this is bbc news. the headlines: formal impeachment charges against president trump have been signed by senior democrat nancy pelosi at a ceremony on capitol hill. the decision means a trial is likely to start next week. mr trump is unlikely to be removed from office as his republican party have a majority in the senate. major financial markets in the us have closed at record highs after the signing of a partial trade deal between america and china. the us called off some planned tariffs on chinese goods, while beijing agreed to increase purchases of us exports. climate scientists have confirmed that the past decade was the hottest on record. nasa and the uk met office say last year was the second warmest since 1850. they blame rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and warn of more extreme weather events to come.

now on bbc news, wednesday in parliament. hello again and welcome to wednesday in parliament. as the prime minister admits, some people wait far too long for nhs treatment. he's right to signal the delays that people are facing, and they are indeed unacceptable, and that is why we are investing in 50,000 more nurses. that's why we're investing in 60,000 more gps. —— 6,000 more gps. but labour say his promise to enshrine higher health spending in law doesn't go far enough. the nhs is our most precious national institution. fund it properly, that everyone can rely on it. those that cannot afford private health care. also on this programme,

a musical question time. speaks welsh sings in welsh all that to come and more. but first, the government has published its bill to put higher spending on the nhs into law. it means the health service in england should receive almost £34 billion a year more by 202a. but at prime minister's questions, the labour leader said the extra funding would not be enough to cut waiting lists. mr speaker, the number of patients waiting more than four hours in a&e is now at its highest on record for the second month in a row. we've had months of promises, but people need action. there probably isn't a family in the united kingdom which hasn't been affected in some way by cancer. yet, last year, we saw one in four patients waiting more than two months for the start of their cancer treatment.

how many more patients will face what are life—threatening delays because our nhs is understaffed and underfunded? mr speaker, as the right honourable gentleman knows, there is a massive demand on the nhs, which, as he also knows, is doing a fantasticjob, particularly, in fact, in oncology, where tremendous progress has been made. he's right — he's right to signal the delays that people are facing, and they are indeed unacceptable, and that is why we are investing in 50,000 more nurses, that's why we are investing in 6,000 more gps, and that is why this government is investing record sums in the nhs. we will get those waiting lists down. the question is — why would the government need to put into law an inadequacy of funding on our national health service? there are health professionals who said the nhs needs more money than the government is saying in order to keep patients safe. it's now been almost three years since the government promised a green paper on social care, and seven months since

the prime minister himself stood on the steps of downing street and said he had prepared a clear plan to fix the crisis in social care. well, what's the hold—up? where's the plan? well, mr speaker, i'm delighted by his constructive attitude. mr speaker, because as he knows, we do intend to begin with cross—party talks to get to build a consensus, and i think there is a great consensus in this country on the need to tackle the issue of social care, so that everybody has dignity and security in their old age, nobody has to sell their home to pay for the cost of their care. we can do it, and we will do it with the help and cooperation of the labour party and other parties of this house. we will go ahead with a fantastic plan for social care. i look forward to his support, but i would point out to him that it is thanks to this conservative stewardship of the economy that we are now, indeed, the mandate of the people that we have, that we are now able to tackle a problem that was shoved —— shirked

notjust by the labour party, but for governments for decades after decades, and we are going to do it now. mr speaker, i don't know if the prime minister had a chance to read the labour manifesto in the election, but we made it very clear, we have a plan. we have a plan, a very clear one. it is... it is free personal care, it is more funding, and it is support for carers. and we're very happy, i'm very happy to send him another copy of our manifesto so he can read it. the prime minister has said — the prime minister has said many times, he is going to put this nhs funding issue into law, but all this gimmick means is even longer waiting lists, more delays for cancer patients, and more a&e departments bursting at the seams, while patients continue to suffer, while he continues to provide excuses. if he's really committed to fixing the crisis

