hello, you're watching afternoon live, i'm simon mccoy. today at 2: end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. and we are going to come forward with a white paper called the williams review which will put this into a much more stable and long—term state but for today, i think at least northern passengers and staff know that the government is taking action. compulsory quarantine, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow will be placed in isolation for 14 days, as the corona virus crisis worsens. we don't want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes it safer for those then that is what is necessary. road blocks and ghost towns — the virus has caused more

than 130 deaths in china and has now spread to at least 16 other countries. 999 under pressure. every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. the grenfell tower fire inquiry — companies involved in the buildings refurbishment say they want immunity from prosecution before giving evidence. coming up on afternoon live, all the sport: the world number one and 19 time grand slam champion rafa nadal is knocked out in the quarter finals of the australian open by dominic thiem. thanks. and susan powell has the weather. we are trying to keep up with what is going on with our winter, it was snowing yesterday, things are getting much milderfor the remainder of the week put stops and to psy—tu rvy remainder of the week put stops and topsy—turvy chapters across europe as well, we'll be taking a closer look at them later. also coming up: i'll be talking to this year's winner of the costa book of the year.

jack fairweather‘s biography pieces together an unknown second world war mission to infiltrate auschwitz and tell the world of its horrors. hello everyone. in the last hour, it's been announced that the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. is to lose its franchise and will be the service, which is run by arriva, has been accused of allowing unacceptable delays across its network. northern connects towns and cities like preston and blackburn in the west — to places like york and hull in the east — via the big cities of manchester and leeds. in statementjust released, northern‘s owner arriva, has apologised to passengers and said it "understood the government's decision." our correspondent danny savage is in leeds.

this is the busiest station, lots of services originated by northern come through here carrying thousands of passengers was not what had happened early last year and a half or so since the timetable fiasco of may 2018 is that passengers have got increasingly frustrated by delayed trains, cancelled services and overcrowding. the government is finally had enough of this and are bringing the company into public ownership and stripping them of their franchise. ownership and stripping them of theirfranchise. in ownership and stripping them of their franchise. in the last hour, grant shapps, the transport secretary, says that passengers have lost faith and that they deserve better and he has also made this statement in the last few moments. the first thing they have ordered is a deep clean of the trains. get a proper cleaning rota in places that people can actually get on clean trains and get the sunday rota so that trains run and frankly,

know that some of the facilities for the staff, for the train drivers, are in a terrible state so i've asked them to sort those kind of things out so that people are able to come to a decent place of work as well soi think there are all manners of things to do and with the 100 days want them both to do the shorter term things that they can do now but also the plan for the longer term which eventually, this is not the final state of this, the whole of the rail network is too complex these days. it was set up like this during the days of privatisation. that has been a success in as much as there are now twice as many passengers travelling on our network but it is also, i think, far too fragmented for today's network, it is to come ——complicated and we are going to come forward with a white paper called the williams review which will put this into a much more stable, long—term state but for today, i think at least northern passengers and staff know that the government is taking action. so, the talk today might be about the change of franchise but what this really is about is the

experience of passengers and you get virtually any service run by northern in this part of the country at the moment in rush hour and talk to commuters and you don't have to go very far to find horror stories about delays and being left behind on the platform because there's not enough capacity on the trains. remember, this part of the country is not like southern england where commuter train comes in and there is one along in a few moments time. it just doesn't happen rarely in the north of england, services could be 15, 20, 30 minutes behind each other and that is where there is so much overcrowding and people feel pressure to get on trains. i've been travelling with a fuca metres over the last few days and catching up with them. —— a few commuters. early morning at chapeltown station in sheffield. lots of commuters use this stop. the next service is half an hour behind this one, so everyone has to squeeze on. this is normal, and people are fed up with northern, who operate these services. today this is actually fairly roomy,

but usually, you know, i either don't get on because it's too busy, and i've had to wait for the next train. and sometimes even the train after that. at one point we had a game with the northern rail twitter account which was how many people can we fit into your toilet. which is eight, if you want to know! eight people can fit in the toilet. because that is the only space that was left on the train? yes. and we left people at the platform. 0vercrowding, cancellations, and delays are an everyday occurrence. but some passengers aren't sure what difference northern losing its franchise will make. well, it's hard to say because there's the whole problem in terms of infrastructure. would the new franchise have enough trains, have enough capacity on there? would itjust be like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic? we've got conductors on the train who get verbal abuse from customers as well, which i've seen in the past, which is not fair on them. they're here to do theirjob, it's not their fault the capacity is not enough. just over a year ago i travelled to work with vanessa bremner. she is another commuter on northern. her route is doncaster to leeds.

