared, described as humbug,

i actually don't feel anger towards the prime minister. i feel pity for those of you who still have to toe his line. —— toe his line. i want to ask the prime minister to apologise and to tell him that the bravest, strongest thing to say is sorry. it will make him look good. it will not upset the people who want brexit in this country if he acts for once like a statesman. i would be very clear that the government is looking at how we create a safe environment. and notjust in terms of for members of parliament, but forjournalists and for the others in public life who can face abuse merely for wanting to be involved in what they do. and, of course, members of thejudiciary. i'm always clear no—one is a traitor for what they believe or for arguing

a different political point. that is part of public debate. jess phillips also faced criticism for her own behaviour. it was yesterday, she was the person i could hear screaming the loudest from her bench, so noticeable was it that she was actually having a conversation with one of the whips that was standing by the side of your chair, mr speaker. it was that which created a significant impression to people watching this debate of the hostility that the media reported. but borisjohnson was the main target of opposition criticism. he should come to this house and apologise for his conduct yesterday, which fell well below the standards expected by the people of this country of the way their elected representatives should behave, should speak and should treat each other.

we do need to bring a resolution to debates, and as the leader of the opposition will know, the government has been clear that we're prepared to take our arguments to the country on tuesday the 15th of october and ask the electorate to pass a judgement. and that would've given a chance to not only resolve the division affecting this house, but also to give a way for the country to move forward. because as you yourself have reflected, mr speaker, the passions that this issue has inflamed will only carry on if there is not a resolution. what should've happened yesterday is the prime minister should've come in front of this house and apologised for acting unlawfully. he should've held his hands up, agreed he'd acted wrongly and pledged not to do it again. instead, he chose to brazen it out. mr speaker, this and the language of surrender suggests we are at war either with europe or with each other.

let me say, as someone who grew up with parents who were born in the shadow of war, we are not at war with europe and we are not at war with each other. go down any street in this country and there are people who voted remain and there are people who voted leave and there are people with different views about how brexit should be resolved. the prime minister has a special responsibility. he is not exercising this responsibility. he is trying to divide an already divided country. now, some people say this strategy will work. mr speaker, i say this strategy will not work because the british people are better than this. the tone of the exchanges was by and large far more measured than those which had provoked them. up to a point. labour mps complained noisily about this suggestion. that we no longer invoke the name of any person who has been a victim of attacks in order to try

and make political points. because... well, there we are. because it is simply used as an opportunity to shame other members of this house. i don't personally think any of the exchanges and mentions ofjo cox yesterday was particularly fairon herfamily. i don't think it is for any member of this house to determine whether another member can talk about their own grief and how they feel in a certain circumstance and whether that should somehow not be allowed. the minister this afternoon said his government wants to stamp out abuse, but how can we believe him when the prime minster refers to genuine concerns from female mps as humbug? and the prime minister's official spokesperson this morning has confirmed that the prime minister has no regrets about the language that he used.

paula sherriff. now, one of the key issues dividing mps is what will happen if there's no new deal agreed with the eu and passed by mps by the 19th of october. under what's known as the eu withdrawal no 2 act, or the benn act, the prime minister must then write a letter to the eu asking for a delay to brexit. the government bitterly opposed this piece of legislation. and since then, borisjohnson has repeatedly said two things. first, he will obey the law, but secondly, he won't ask for a delay. mps spent an hour trying to get to the bottom of these seemingly contradictory statements. the minister said and the attorney general said and i quote, "the government will obey the law." what does that mean? can the ministerjust come to the despatch box and say that obeying the law means that the government will seek an extension to the 31st of january if the provisions of that act are not met? thank you. minister duddridge. mr speaker, i thank the honourable

member for that question. in politics, we quite often get berated for not giving a straight answer. i thought the government position was very, very clear. we will obey the law. does the prime minister, does this government want to extend? no. we don't want to extend. we want a deal. that is our focus. one by one, they asked the same question, each time in a slighty different way and each time got the same answer. can my honourable friend point to any legal argument made by any senior lawyer that suggests that if the conditions are not met, in other words parliament hasn't voted for a deal or hasn't approved no—deal, there are any legal arguments that suggest the prime minister has any choice in this? the law is quite clear, he would have to seek an extension. minister. well, i was interested this morning to read that the honourable gentleman was nearly chancellor of the exchequer. i apologise, i've never been in such illustrious circles, noram i, like he, a lawyer.