his government has created over the last decade, he should end the empty rhetoric and back our proposals to give the nhs the funding it needs rather than putting into law an insufficiency of funding. the nhs is our most precious national institution. fund it properly, that everyone can rely on it, those that cannot afford private health care! well, mr speaker, i'm delighted he is still fighting on the manifesto that he's submitted to the intention of the british people at the last election. i think it was pretty clear of what they thought of it, what they thought of the credibility of the premises that he made, but it was also clear what they thought of what we are going to do, because they see that we are the party of the nhs, mr speaker. here, here! they see that it is this government that invested in hospitals, in schools, in policing, in bringing crime down, and that is because it is this government whose careful stewardship of the economy has led to record employment, record low unemployment, which delivers the tax revenues

that enables us to pay for this. whenever labour is in office, mr speaker, they wrecked the economy and they put unemployment higher and make us less able to pay for great public services. rather than taking this country forward, they would take it backwards! earlier this week, borisjohnson wrote to scotland's first minister, nicola sturgeon, to refuse her request for holyrood to be granted the power to hold a legally binding referendum on scottish independence. in the letter, the prime minister said another vote would "continue the political stagnation scotland has seen for the past decade." but nicola sturgeon accused the conservatives of attempting to "deny democracy," a point reinforced by the snp's westminster leader who went on to widen the attack. the prime minister is a democracy denier. can i say to the prime minister, as his colleagues privately admit, this position is undemocratic, unacceptable and completely unsustainable.

the prime minister has shown utter contempt for scottish democracy, for scotland's parliament and for scotland's people. does the prime minister accept that by ignoring scotland, imposing brexit with his pursuance of cruel and punishing policies, that he is strengthening the case for scottish independence? mr speaker, it was not only the right honourable gentleman who leads the snp of this house, it was also alex salmond and his protege nicola sturgeon, who said at the time of the referendum, that it was a once in a generation event. he said it, they said it, they were right then, why they changed their mind? he is the denier, he is the denier of democracy. mr speaker, the prime minister's party, the conservative party, signed up to the smith commission,

that recognise the right of the people of scotland to determine their own future — that's the reality. the prime minister lives in a fantasy land, the people across scotland know the reality of this prime minister's broken brexit britain. and the truth is, the only union that the prime ministers truly interested in is his union with donald trump. a partnership that threatens to sell off our precious national health service. mr speaker, only yesterday, the prime minister called for the replacement of the iran nuclear deal, but does —— with, as he put it, a trump agreement, the public deserves the truth. what backroom deals are being done with donald trump? why is the prime minister putting our nhs at risk? repeatedly during the election campaign, the prime minister promised time and time again the nhs is not for sale. mr speaker, will the prime minister

now commit to supporting the scottish national party's proposalfor an nhs protection bill? without that commitment, what price will this prime minister make us pay for his toxic trump deal? actually, mr speaker, the snp welcomed our statement on the jcpoa yesterday, but, you know, the problem with scotland under the snp is the highest taxed part of the uk, the deficit is six times the uk average, maths and science in schools is actually going down, it's unlike any other part of the united kingdom. that is no fault of the pupils of scotland by the way, it is the fault of the government of scotland under the snp, who are not giving them the chances they deserve, because they are obsessed with breaking up the united kingdom. change the record. you're watching wednesday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come:

find out what's number one in the hit parade. a computer glitch is being blamed for the uk not passing on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home eu countries. government critics claim the mistake was covered up because of concerns about "reputational damage." the error of the police national computer, or pnc, is reportedly thought to have gone undetected for five years. in the lords, labour said the revelation was both "shocking" and "worrying". does the noble lord accept that this is a huge failure on the part of the government, and that it is possible that dangerous offenders have returned to their home country without the uk making proper notification to the authorities? and when the error was discovered, it was not corrected, shamefully, because of a risk of reputational damage to the uk.

can the noble lord give the house a timescale for clearing the backlog of these notifications to be made, and what is the noble lord's department doing to review procedures to eliminate the scandalous situation, which was discussed at meetings, but not acted upon? the noble lord is entirely correct. this is a very serious matter that is taken very seriously by the government, and we can't duck the importance of getting this right. but if i may sayjust a few words of context to explain what is an incredibly complex and technical matter. britain remains one of the leading contributors of data to the equus system. interestingly, uk sent 30,000 conviction notifications through equus to eu member states in the last year and received 16,000, which gives an idea of the balance of contributions there.