at least, it was. because now, she's given up and uses the car. i know numerous people who have had to stop taking the train and have started driving. you know, leeds city council is talking about congestion charges. we are all focused on climate change and the environment. they are all being forced into their vehicles. those that are still using the trains, even this morning at least five members of my team came in late because of delays on the trains. those campaigning for extra investment in the north say extra platforms are needed in leeds and manchester to increase capacity. stripping northern of its franchise is not a game changer. the challenges and issues on northern are not really related to the company who runs the franchise, they are to do with the failure to build infrastructure here in west yorkshire and across the pennines in manchester. few will mourn the end of northern's tenure. the passengers are not naive, they know a change in operator will not necessarily

fix the problem. they are looking to the government for a proper solution in northern england. arriva said they understand the decision. they do, they have released a statement in the last half an hour or so and they sate the scale of the challenges we faced outside of our direct control were unprecedented. we recognise overall service improvements have not come quickly enough. passengers deserve better, for that, we wholeheartedly apologise. just to explain that a bit more, when they say that they faced challenges outside of their direct control, when they took over the franchise, then took over under the franchise, then took over under the impression that certain routes like the bolton line out from manchester would be electrified sooner than it was and that would have freed up older diesel stock to come up to the other side of the pennines so they could put new

electric trains on that route. that electrification was delayed so the roll—out of new trains slowed down so their service commitment, say what they wanted to do and their plans were all put on hold. then they had to train drivers so that put people out of the system he would normally be driving in rush hour and is one person said to me, it led to a perfect storm of problems for northern as an operating company. ironically, things are arguably getting better in the last few months but not good enough and it was just too late rally to save this franchise. people caught in the middle of this are the passengers but staff as well, what is their reaction? i've been talking toa is their reaction? i've been talking to a few and unsurprisingly most of them don't want to go on the record or speak to me on condition of anonymity. 0ne or speak to me on condition of anonymity. one has sent me a message saying the things that northern actually have control over are starting to improve, it is slowly getting better. most, not all but most have been caused by external

factors out of their control. late delivery of trains, signal failures, points failures, trespasses, road vehicles crashing into bridges, all these things caused northern services to be late or cancelled and thatis services to be late or cancelled and that is beyond the control of the train company but it really doesn't make any difference was dub it is a problem that passengers have just had to get used to over the last year and had to get used to over the last yearand a had to get used to over the last year and a half also and the government has had to step in. i imagine that there are a few rail managers whojob imagine that there are a few rail managers who job it would be to run this franchise from march the 1st that may have a few sleepless nights because it will be the same trains, staff and rolling stock that will be running these services as of march the 1st with the same problems that northern have at the moment when i get a northern have at the moment when i geta train northern have at the moment when i get a train stuck behind a trans—pennine service get a train stuck behind a tra ns—pennine service that get a train stuck behind a trans—pennine service that is running late and that slows

everything down and it will take time to solve the problems for the trains in northern england and i don't know how much time on computers and passengers and everybody else will give the government to solve that problem before they start complaining again. thank you very much. the bbc‘s director of news and current affairs, fran unsworth, has been announcing a restructuring of the way in which bbc news works and operates. the bbc‘s media editor, amol rajan, joins me now. cuts of up to £40 million that they need to make. yes, it is a tough day for the staff behind you. the specific cuts announced today were 450 jobs, of which 50 were already ina 450 jobs, of which 50 were already in a trade to about further 400. this is a cost saving across the whole of the bbc. if sinews need to deliver 80 million so this is about 40 million. in terms of the

specifics of today, the only programme that is named is going to be newsnight which is going to do fewer films and a programme called world update sets. a time of anxiety for the staff and the entire 0perating 0f for the staff and the entire 0perating of the bbc news is going to change. there will be story divisions, something that other organisations have adopted. what does that mean to the viewers? the bbc would argue it gets more of the bestjournalism where they want to consume it but in practical terms, bbc news is arranged around programmes like this one, the six or ten o'clock news or the well at one on radio four and i've given speeches about this in previous organisations that and said there is going to be a centralised pool arranged around things like politics, the planet, culture and the idea is that commissioning in this new way you reduce waste,

