this is worklife from bbc news, with sally bundock and tim willcox. across europe, the age of austerity is over. what does it mean for government debt? live from london, that's our top story on monday 14th october. spend, spend, spend. the queen will open a new session of the uk parliament setting out the government's agenda,

including the biggest spending spree in 15 years but will it boost the uk economy? hopes for an early breakthrough in the brexit talks falter with time running out before thursday's make—or—break summit of eu leaders. in some underground car parks in paris, there's no longer much room to park, because these are being grown there. and data makes the world go around. we create some 2.5 quintillion bytes of it every day. we'll get the inside track on how companies can harness data to improve services to consumers. and should air miles schemes be banned to discourage excessive flying? we want to know would you miss frequent flyer reward schemes? get in touch — just use the hashtag bbcworklife. hello and a warm welcome to worklife, our new business show,

and we start in the uk, where the country today will witness the pomp and ceremony of the queen's speech. that's when the british government sets out its legislative programme for the next session of parliament. it's expected to include big plans to splash taxpayers‘ cash, after the chancellor, the finance minister, sajid javid, last month declared the end of austerity, or government belt—tightening, despite the brexit crisis. in fact mrjavid promised the biggest increase in uk public spending in more than 15 years as he outlined a £13.8 billion package, or this much in dollars. the trouble is, over recent years, taxpayers‘ money hasn't been enough to cover expenditure, especially after the financial crisis. total uk government debt is almost $2.3 trillion, equivalent to more than 85% of the country's total output. with us now is george buckley, european economist at nomura bank.

the message seems to be, not only here but around europe, spend, spend, spend, but where will it come from and where will it end? this is the problem. austerity didn't start under the current chancellor. the end of us started under the previous chancellor. we had that huge rise in nhs spending. and on top of that this 13 billion and if we have no—deal brexit, that will cause a bigger rise in spending and you will not have the tax receipts associated with that too upset, so there will bea with that too upset, so there will be a very large rise in budget deficit. when we go across and to mainland europe, looking at germany, bordering on recession now, whatever money they are putting in now, is it going to work and will it solve the problem? there has been clamouring everywhere for increased spending and there has been a huge rise in government spending in the uk but we haven't seen that being replicated gci’oss haven't seen that being replicated across some of the major countries

in europe. one of the biggest countries that has the fiscal capacity to increase spending is germany and they are very reluctant to do so. they are liking the idea of keeping their budget is balanced. they have the budget surplus and debt levels falling through this magic 60% number, which the european commission requires them to get it below, so they do have the capacity to do it but at the moment they don't think the recession is bad enough to put the extra resources and. in the uk there is a different attitude, as you have mentioned. with interest rates historically low, is now a good time to burrow? the government will not have to pay so the government will not have to pay so much to service its debt and many argue this isjust so much to service its debt and many argue this is just what the uk economy needs and this time of real uncertainty. we have relatively high interest rates in the uk relative to the rest of the continent but they are historically very low. it is a good time to think about investing. but if we were to see a hard brexit, that would create a lot of stress on

the public finances. you may wish to think about limiting how much you spendin think about limiting how much you spend in advance of that. but how dangerous is it? everyone is saying this, the cbi, the institute for fiscal studies, about what the labour government is proposing, all about huge spending plans and big debt. how dangerous is it? there have been some studies that have suggested that once your debt levels go above 90% of gdp, you end up with problems for economic growth and we have seen that in countries like japan, where we have had three decades with very weak economic growth. in the uk we are running at 85%, close to that number. just bear in mind what it was just over ten yea rs in mind what it was just over ten years ago, before the global financial crisis. we were running debt levels are a0 to a5% of gdp, so there is a increases relative to what we had grown accustomed to before the financial crisis. —— those are huge increases. thank you.