but that is a hypothetical question which i don't really want to be drawn into at this stage, but we will obey the law. the prime minister's supporters insisted it was a false question. one veteran mps suggested the law wasn't quite as clear as some suggested. it's not by any means certain at all that the law of the land is reflected by the passing of the no 2 act because there is an apparent inconsistency between that act and the withdrawal act. i haven't time to go into the details, but the reality is compliance is notjust a simple question, it's a matter of grave importance in terms of which law is the law of the land. others felt some mps are being less than honest. part of the eu withdrawal no 2 act is also to agree a deal by october the 19th. but you would not get the impression with the obsession of an extension being discussed in this place.

would the minister agree that if people want to avoid a no—deal exit, that all our energy should be behind getting a deal and getting it through this place, or is the real motive about stopping brexit completely? minister. i fear the honourable lady is right, and many that are less worried about the law are more worried about stopping brexit. we've had extension after extension, and the answer to this uncertainty cannot be more extension. in the end, though, this urgent question ended where it started. one way of being respectful in this house is to be transparent, and quite clearly the minister has not been transparent in repeated questions about whether or not the prime minister will write the letter seeking an extension. so i give the minister one final opportunity now to be clear and unequivocal in his response, notjust hiding behind some form of words about obeying the law and dodging the question. but will he confirm now, if the first two conditions of the benn act are not satisfied,

will the prime minister write a letter seeking that extension, yes or no? minister. i hate to disappoint the honourable gentleman, but we will obey the law. the brexit minister, james doddridge. you're watching thursday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come, will mps let the conservatives hold their party conference? now, mps have only been back at westminster for two days, but the government wanted them to go away again for most of next week. the reason? the conservative party conference taking place in manchester. parliament didn't sit during the lib dem conference or for most of this week's labour gathering. the snag for ministers was for that to happen, they had to win a vote in the house of commons. in this vote, the government are the ayes. the ayes to the right, 289.

the noes to the left, 306. boris johnson's seventh commons defeat since becoming prime minister. so the conservative conference will go ahead but mps will be back at westminster, where they're still talking about wednesday's performance by the attorney general geoffrey cox. mr speaker, this is no way to run a parliament, and earlier today, we heard how we have to start as we mean to go on, and to respect each other in the way we speak to each other. so i do want to ask the leader of the house if he could ask the attorney general to come to the house to apologise. calling us a dead parliament and calling us turkeys is not appropriate language. mr speaker, the right honourable lady says quite correctly this is no way to run a parliament, which is why we should have a general election as soon as possible —

and if only they would vote for it and would have the courage of their convictions, we would have one. she then complains that the attorney general has called this a turkey parliament. i think it's more of a chicken parliament because it is trying to flap away from the general election that we need and that would clear the air. and, yes, we get gesticulation and murmurations coming forth from the benches opposite saying that we are going to get one, but when, mr speaker, when? the country wants one as soon as possible. the business, such as it is next week, we are very happy to support all the efforts to restore the operation of devolved government in northern ireland. but my heart does bleed for the poor conservative ministers and backbenchers who will have to come to the house now during their conference. successive snp chief whips have used the usual channels to ocmmunicate the dates of our conferences over the years, and at no point have we been afforded with a recess despite our status as the third party in this place. the snp conference is scheduled to clash with the government's original choice of date

for the queen's speech at the state opening of parliament. the supreme court ruling may have changed all that, so mps tried to find out when parliament would be prorogued — lawfully — ahead of that promised queen's speech. on the issue of prorogation, i understand why he said he can't give us today because his consultations about the arrangements for the state opening. but can he at least confirm, which i'm sure he can, for the benefit of the house that the government does not intend to prorogue next week? prorogation will meet the judgment of the court, and therefore will be the time necessary to move to a queen's speech and no more. so, thanks to the supreme court, no more five—week suspensions of parliament. earlier, the international trade secretary made an unreserved apology to the commons for two breaches of a pledge not to licence exports to saudi arabia that could be used in the yemen conflict. liz truss told mps that two