expenditure, you stop this bizarre thing that happens within the bbc of lots of different journalists thing that happens within the bbc of lots of differentjournalists going to the same operation and hopefully you allow the bbc to prioritise the internet and reach people that are struggling to reach was that there is the financial side but also the bbc is struggling to reach people from poorer economic background and younger people. . they were reading about these in the press before it was announced in house? that's right. the big programme that is going to go is the victoria derbyshire programme that was leaked to the times newspaper and victoria derbyshire tweeted that she found out about it from the newspaper first and then not best pleased about how that entered the public domain. there is difficulty the bbc faces, not only on the scales of the challenges it is undertaking but these programmes that come out of these programmes that come out of the bbc are so huge and watched by so many people that it had to try and do it gently. fran said she

wa nted and do it gently. fran said she wanted to speak to staff first but this is something that executives are going for a long time. there was also pressure she felt to get less london centric and so what is that going to involve? at the moment, how that happens is unclear. there's been lots of talk, the director—general, tony hall, did a piece for the financial times saying he wants many more bbc staff to come from around the country there's been aim plan to move some operations to places like salford. actually, practically how you do that is far from clear. anyone watching and listening is not going to notice anything particularly different?” think it is very hard and i say this sadly with some experience, to cut a huge number of staff without there being an impact on your end product. if you lose 450 people, it will affect the quality but for people at home he may say, actually, is a public sector organisation and you

have to make sure you aren't wasteful and you do have a problem reaching people outside of london and younger people, people may say this is a good thing. what there is a problem with, people who watch the ten companies may also watch newsnight but a lot of the bbc‘s best stuff isn't travelling and under this new regime, who knows if it'll work, this is some time for an experiment but the idea is that if the bbc does well classed journalism, it should be disseminated through the bbc news platforms and reaching new audiences. that is the idea. 450 fewer staff, does that mean newer management —— fewer management?m may do. i think management certainly feel that their salary should be under the microscope as well. i know

this is an internal issue in many ways for the bbc but these days are a lwa ys ways for the bbc but these days are always very tough for staff and u nfortu nately always very tough for staff and unfortunately it is the case that in modern news, media, the way in which the internet has made news a generally available commodity means that lots of news organisations face these redundancies and it has to be these redundancies and it has to be the staff at lower rungs that tend to lose theirjobs. winter a difficult time because frankly no one knows what this look like in four or five one knows what this look like in four orfive or even two one knows what this look like in four or five or even two years. politics is a huge reason, and there isa politics is a huge reason, and there is a prevailing wind between those who question whether or not the bbc should in its current form exist. the bbc makes about £4.95 billion in revenue each year, 3.6 or 3.7 of that comes from what is effectively a license fee and i think it is now a license fee and i think it is now a mainstream part of conservative thinking and it is also something that gary lineker, john sergeant,

have also said in the last week or two, they also think the licence fee shouldn't be compulsory. here is a genuine question mark over whether the bbc in its current form is going to exist in a few years from now. the bbc in its current form is going to exist in a few years from nowm is talking about... this happened with the attempted closure with bbc six music. here they have made a decision that if you're going to find 40 million of savings, you could do it by knocking off whole programmes and they have calculated that that would cause a huge brouhaha that that would cause a huge brouha ha so they‘ re that that would cause a huge brouhaha so they're going to try and solve two problems at once. one is to find the savings and the other is to find the savings and the other is to try and do something about the fa ct to try and do something about the fact that they are really struggling to connect with lots of people and it isa to connect with lots of people and it is a radical experiment that the bbc is taking, bbc news is taking, it has been tried elsewhere, not a lwa ys it has been tried elsewhere, not always with a huge amount of success

and it is by saying that if you're going to choose a time for a radical experiment, it is not when you have an outgoing digi and a government that seems to have a bit between their teeth and legislating to take away... and whether or not the licence fee should even exist.l away... and whether or not the licence fee should even exist. a lot of people still highly critical of bbc news, coverage of the election, is there an element of reaction to all that? i think so. is there an element of reaction to all that? ithink so. one is there an element of reaction to all that? i think so. one of the things fran unsworth mentioned in her speech... she is still speaking. his feet finished at about tpm but she made clear that impartiality and being trusted has to be central to the bbc and the fact is, it is just harder these days in the era of social media where people want confirmation bias soothed, it is just harder to maintain impartiality and to be trusted and i don't think there is a solution for that. not to be accused of partiality, we'lljust

keep doing our thing, may be tojust harderfor news to keep doing our thing, may be tojust harder for news to be trusted with all you can do is keep producing journalism and i hope that people will pay for it. thank you very much. you're watching afternoon live, these are our headlines: end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise — and be taken back into public hands — on the 1st of march. compulsory quarantine — britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow will be placed in isolation for 14 days — as the corona virus crisis worsens. 999 under pressure, every week — thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance rafa nadal is out of the australian open. england will be withoutjoffre archerfor open. england will be withoutjoffre archer for their t20 series in south africa. he is back in the uk for treatment on his elbow. manchester