let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. japanese tech conglomerate softbank is reported to be in talks to take control of wework as the loss—making property group faces a cash crunch that threatens its solvency. the proposed deal would give softbank more than a 50 per cent stake in the company. softbank already owns around 30% of wework shares. facebook‘s libra cryptocurrency has been dealt yet another major blow. a report for the world's biggest economies — the so—called g7 group of nations — says the plan must not go ahead until the company proves it is safe and secure. this comes just days after payment giants mastercard and visa pulled out of the project, citing regulatory uncertainty. we will be looking at that in more detail ina we will be looking at that in more detail in a few minutes. let's bring you some breaking news that we are getting from spain. spain's supreme court has sentenced nine catalan separatist leaders

to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition over their role in the region's 2017 bid for independence. three other defendants were found guilty only of disobedience and were not handed prison sentences. the harshest sentence would be for rebellion, which has not been handed out in this particular case. had they been sentenced for that they could have had between 25 and 30 yea rs. could have had between 25 and 30 years. they have got nine to 13 yea rs. years. they have got nine to 13 years. for the spanish government, a big point in sentencing of these local politicians was the abuse of funds which they had used for their own gains. more details on bbc news as we get more information about what is happening in spain at the moment. now let's turn to brexit, with time rapidly running out for prime minister borisjohnson, who needs eu leaders to sign off

on a deal at their two—day summit in brussels starting on thursday. british and eu officials will resume talks today, hoping to strike an agreement in order to leave with a deal on 31st october. adam fleming is in luxembourg for us. they have entered the tunnel, we hear, over the weekend. there is some progress but what exactly and who is giving ground? have they entered the tunnel? that is news to me. michel barnier is still briefing the member states and the point of the member states and the point of the tunnel is it is meant to be secret from everyone else so they can make big compromises. there is an argument over what type of argument is happening. what a surprise. there is still a big gap between the uk and the eu in terms of customs checks on the island of ireland and what checks would be done on birds going from great britain to northern ireland, which could end up in ireland and the rest of the eu single market. —— on

goods. the eu will be happy with the veto, because they were opposed to that. and the eu has really suffered on its timetable. normally i would stand here and say if there is to be a revised break the deal approved by eu leaders at the summit on thursday, the legal text has got to be ready a week in advance so eve ryo ne be ready a week in advance so everyone can scrutinise it. that has gone and the eu negotiating team is prepared to keep on talking to uk officials until wednesday, the eve officials until wednesday, the eve of the summit. so this really is going right down to the wire, as the cliche goes. adam fleming, in luxembourg, for the eu foreign ministers meeting today. thank you. president trump thinks it's tremendous, that's a quote, but what do the markets think of the trade truce between the us and china? do the presidential tweets mean more to investors than hard data?

monica miller is in our asia business hub. we are always trying to read between the lines. what do the markets make up the current situation? investors in asia carry that enthusiasm with them until monday, as they have been positive today. the shanghai composite have gained at least 1%, all of them, and this is after the administration announced it will postpone raising ta riffs announced it will postpone raising tariffs on announced it will postpone raising ta riffs on $250 announced it will postpone raising tariffs on $250 billion worth of chinese imports that was set to take effect on tuesday. the nikkei is closed today for a national holiday. the us president did outline the first phase of what he has described asa first phase of what he has described as a very substantial phase one deal to end a trade war that covered some agricultural issues and they did touch on property protection which has been a thorny issue, but not too many details are at. he stopped short of revoking any of the existing tariffs on chinese goods. thank you, monica. good to hearfrom

you. here are the overall markets in asia and how they fared following on from what monica had to say. here are the numbers. japan, that was friday's close. they are shut today for a public holiday. hong kong, up by 1%, as monaco was mentioning. the reasons for the positive sentiment at the moment. looking at europe, something that european investors have got to consider is the trade relationship between china and the us, which is so fundamental. but you can also see that all markets are lower today so far, probably because they are focusing on the chinese data, the poor export story as opposed to what trump is saying. but also sajid javid, the chancellor in the uk, has announced when the budget will be in the uk, the 6th of november. the first budget after the uk leaves the eu. he says we must get on with governing. it is the right and responsible thing to do and it is his first budget as chancellor of the exchequer. there