but we are dealing in the uk with legacy systems that are profoundly out of date. we are also dealing with many eu agencies and 27 eu nations, so the complexity of this task is enormous. what i want to do is reassure the house that the dynamic system of equus, through all of this period, was working as well as expected and delivered a fine service to our eu partners. lord bethell. the business secretary, andrea leadsom, has warned that the impact of climate change is already being felt. opening a queen's speech debate on "the green industrial revolution", she claimed britain would lead the next 30 years of action to tackle it. but labour and the snp were among those raising concerns about the speed of change. mrs leadsom told mps that the australian wildfires had been a wake—up call. from wildfires in australia to flooding in indonesia, and record temperatures across the world, the impacts

of climate change are in the here and now. people across the uk and the world are calling for us to act and we are doing just that. just as the uk has led the last 30 years of climate action, we will lead the next 30 years, seizing the opportunities of the green industrial revolution. mr speaker, since 1990, we have cut our emissions by 42% whilst growing our economy by 73%... in a moment. since 2000, we have decarbonised more quickly than any other 620 country. since 2010, we have quadrupled the electricity we generate from renewables, including the installation of 99% of the uk's solar capacity. what i wanted to take her up on was the repetition, constantly, from the government when you say — when she says that the greenhouse

gas emissions have fallen by 42% since 1990. she knows that if we actually calculated consumption—based emissions, if you factored that in, actually, our emissions have only fallen by 10%. so would she agree that, going forward, we need to have a common understanding of what is facing us? and if she keeps kind of using numbers in a slightly misleading way, then we're not going to get to where we need to be and get our emissions down. the queen's speech references the government's commitment to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but the ipcc, the world's leading scientific body on climate change, says that the entire world needs to reach net zero by 2050 to avoid more than 1.5 degrees of warming. given the uk's historic responsibility for climate change and our wealth and resources to do something about it, we clearly need to be ahead of the curve on this. and we need to be honest that 2050 is not good enough — not if we're serious about keeping our people safe —

and i'd urge the government to revisit this target. we need to be honest that we're off—track to meeting our targets, inadequate as they are. in fact, according to the committee on climate change, the government's official advisers, the uk is even off—track to meeting its old target of an 80% reduction by 2050. the uk's c02 emissions fell by only 2% between 2017 and 2018 and, politics aside, this isn't anywhere near good enough. and let's be honest about what that means. it's not like failing an exam or a driving test. failing on climate change means devastating fires sweeping across australia and the amazon. it means radical threats to our food security, our water security and our entire ecosystem on which we all depend. i have to acknowledge we have made fantastic strides forward with renewable energy, but has it been a revolution? i would argue that, due to the uk government's changing strategy,

the process has been too start—stop to be classed as revolutionary. we've seen a welcome increase in the deployment of renewable energy, and uk government support has facilitated this, but, again, due to policy changes, there's been too many peaks, troughs and, in some cases, catastrophic failures due to the actions of the uk government. so the green industrial revolution is nothing if not an ambitious title, and so it needs to be if we are to head off the existential threat of catastrophic climate change. ambition is indeed what we need. but, of course, you can give something an impressive and ambitious title, but it is unlikely to earn you a lasting legacy unless it actually delivers. during the debate, one mp — the conservative richard drax — said humans rather than climate change were the cause of fires in the amazon and australia, where he said 75% were caused by arson. it prompted this rebuke.