united have condemned the attack on the club executive. cheshire police are investigating after a group gathered outside his home chanting that he was going to die. i will be back with more on all of those stories at 2:30pm. britons returning from the chinese city of wuhan, which has been hit by the corona virus, are to be put in quarantine for 14 days. people are likely to be taken to a military base once they arrive home and may be asked to sign a contract before boarding the plane, agreeing to being placed in quarantine. it's thought around 200 british nationals are in wuhan. the virus has caused more than 100 deaths, and spread to at least 16 other countries. it comes as british airways suspended all direct flights to and from mainland china, because of the outbreak. here's richard galpin. the empty streets of wuhan, the city where this epidemic began. and where many people are holed up in their homes, including 200 british nationals who have finally been told

planes are being chartered to get them back to the uk. but it's been chaotic. the british government initially saying when they arrived in the uk they would have to make their own way home and then go into isolation. but now the government is saying they will be quarantined immediately on arrival, possibly in a military base. khan lambert who lives in wuhan has lost his place on tomorrow's flight out because of the mix—up but welcomes the change of policy. i am happy that they have been listening and put that in place. first and foremost, we don't want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes it safer for those then that is what is necessary i think. other countries have been much quicker to get their citizens back home. this group of japanese arriving in tokyo earlier today. and the australian government has been quick to announce that this migrant detention centre on christmas island will now

be used to keep people returning from china in quarantine. they will be transported to christmas island where we will also be putting in place the ausmat team that will be travelling there to provide medical support and that will be supplemented as is necessary by other defence support. australian scientists have also taken the lead in tackling the new coronavirus, replicating it in the lab for the first time. this step makes it possible for a lot of things to move forward that have been delayed and we are just delighted to have been able to fill that gap in the space between 2am saturday morning when the first case was diagnosed in australia and monday when we believe we had the virus growing in culture. here in the uk emergency procedures are now being put into place, staff in protective clothing treating

a patient in birmingham yesterday who had been in wuhan and had virus—like symptoms. but experts are calling for calm. i suspect when the full analysis is done, those who probably would have died anyway, these tend to be people who are very seriously ill to start with or compromised. but the virus is continuing to spread across china and other countries and so far there is no sign of it weakening. richard galpin, bbc news. our beijing correspondent stephen mcdonnell has quarantined himself in his home. we can talk to him now. there you are with your cat. have you had to do this, what is going on? the authorities have said that anybody who was in the province and travelling to another city should not go to their normal workplace and should stay at home for two weeks and so since we are in the province where this coronavirus emergency

started, i'm staying in my place for two weeks. i'm sure my bbc collea g u es two weeks. i'm sure my bbc colleagues here don't want to catch this virus in case i am carrying it they are saying that it could take, from the first point of contact, it could take two weeks. obviously, people may not know they are sick if they don't have any symptoms and they don't have any symptoms and they are travelling around with this virus and potentially infecting others and that is why i am here, reporting from home. how does this work? what about things you will need? are you going to be able to go out to the shops? you are facing the same problem as presumably millions of others are having to face now. yes, well luckily it is a delivery economy here so it is pretty easy to get food and anything dropped off in china. the delivery people are just plonking it outside the door. more

concerning is that some places people from we are actually being disconnected against. that is even fitted online of people nailing the door closed to stop someone from wuhan leaving their flat. this is an indication ofjust how worried people have become and if we compare it to sars in 2002, there are so many more people, already more people infected by this virus than they were in sars which took seven months. however, whilst it seems to be more infectious, this virus doesn't seem to be as deadly, at least not yet because we are a little over 100 deaths, it would ta ke little over 100 deaths, it would take quite a bit of an increase to go past the 700 who died from sars in 2002 and the fact that the authorities have thrown huge resources into trying to control this entire province hubei, the size

of italy, with the population of italy, all locked down, given these measures many think that whilst they are measures many think that whilst they a re pretty measures many think that whilst they are pretty drastic it will enable the authorities to get on top of the situation and control it within china and especially within central china. one of the more remarkable aspects in terms of reaction to this is the fact that china can say on a monday we need more hospitals and within three weeks they are not only being thought of they are being built. yes, i mean those digging machines, throwing together these quarantine centres, several of them being built within ten days. they're not going to be the fanciest of buildings but they will be up and in place. the first one with 1000 beds and then the second one with even more than that, they are talking between one and 2000 beds and that is because, really they need to be able to put these people somewhere