isa chancellor of the exchequer. there is a lot happening. back to you. thank you. time for us to go beyond the headlines. joining me is allyson stewart—allen, chief executive of international marketing partners. i think something caught your eye in the times. ban air miles to stop frequent flyers, urge the climate advisers, all of this with the backdrop of the extinction rebellion, and they want people to ta ke two flights rebellion, and they want people to take two flights every five years. do you think this would have an impact? i think it would. do you think this would have an impact? ithink it would. ithink do you think this would have an impact? i think it would. i think we are incentivised by loyalty programmes and i think air miles can have an impact on our appetite to fly. i think what is key is deciding who we want to stop flying. is it business people or leisure travellers? we know that leisure travellers? we know that leisure travellers go because they are going on holiday. so i think asking them

to stop going on holiday is not an option. i do think you can really make an impact by doing a number of things in combination. definitely stop incentivising people to fly through air miles, but business people in particular can very happily, i am sure, being one of them, reduce how many flights they ta ke them, reduce how many flights they take for business. it is a competitive market though. these airlines have got to hang onto valuable business customers. yes, but business people pay a heavy price to do business travel. you wait at airport and there is weather that stops the flights and lots of other inconveniences that arise and get ina other inconveniences that arise and get in a way of doing business. frankly, you now have technologies coming on stream, holograms included, which mean that maybe we don't really need to fly to a meeting and we can probably do it sitting at the desk they a laptop. absolutely and perhaps we can name and shame companies that send their staff out and about a lot, more than is necessary. that is one way of

looking at it. we like this twitter handle! i would looking at it. we like this twitter handle! iwould miss looking at it. we like this twitter handle! i would miss the schemes not least the possibility to travel free but because of the lounge access that comes with the programme. i travel professionally and being able to have a shower or a nap after a day's weather of meetings is worth gold. it is notjust a bonus of a free flight in the future, it is the bells and whistles. yes, for executives. i think if you asked many business people would you like to stop travelling for business, they would say yes. let's talk about libra now. do you reckon this cryptocurrency will ever happen?” am not sure. obviously we have paypal no longer involved. for now. visa and mastercard as well, as you mentioned earlier in the programme. there are lots of questions about trust. the facebook brand is behind libra and fundamentally you have to

wa nt to libra and fundamentally you have to want to trust the facebook brand if you are going to relinquish all your spending data. if itjust that? is the us spooked by the massive scale of facebook? they have got instagram and whatsapp. the rest of the crypto currencies are operating, aren't they? yes, they are. it is fundamentally down to trust and trust in this brand. its track record on privacy and protecting its users has not been impressive. and therefore as a consumer you are going to wonder what else will be scraped about your spending habits if in fact you start using libra. the biggest question is the economies around the globe and the regulators are obviously quite concerned because it would usurp the domestic agenda and the domestic economic management around the globe. i think that is also a major issue. the age-old problem of crypto currencies anyway. fascinating. thank you. the crypto story is on the front page of the financial

times today. still to come: no parking here. we'll find out what's now cropping up in underground car parks in paris. cropping up! well done, sally! you're with worklife from bbc news. with sally bundock and tim willcox. the number of people shopping in the uk's high street is continuing to fall. figures from the british retail consortium say in the last seven years, shoppers have dropped by 10%. shopping centres and the high street are the biggest losers, although retail parks saw a small increase in visitors last month. clare bailey from retail champion is here. i looked at all this information and it is no big surprise. this is the story that keeps on giving. retailers are struggling had bricks and mortar retailers are really

struggling. yes, apart from those in retail parks. if you think about what a retail park offers the better the average high street, you have longer opening hours, more accessible parking, and the general offer which includes retail hospitality and leisure. it is more fit for purpose for a modern consumer. how do fit for purpose for a modern consumer. how do we fit for purpose for a modern consumer. how do we solve this issue? it has been going on for some time. do we have to think differently about what our city centres a re differently about what our city centres are about and why we go and what we do when we are there? absolutely. and a lot of people are involved in local authority economic development teams and business improvement districts, trying to transform the fortunes of uk high streets, but it takes a lot of effort to coordinate something like that, where there are different landlords and stakeholders, compared toa landlords and stakeholders, compared to a retail park which has one management usually. so changing the nature of business, getting retailers to change the way they do business, things like opening hours,