i'm very disappointed that the honourable member has mentioned the 75% figure. it was mentioned by the foreign 0ffice minister in the statement on the bushfires last week. it's fake news that is being spread by climate change deniers in australia. there was a letter to the guardian from a number of world—renowned climate academics, including several from bristol university, i think published yesterday. i think the true figure for arson is less than 1%. kerry mccarthy. a host of seniorjudicial figures, including three former chief justices of england and wales, are troubled by moves allowing ministers to issue regulations telling courts which eu laws they can ignore after brexit. the measures are in borisjohnson's eu withdrawal agreement bill, which was approved by the commons last week. it sets out the regime for the transition period when the uk has left the eu but is still complying with eu law — pending negotiations on a long—term relationship. i declare an interest as a litigator over 30 years

of european law issues, for whom these subclauses and the legal uncertainty that they unleash bring the prospect of endless work and riches as yet undreamed of. laughter nonetheless, i put my name to these amendments, which, of course, will do nothing to obstruct or delay the brexit that will occur on the 31st of january. at second reading, i described another clause of this bill as "henry viii on steroids". but even that description is hardly strong enough for the new section 5a(b). that would allow the minister, by regulations, to decide the extent to which and the circumstances in which our courts are to consider themselves bound by the law of the land, whether in the form of retained eu case law or retained domestic case law that relates to it. it permits the minister to make regulations which would create jurisdiction in any court,

at any level, to disapply retained eu case law — our law. now, just think of the poor districtjudge sitting in pontypool county court, as an example, bound by decisions all the courts above him or her on our native law — occupiers' liability act, unfair contract terms act, even the finance act. then he is told, but he has an eu case law, "you're not bound by anybody's decisions on that. take a running jump at it." the slightest incursion tojudicial processes must be for parliament, not for ministers. to allow a minister to specify a test that the judges have to apply would be a power any populist government would love to have,

but as far as i'm aware, no populist government, however powerful, has ever asked for this before. it runs entirely contrary to the rule of law and contrary to the fundamental principle of the separation of powers. this is proposing a change in our law which is one which would undermine, in the most critical way, the proper observation of the rule of law. and for this house to allow that to happen without protesting in the most clear way, it would be, i would suggest, really very undesirable indeed. the minister said he wanted to offer some explanation and reassurance. the intention behind this clause is to give a power to make regulations to ensure that

united kingdom courts are not inappropriately bound by retained eu case law, as part of the body of united kingdom law after we have left the european union. it goes no further than that. these courts may choose to follow that case law, but the point is to ensure that they are not bound to do so in circumstances where they form a view that it would be inappropriate to the development of uk law for them to do so. he said judges would be consulted on any regulations. and any regulations will be laid before parliament under the affirmative procedure, so those safeguards are clearly in place. what we want to do is to ensure that the united kingdom law after we leave is consistent and clear. another contentious issue is the protection given to unaccompanied child refugees.

the eu withdrawal agreement bill waters down measures contained in previous legislation giving child refugees in the eu the right to be reunited with family already here in the uk. lord dubs has campaigned on behalf of these children for several years. one of the alarming consequences of this provision is that, as it is now, there are young people in calais who've been sent a pretty dangerous signal that britain does not want them to come here and join their families. now, the minister will deny this, but britain doesn't want it. and therefore, the awful thing that's going to happen is that more young people will take the illegal route on the back of lorries to come to britain. he feared the government would use lone child refugees as bargaining chips with the eu. i find myself in a difficulty here because i think the government, for all the words they utter about supporting child refugees, are actually turning their back on them.

i think parliament and government are in absolute agreement on this, that we are all committed fully to both the principle of family reunion and supporting the most vulnerable children in the world. what the government seeks to do is undertake an arrangement whereby reciprocity... it makes absolute sense that we have reciprocal arrangements with europe. we might have left the eu. we have certainly not left europe. but, please, let's have no more comments about bargaining chips because this is seeking to do the best by all children, whether they be in the eu or the uk. and we haven't heard the last of that issue. votes are expected in the lords next week. now, we do like to get down with da kids on bbc parliament, so you won't need me to tell you that a welsh language protest song by the folk singer and former plaid cymru president dafydd iwan reached number one in the itunes uk

song chart a few days ago. the event did not go unnoticed during welsh questions, where mps were keen to see better transport links across wales. we should be building our nation, the whole of our nation, one idea, a railway from north to south so we no longer have to travel to a neighbouring nation to go from one end to the other of our country. but the minister, i hope, has had a chance to look at the itunes charts, where dafydd iwan's protest song yma 0 hyd has been going up the charts — "we're still here". it's reached number one this week — originally, of course, released in the midst of fractious, relentless attacks on wales, and it might be time to update the lyrics. —— thatcher. she sings in welsh come on, answer! minister! order, order, order! minister, answer what you can and we'll have to move on.