further breaches had come to light and it was possible that there would be more. she explained to mps what she thought had happened with the first breaches. without seeking to prejudice the independent investigation, it appears that information pertaining to the conflict had not been fully shared across government. as soon the issue was brought to my attention on the 12th of september, i took immediate action. action which included launching a full internal review. as a result of the internal review so far, we have identified one further licence that has been granted in breach of the undertaking given to the court of appeal. this licence has not been used and has now been revoked. my officials are also carrying out an urgent review of the composition of the coalition. this has identified a further licence which is in breach of the parliamentary statement.

we have reassessed the licence in light of the latest information and subsequently revoked it, insofar as it applies tojordan. it is possible that more cases will come to light. as i have done so far, i will keep the court and parliament informed as to any new information that emerges. i thank the response given by the secretary of state, and the shocking revelation that two further extra licenses would be breaking the law and that further may yet to be discovered, but i welcome, however, her unreserved apologies for the errors — as it has been called so far. i welcome the fact that the secretary of state has launched a full inquiry. but it won't have escaped her notice that just a short while ago, the arms export fair took place in london. {6.3 billion of arms exports have been exported to the coalition

by this government, 5.3 to saudi arabia. what further deals were done there? and, given that she said it is possible that more illegal deals may have taken place, does she actually think that instead of it being possible, that it's highly probable? when court orders are maybe contravened a couple of times, that can be perhaps dismissed as a failure to follow procedures. but when it happens on multiple occasions, it suggests there is a systemic problem, the system isn't working. and therefore, will the minister look at implementing a policy of the presumption of denial, in respect of all export licenses to countries listed, as human rights priorities on the annual foreign office human rights report — so that those exports to those countries would be banned in the first instance?

could i ask her to reflect on the fact that only yesterday, we were debating in this house the impact on the kingdom of saudi arabia from their neighbours across the gulf, the iranian attacks on oil facilities in that country. this is a very sensitive area. one of our key allies in the gulf is under considerable pressure from the iranian authorities, and as a government, we need to act responsibly to ensure that we stand by our allies when they come under attack. liz truss said that was an important point, but the focus of this discussion was whether a proper process on exports was being followed. now, climate change has risen up the agenda recently, and a new uk polar research ship has been launched. the rrs sir david attenborough was named by the duke and duchess of cambridge. the £200 million vessel was nearly called boaty mcboatface in a public poll, but officials weren't having that and stepped in. on monday, the prime minister

was at the united nations climate action summit in new york. the business and energy secretary, andrea leadsom, reported back to the commons on the progress he'd made. in his closing speech, the prime minister set out his determination to work together with others to tackle the climate crisis. he called for all countries to increase their 2030 climate ambition pledges under the paris agreement and confirmed that the uk will play our part by raising our own nationally—determined contribution by february next year. but labour bemoaned the reluctance of other countries to expand their nationally—determined contributions — or ndcs. the purpose of the un climate action summit was to spur on greater climate ambition towards this end, but none of the world's large polluters met this challenge. china, india and the eu all were unable to announce tougher ndcs. brazil and the usa refused even to turn up.

our country must now step forward to fill this vacuum of political leadership on the world stage. scotland is committed to becoming net zero by 2045, five years before the rest of the uk and in line with the advice from the uk committee on climate change, whose recommendations are contingent on the uk becoming net zero by 2050. to hit the same, uk policies will therefore need to be ramped up significantly. it falls short on home and business energy efficiency. it's way behind on carbon capture utilisation and storage. decarbonization of the gas grid must be accelerated. a former labour leader was looking ahead to the international climate change summit in 2026, which will be held in glasgow. we are going to be trying to persuade other countries, europe, we're going to try to persuade india, china and others, to ramp up their ambition for 2030 — because the ipcc has told us we have ten years to turn around