looking at accessibility and the total proposition to the consumer, is the only way that we will see high streets are thriving again and thatis high streets are thriving again and that is going to take some time to achieve of course. should the government to be doing more? is this the start of an existential crisis to which there is no solution?” the start of an existential crisis to which there is no solution? i am sure there is a solution. what the government needs to be looking at is the big elephant in the room of business rates. everybody has been lobbying about this for at least ten yea rs, lobbying about this for at least ten years, as long as i can remember, and they are crippling the ability of businesses to take on retail and other types of property in high streets. if that was a dress, i think we would see more opportunities arising for people who are cautious about investing in a new business or property. —— if that was addressed. thank you. and looking at the value of sterling. it is slipping. it is the beginning of an extremely busy week impacting its value.

you're watching worklife. a reminder of our top story: the british government will set out its legislative programme for the next session of parliament in today's queen's speech. that is at 11 o'clock local time. the queen is making her way to the palace of westminster. it is always a big event in london. and there will be a big spending programme announced, the biggest in 15 years. that is all the talk of westminster today. and it is the first queen's speech are nearly two years, which isa speech are nearly two years, which is a long time. and before we go back to that, of which there will be full coverage on bbc news, let's talk about data. a word that crops up a lot these days. that's because our daily habits generate so much of it. from credit card purchases to the movies we are watching, we create around 2.5 quintillion bytes each day. can you explain that number to me? i have no idea what that means!

to put that into perspective, if each byte represented one penny coin, those coins would cover the surface of the earth five times. that doesn't really help either! anyway! quintillion sounds big. one uk firm that's helping companies to harness all this information to improve their service is cloud9 insight. founded in 2010, it provides software to businesses to help them work better with their data. joining us is carlene jackson, chief executive of cloud9 insight. good morning. good morning. you are a company that helps other businesses manage data. what do you do to help those businesses? many organisations have different silos of data and it is amazing how many businesses still have their data on spreadsheets. what we do is to help organisations to consolidate that single view of their client data to provide better experiences for their customers and hopefully enable their employees to do theirjob more

effectively. and every single piece of data is useful, isn't it? i have been reading about this recently. when google and facebook started this ten to 15 years ago, it was data exhaust, the stuff was being churned out and not used. is all of it valuable now? i think the challenges that organisations are collecting this data are not necessarily using it but with gdpr there is more controlled about which data you can use and how you process it, especially personally identifiable data. give us an example. say i am a small or medium—sized enterprise and you are advising them, how would this help the company and their profit? with organisations that are looking to grow their business and they have access to information, it is great to get insight into trends and understand what type of customers are buying what type of products and maybe what the buying patterns are that they have. if you can give more timely marketing messages that are really relevant, rather than

spamming them. if you are an air travel company and you understand that a particular family has a holiday at a certain time of year but they probably purchase that three months before, and you send a timely email to them with a promotion for example, the impact of that message might be greater. you mentioned gdpr, the legislation that came into effect across europe in may last year, which meant that companies now have a legal duty to use our data correctly. that is the real worry for all of us. since the cambridge analytica scandal with facebook and many other breaches of data, all sorts of companies like british airways, you know... google... british airways, you know... google. .. using it to british airways, you know... google... using it to nudge people into behavioural patterns that they wouldn't otherwise. we are always worrying about what is happening with our data and if companies are using it well. we always say yes to cookies, which gives them a whole load of data without us reading the terms and conditions. a lot of