laughter well, mr speaker, can i thank the honourable lady? the north—south link has been talked about for years and i look forward to seeing some costs on that. but the east—west links, in both north wales and south wales, have finance available to them. and i very much hope the welsh labour government will consider again the commitment to the m4 relief road. can i also congratulate dafydd iwan on that fantastic song and say that, as far as the conservative party and this conservative government is concerned, with the hundreds of millions of pounds going into growth deals for wales, his other song i'r gad springs to mind. and i'r gad, in case you were wondering, translates as "to the battlefield". praise the lord we are a musical nation, as we say in the land of my fathers. that's the final tune for this wednesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i hope you canjoin me at the same time tomorrow for thursday in parliament. until then, bye for now.

hello there. we saw a brief window of fine weather for wednesday. many of us stay dry with some sunshine. but it's all change. the next area of low pressure moving in for thursday, bringing another spell of wet and windy weather to our shores. you can see here showing up on the pressure chart, moving up from the south—west, the isobars closer together across the board, but particularly across western areas. so it'll be a wet start from the word go across northern ireland, scotland, some snow on the hills, and then the rain will pile into many southern and western areas through the day, largely working their way eastward so we should stay dry in the east until after dark. gale force winds for many, 40—50 mph gusts, in excess of 60 mph across the south—west, so very blustery. fairly mild in the south, still single figure values across the north. that low pressure moves northwards, taking the wet and windy weather with it during thursday night. into friday we've got fewer isobars on the charts, and a couple of weather fronts which will tend to enhance shower activity in band form.

so we'll see a few showers clustered together across parts of scotland, northern ireland, some wintriness over the hills, a couple of showers as well into england and wales, which will tend to move from west to east. but some good spells of sunshine in between. you will notice the temperatures, though, with all the air mass changing, single figure values for most, just about ten degrees across the south—east. so into the weekend it will be colder but with high pressure establishing itself it should turn a bit drier, with good spells of sunshine, but at night it will be cold, we return to some overnight frost. you can see this area of high pressure clearly establishing itself across the uk during saturday and it's with us as well into sunday and into the start of next week too. mind you, we still have low pressure close to the north of the uk, so still windy across scotland. further heavy showers across here, maybe hail, some snow in the hills, maybe just one or two showers, moving through the cheshire gap, for example, but they should tend to ease down into the afternoon, with increasing amounts of sunshine for many. but it will be a colder day,

with temperatures in single figure values for most of us. and it's going to a cold night, saturday night, you can see the blue hue developing right across the board, a widespread frost with a risk of some fog or even freezing fog patches, perhaps a little bit of ice where we've had the showers through the day. so sunday starts off cold and frosty, but it looks like we should tend to lose those strong winds from the north of the country. for many of us here winds will be light. where fog holds on it will be cold, but for many of us we should see the sunshine, a very pleasant day in store. something a little bit milderjust getting into the north—west corner of the country, but for most of us we're in around the mid single digits.

welcome to bbc news, i'm mike embley, our top stories: president trump's impeachment trial moves a step closer, as senior democrat nancy pelosi signs key documents, the republican controlled senate will conduct his trial next week. let it be very clear that this president will be held accountable, that no—one is above the law. a thaw in relations as the us and china sign an initial deal aimed at easing their 18—month trade war. russia's government resigns en masse, after president putin unveils plans that could prolong his stay in power. and, wildfires, flooding and drought. the last decade is confirmed as the hottest on record,