and it is a time of, well, as i say drastic measures. that is why a lot of resources is going into building these extra facilities so you can how's people there. the problem again would be that some that are sick, maybe they have a fever or something like that, they go to the doctor and if they are then thrown in with others who have the virus, have this coronavirus, they might get it anyway. we spoke to one patient who said exactly that that is of concern. i think, nevertheless, there seems to be no other way to handle this and the world health organization isn't criticising china for taking these major steps to try and prevent the virus from spreading even more. steve, i hope you have lots of good books. we will be talking to you regularly i'm sure but for now, thank you.

let's talk now to ben whitter whose partner is living in shanghai. nice to see you, and you can't see her, she can't see you. how are you in touch? what is she telling you? like most people, we are on we chat so we can get information on what they're going through currently so five minutes before going on here they were talking about the response by the chinese government and what the chinese people are doing to fund raise for those affected in wuhan. presumably you told her she you were going on television, what did she say? she must be worried, you must be worried? is interesting, i've been to a period where it had families in the bushfires and now people in the coronavirus outbreak

and it is a regular communication that keeps it, we are ok. she is effectively waiting to see how bad things get but the whole country would appear, is now almost in lockdown. yes, so the chinese new year holiday period has been extended in most places now, including universities and public civil bodies so i think the response from the government has been really strong. i think the feedback i'm getting certainly from the people i know, it has been on point in terms of the hospital is being built and action being taken to calm the situation and that is very positive. a negative though, a lack of face masks. yes, that is the big feedback i'm getting in terms of china as the workshop of the world these days but the supply of facemasks and high quality facemasks is quite low so they are having to look and source them from outside of china's borders to deal with the demand in various

cities across the country. how long does this go on, that is the question everyone is going to ask? that is the big question and i don't think anyone knows. if we had this in the uk or the us or wherever it may be, we would all be having the same questions and i think that is why i would like to see the support of the chinese people and government in terms of, it is a huge thing to deal with and to deal with it effectively is going to need an approach to it. but things are ok? things are ok, i was going to go out there to promote my book but we had to cancel at the last minute. we look at the response from chinese organisations to support employees and make sure they are getting to work safely or taking extended periods of leave at which i think is the right response right now. ben, glad that everything is ok. do send our regards. will do. changes to the rules around surrogacy could see advertisements

on facebook and instagram for the first time urging young women to become surrogate mothers. currently surrogacy is legal in the uk but only if it's not for profit, although expenses can be paid. but the government asked the law commission to review the issue, amid concern about the commercialisation of women's reproductive function. under the commission's new proposals, a blanket ban on advertising could be lifted. the stars came out for the national television awards in london last night with mrs brown's boys beating fleabag to the comedy prize, whilejesy nelson, peaky blinders and sir michael palin also collected awards. some familiar winners were back on stage — ant and dec were crowned best presenters for the 19th year in a row, as voted by audiences around the uk. time for a look at the weather. here's susan powell.

that is a grey picture. —— grey picture. this was ambleside and cumbria. beautiful shots yesterday. we had frost yesterday and some grey images of snow. here is argyll and bute yesterday. it was coming down heavily in the highlands yesterday and was destructive and we have images from motherwell. this is probably as exciting as the wintry weather is going to get for us in the next few days because it all goes a little bit meh again. a does the temperature map for the uk and europe. we started off white and through the next few days, we will

bronze up. look at spain later on this week and parts of southern europe. there was snow into the pyrenees and andorra. six or 10 celsius above average for parts which could go into andorra and the pyrenees as well. not a problem if you get milder weather and sunshine but some of the ski resorts could be quite dangerous. it could also mean problems with flooding in some areas and so it goes to show you just how mad and topsy—turvy the weather is across parts of europe never main parts of the uk where it is snowing one day and today we are into milder, grey weather. it is a bit

meh unfortunately. if we track the air mass, we are on top of what is coming into spain so mild to the south and then it flips and flops, we get warm air across as for the course of today and friday and then something a little bit cooler digs down into the north as we go through the weekend but no proper cold getting locked in in the foreseeable few and that's probably the most telling thing and even further afield across europe, that's the case as well so looking very mild so far this winter. here is the meh i was talking about, lots of cloud into the uk at the moment, rain courtesy of a warm weather front, driving into scotland, but look at the temperatures. this is as high as we got yesterday daytime and these are overnight lows, mild first thing on thursday, misty conditions to the south, moisture in the area through thursday. further north, still wet and windy for the far north of scotland. elsewhere, quite a bit of