organisations now have complete transparency into yourjourney with them, maybe from two years before you purchase from them to your interactions with their website, through opening up an emailfor example. they suddenly have that information about who you are. organisations definitely have a duty to make sure they are only storing the information they have said they are going to store, and only use it appropriately, in the way they said they would use it. often consumers are giving this information and it is historically being sold, to the extent that people are getting called and spammed a lot. we will leave it there and there are not many women involved in this business that you are one of them! thank you for coming on to talk to us. it is all in the cloud and quintillion has 18 zeros after the number apparently. so now you know. and 5p pieces around the world. i missed that! whatever. let's talk about

mushrooms and underground car parks in paris. also mind—boggling. dougal sure explains. —— dougal shaw. in an underground car park in paris, i encountered something i didn't expect. i was in a huge mushroom farm. so why was it down here? when housing blocks like this sprouted up in paris in the 1960s and ‘70s, it was common practice to also build underground parking for residents. so beneath paris, there are millions of square metres of car park. but car ownership is in steady decline in paris, a trend city authorities are keen to encourage. some underground car parks now find themselves surplus to requirements. city officials have been running competitions to find new leases of life for them. one of the winners of these was urban farmers cycloponics.

they've rejuvenated three car parks in paris. the conditions down here are perfect for their main are perfect for their main crop — oyster, shiitake, and white button mushrooms. the harvest is sold through nearby organic grocery stores. it means urban food is grown and consumed within a short distance. this cuts the pollution that comes with transportation. more car parks are being renovated like this in cities across france. dougal shaw, bbc news, paris. when you can't park your car, it makes you cross! or your motorbike! at the top of the show, we asked you whether air miles schemes should be banned. let's take a look at how some viewers have responded. kevin t says a great start would be to stop delegates flying around the world to climate conferences. anita tweets: great idea. too many people fly cross country when they could get a train instead.

maybe train miles should be a thing. that's it from us. we are back tomorrow. see you soon. good morning. it has been a very wet october, a in eastern land where you have had three months of rainfall already. there is some sunshine this week especially on tuesday. you can see from the satellite imagery from the atlantic, this area of cloud, this will assist in waiting in waiting in the wings, with another weather system across the uk at the moment. —— this weather system waiting in the wings. heavy rain at times in central and southern areas and into east wales, the midlands

and into east wales, the midlands and eventually northern areas of england. there the east and south across scotland at the north west of england, it should be drier and brighter with brightness in west wales and maximum temperatures of 13 to 18. as the rain cleared from the south—east, there will be some showers. the rain continues to move into the north—east of england and eventually it will clear away. for many of us a lot of cloud over night tonight with a cloud and southern areas and temperature eight to 12 degrees. on tuesday, one weather system that is slowly weakening players away to the north—east. we have this weather system out towards the west. that will come through tuesday night and into wednesday. in daylight hours on tuesday, dry with bright skies for much of the day. some showers in western areas that will be isolated but most of us dry weather with sunny spells and maximum temperatures 12 to 15. this rain fall behind my shoulder will

move in during wednesday, linking to this area of low pressure. it will pushit this area of low pressure. it will push it eastwards, giving many of us a spell of more heavy rain. the rain will get going early on in the morning and will spread to eastern parts. heavy at times. there the west after the rain clears, there will be sunshine across wales and southern england and northern ireland stop by the end of the day, many of us will be dry with maximum temperatures of 12 to 16. blustery winds associated with that rain through the day. but thursday and friday there is more rain and showers in the forecast. some bright spells here and there. still a bit blustery with maximum temperatures in the low to mid teens. goodbye.

this you're watching bbc news at nine, with me annita mcveigh. the headlines... it's a big day in westminster, as mps and the house of lords prepare for the state opening of parliament and the queen's speech. the queen will set out the government's plans with an unsurprising focus on brexit, but also on immigration, crime, rail franchises and environmental policies. meanwhile, eu foreign ministers are meeting in luxembourg, where they'll be updated on the intensive brexit talks. eu ambassadors have been told "big gaps" still remain over disagreements about the northern irish border. the family of the teenager killed in a crash involving the wife of an american diplomat say they won't meet her unless she commits to returning to the uk. the kurdish government says the syrian regime has agreed to send its army to try to halt

turkey's offensive against them.