the path of emissions. can i suggest to her that, as well as having a net zero target of 2050, we ourselves need to ramp up our ambition for 2030? will she therefore ask the committee on climate change to look not just at the pathway to 2050, 2030, but what more we can do as a country so we can persuade others to follow us? i welcome the commitment to double the aid spending on international climate finance, but, a, it has to be new money and, b, the government has to be consistent. it makes no sense to be giving on one hand but then investing in fossil fuels in the other. will she agree with me that the proposal for the west cumbria coal mine should be cancelled? will she speak to her friend, the secretary of state for local government, to whom i have written, and will she instead commit government money through the northern powerhouse to create renewable industry energyjobs in west cumbria instead?

he'll be aware that we are looking at a carbon capture usage and storage action plan, with projects designed to try and improve our use of fossil fuels and to make them lower—carbon. there's a lot of work to be done in this area and we'll continue to look at how we can make that work. one of the demands of the student climate network is to reform the curriculum to reflect the ecological crisis as an educational priority. has she, or will she discuss that with the secretary of state for education? i think the honourable gentleman makes a very good point, and i haven't discussed it yet with the secretary of state for education, but i certainly will make a point of doing so. andrea leadsom ending this thursday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me on bbc parliament on friday evening at 11pm for the week in parliament, a week the government tried to stop. bye for now.

morning. it has been autumn proper this week, hasn't it? we started off on monday with some very heavy rain. it was a miserable start to a new working week, some places seeing a month's working week, some places seeing a months worth of rain in just 2a hours. the middle of the week's not been too bad. sunny spells and scattered showers, so if you have dodged the showers it has been reasonably pleasant. however, there is more wet and windy weather to come, and it's this system here that's waiting out in the atlantic, it's going to push its way steadily eastwards towards the uk for the weekend. ahead of it, though, circulating around an area of low pressure, a rash of showers driving their way pressure, a rash of showers driving theirway in, so pressure, a rash of showers driving their way in, so sunny spells and scattered showers continue today. some of them merging together in the south—west for longer spells of rain, driven by strong, gusty winds.

there will be some sharper showers across north—west england and north wales as well. the best of the drier, brighter, sunnier moments perhaps a across scotland and not looking too bad in northern ireland as well. isa 14— 18 celsius. now, as we move into friday, that area of low pressure will drift its way eastwards off into the north sea. and things were quieten down still across the country. it will be a breezy day on saturday, but saturday sta rts breezy day on saturday, but saturday starts off relatively quiet. a few scattered showers around, but there will be some lengthy, sunny spells as well. not a bad afternoon for many. we do need to keep a close eye on the rain gathering into the south—west. the timings of this could change and affect the story for the second half of the weekend. but ahead of it, dry, 14— 18 degrees are high. so overnight saturday into sunday it looks likely that we'll see some very heavy rain. to have a three inches falling across england and wales, accompanied by some strong, gusty winds. gales and places in excess of 40—50 mph. and as the low drift away, maybe 60 mph for a time across eastern england. so sunday could start off wet, but

have a long lie in, lazy morning, and you never know, that rain could clear away and things could be a little better. wind direction starting to change. to a blustery afternoon and coming from the north in scotland. so that will make it feel just that little in scotland. so that will make it feeljust that little bit cooler. there will be a scattering of showers here, top temperatures of about 13— 18 degrees are high. so just in case you haven't already got the message at the moment, it looks likely that saturday will be a case of sunny spells and a few showers. sunday will start off wet and windy, but that will ease away. take care.

welcome to bbc news. i'm mike embley. our top stories: as congress hears claims from a whistleblower that the white house tried to cover up donald trump's phone call with ukraine's leader, a furious response from a president facing an impeachment inquiry. what these guys are doing, democrats, are doing to this country, is a disgrace and it shouldn't be allowed. there should be a way of stopping it. tackling britain's toxic politics. boris johnson suggests tempers should cool over brexit, but refuses to apologise for his own language. and we report from libya, as the un warns the country's latest conflict is escalating fast. what happens on this frontline has implications far beyond tripoli. the

fear is that if this