cloud around, overcast skies but the temperatures for the time of year will be quite exceptional, in some spots 13, 14 celsius. we got that southwesterly wind to thank for that. it could be gusty at times, particularly across the northwest of scotla nd particularly across the northwest of scotland and the mild air is in no hurry to leave so for friday, another frontal system coming in from the atlantic but the cold air behind this weather front doesn't really make its way in so i think rainfor really make its way in so i think rain for most of us at some stage on friday, some quite heavy and persistent first thing in the north and west, turning more showery as that system drifts south—eastwards through the afternoon but the temperatures, even with wetter and windier conditions are still sitting in the low teens. as we saw earlier, for the weekend, it looks like things will become fresher to the north of the uk but there is still some pretty wet weather to come in the next few days so from winter back into a wet is the story for the next few days.

this is bbc news. our latest headlines: end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march as the coronavirus worsens in china, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow will be placed in compulsory quarantine for 14 days. road blocks and ghost towns: the virus has caused more than 130 deaths in china and has

now spread to at least 16 other countries. restructuring for bbc news — 450 job loses are announced to help save 40 million. sport now on afternoon live with chetan and you can tell us about a major shock at the australian open. cash —— a shockerfor cash —— a shocker for mad cash —— a shockerfor nad i'll who has gone out of the tournament —— nadal. he has been beaten in the quarterfinals by dominic who has beaten two french open finals but this time, managing to get the job done and what was a four set thriller that went late into the night in melbourne. our reporter john watson was watching. we have witnessed a huge upset here on day ten. rafa nadal, world number one, knocked out by the fifth seed,

dominic thiem, it came over for sets, a topsy—turvy match. nadal hit back to take the third set. thiem had those three match points, taking it on the third in that fourth set, tie—break. it means it is the earliest exit of rafa nadal since he lost at this stage in the tenant back in 2018. dominic thiem marches on into the semifinals where he will face alexander zverev, after stan wawrinka today. dominic thiem, it came over for sets, a topsy—turvy match. nadal hit back to take the third set. thiem had those three match points, taking it on the third in that fourth set, tie—break. it means it is the earliest exit of rafa nadal since he lost at this stage in the tenant back in 2018. dominic thiem marches on into the semifinals where he will face alexander zverev, after stan wawrinka today. after that victory, promised to donate the winners check to the bushfire relief effort if he goes on to win the tournament this year. in the women's semifinal, that is all complete. we saw simona halep progress

to the last four, she will play garbine muguruza who came through in straight sets against anastacia pavlyuchenkova. we will see ash barty, world number one and big australian hope in action against sofia kenin, muguruza and halep will be in action as well. we will also see roger federer up against the defending champion, novak djokovic. the big talking point today, the exit of rafa nadal here at melbourne. john watson in melbourne and as he says the big games keep coming, we've got federer against djokovic to look forward to tomorrow. what is the latest news on ed woodward? there is an escalation. cheshire police were called to say they were called to deal with damage

at the property and chance that woodward was going to die. he and his family were not there at the time. police say they will be working to identify those involved. the club said there is no excuse for the behaviour and anyone found to have committed an offence would be banned for life. woodward has been the target of growing support discontent at united in recent yea rs. discontent at united in recent years. they are 53 points behind leaders liverpool. many fans are blaming woodward and calling for him to leave. england fast bowlerjofra archer's been ruled out of the three—match twenty20 series against south africa next month because of an elbow injury. the 24—year—old's returned to england after the 3—1 test series win in which he played the first match but missed the next three. he'll be replaced by saqib mahmood. the first odi is on friday. rugby league player keegan hirst has been speaking to us about israel folau's return to the game. folau was sacked last year by australian rugby union,

for making homophobic comments on social media, but he's now signed for the french super league club catalans dragons. hirst, the first openly guy british rugby league player, says he's deeply disappointed: the line is crossed when people use religious beliefs or political ideologies or whatever to justify any kind of prejudice and the thing that's disappointing about it is if what he had said had been about race or another religion, then this wouldn't even be being discussed, but it seems like homophobia is a lesser prejudice and all prejudice should be treated equally as intolerable. that's all the sport for now. let's get more reaction to that announcement that the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. the service, which is run by arriva, has been accused of allowing

unacceptable delays across its network. david sidebottom, is director at the independent watchdog, transport focus. is this the inevitable conclusion? i think it was, i think passengers had lost trust and once that happens, change had to happen and it's about restoring a reliable railway across the north for passengers. change doesn't necessarily mean things will get better. no, it's been refreshing to see the secretary of state and other senior politicians recognising the fact that this won't be fixed overnight. there is no silver bullet for this. if it had been easy it would have been fixed years ago. it's going to take time and investment and a committed plan. passengers need to see it. it will be delivered on the ground for them in terms of more reliable services. when history is written of this particular episode, where did it go wrong? i think it's about over commitment, arriva bid on a very strong case for renewing the railway in the north, nutrients, some of

those coming through now, the department for transport and government accepted that bid but between them they haven't delivered thejoined up between them they haven't delivered the joined up plan between them they haven't delivered thejoined up plan together, that's what needs to happen now, ijoined a plan to deliver better services for passengers. “— plan to deliver better services for passengers. —— a joint up plan. plan to deliver better services for passengers. -- ajoint up plan. will public ownership mean significant change quickly? it won't, there will bea change quickly? it won't, there will be a new name over the door from the 1st of march apart perhaps a different uniform at, this will take a lot of hard work to fix. it will ta ke a lot of hard work to fix. it will take a lot of hard decisions about timetables and services to make them more reliable, particularly through the code of manchester, and that's where the investment is needed, making sure the promises about revolutionising the railway in the north are now seen are delivered. what does this say about the whole franchise system ? what does this say about the whole franchise system? it's a busted flush, this government has recognised we will see the williams

review published before talking about a centralised railway. we are waiting to see the outcome but passengers want to see a new really delivered and it's about delivering that for passengers. if someone had said you years ago a conservative government would be renationalising the railway, what would you have said? i probably wouldn't have believed it but i think we have listened to the devolved powers like the metro mayor and a unified voice is putting this right. it'sjust the metro mayor and a unified voice is putting this right. it's just not worked at northern and it's time for a change. last night saw the announcement of the 2019 costa book of the year. the £30,000 prize was awarded to the former war correspondent, jack fairweather for his biography, the volunteer — an account of the remarkable life

of an all—but—forgotten polish war hero. i'm pleased to say jackjoins me now. congratulations. thank you so much. nobody knew about this story, how did you find out? it's remarkable, in september 1940 a polish resista nce in september 1940 a polish resistance fighter accepted an almost unthinkable mission to get himself arrested and sent to auschwitz and tell the world about what was happening in the camp. it floored me when i heard about that story, i had been a war reporter in iraq and afghanistan and was a bit jaded by my experiences covering those wars then i heard about this man, i heard about his story. the idea that in that dark place where the worst acts of evil took place, there could be someone fighting back floored me. he goes into auschwitz not only to let the outside world

know the horrors of what's going on, he actually formed something of a resista nce he actually formed something of a resistance within it. it's incredible, for 2.5 years he was in the camp, not just incredible, for 2.5 years he was in the camp, notjust surviving but building upa the camp, notjust surviving but building up a resistance cell that was almost 1000 men by 1942, sabotaging facilities, assassinating ss officers and getting the word out about what was happening in auschwitz. how did you find out about the story? history has been hidden deliberately because at the end of world war ii, he fought on against the communist takeover of poland, he was captured, executed and all trace of his heroics in auschwitz were hidden away for 50 yea rs auschwitz were hidden away for 50 years and that's why a lot of your viewers won't have heard of his story, is the one the communists didn't want us to hear. it's remarkable, giving the timing, the week of the 75th anniversary of the

liberation of the camp. have you had reaction? are there any survivors who remember what he did?” reaction? are there any survivors who remember what he did? i wanted to meet those who had known him, in some cases fought with him. i got to meet an 86—year—old man who had stolen a commanders car from auschwitz to drive out of the camp, carrying the first news of what was happening in auschwitz to europe's jews and every time there is some act of evil by the nazis in the camp, there are pilecki and his men risking their lives to tell the world. the chairman of the judges said it reads like a thriller. it's got to be a film, hasn't it?” said it reads like a thriller. it's got to be a film, hasn't it? i would love that. of course you have. who would play him? was he a dashing

figure? he was dashing, but he was a man, a lot of people i spoke to knew him, which really touched me, and i think it's something we can all learn from today, he had this ability to trust that was the secret in many ways of how he did what he did in auschwitz, a place where the nazis were trying to dehumanise people, he had the strength to reach out and trust people. there are so many unmentionable parts but when the initial messages started getting out about what was going on, a lot of the allies just didn't believe it. right, and that's a story i felt i had to tell. it was part of what i wa nted i had to tell. it was part of what i wanted to show with pilecki's story. he died believing he had failed in his mission. no action was taken against the camp. that's what he and his men were saying from weeks of arriving in the camp, smuggling out m essa g es arriving in the camp, smuggling out messages saying, please, for the

love of god, bomb this camp. 1 million of the victims were still alive at that point and pilecki believed he had failed because no action was taken and what i showed with this book is that he succeeded. his reports, against all odds, found their way to london, to the top of their way to london, to the top of the british government. they were reading his words, composed in the camp. did he have a family, did they find out, how did he die? they didn'tand find out, how did he die? they didn't and it's really one of the loveliest moments of last night that pilecki's son, 88—year—old andre, called me up and said, thank you for sharing my dad's story. he spent most of his adult life being told that pilecki was the enemy of the state, a traitor, and it's only in

the ‘90s that his story emerged in poland and it's the greatest honour of my writing career to get to tell this man's story for a wider audience. your very emotional about this and i completely understand. many congratulations. what does winning this prize mean? it'sjust a chance to tell his story. i'm convinced he's one of the greatest heroes of world war ii and i know that people who read the book will be inspired as i will be, following his footsteps. thank you. in a moment, the latest business news. first a look at the headlines on afternoon live. end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march as the coronavirus worsens in china, britons being evacuated from wuhan

from tomorrow will be placed in compulsory quarantine for 14 days. 999 under pressure — every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. here's your business headlines on afternoon live. as we've been hearing, british airways is suspending all direct flights to and from mainland china. other multinational chains such as starbucks, mcdonalds and toyota

have also announced in the past 24 hours that they are pulling back their operations within china. ovo energy is to pay £8.9 million for overcharging customers after more than 500,000 received energy bills that were inaccurate. uk house prices rose at their fastest annual rate for 14 months, with an increase of1.9% injanuary. that's according to the nationwide. some credit a release of pent—up demand following the clear general election result last year. the bad news continues for boeing? yup, the american plane—maker has reported its first annual loss in more than two decades as the 737 max crisis continues to hit the firm.

boeing was forced to ground the aircraft, which had been its best seller, in march last year after two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. now it has said that it expects the bill for the grounding to surpass $18 billion, £13.8. that has hurt the firm's finances, pushing it to a total $636 million loss for 2019. and we'll be hearing from president trump. that's right, president trump is about to sign a new north american free trade deal at a ceremony in washington. mr trump says the new deal which replaces the north american free trade agreement

ends the outsourcing of americanjob. president donald trump will sign the new north american trade agreement at an outdoor ceremony at the white house to be attended by about 400 guests but not the key democrats who helped secure congressionalpassage of the deal. michelle fleury is at the white house in washington. is going to be at the ceremony if none of the democrats are invited? —— who is. none of the democrats are invited? -- who is. the republicans from the gop and industry representatives. you can expect to see minnesota hog farmers among the beneficiaries from this trade deal. in part, not so much because it makes a huge change to the business but removes the uncertainty that has been hanging over and that's something we keep hearing again and again when we had about these trade deals. if you think back a couple of weeks ago, we we re think back a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about a phase one trade deal between china and the united

states. in the room or some of the biggest names for the world of finance. i suspect you will see less of those types and more american worker representatives because this was a trade deal, after all, that had been to gamma criticise. nafta criticised for resulting in the outsourcing of american jobs. criticised for resulting in the outsourcing of americanjobs. donald trump cited as one of his priorities, to try to get this deal renegotiated in a way that would better serve the unions and workers here in america. does it do what he has pledged? here in america. does it do what he has pledged ? does here in america. does it do what he has pledged? does this new agreement that he has negotiated stop the outsourcing of american jobs, jobs being sent overseas? the trade representative apparently deliberately assumed what he called special interest groups very much focused on trying to achieve that goal and one of the key thing is this trade agreement contained is a

better enforcement mechanisms for making sure that mexico does not undercut us labour, so this could lead to a flurry of cases between the two sides, but this is the idea, that it will help prevent this from happening going forward. at this point, we are waiting for the signing here today by the president but canada still has to ratify it and that still isn't expected to be without challenges but the biggest difficulty is tensions between mexico and the us overfair difficulty is tensions between mexico and the us over fair trade issues in both of those countries have signed the deal. of course, all of this is happening in the midst of ongoing impeachment hearings. will this move and shift the spotlight from president trump? it's been an interesting counter programme, since the senate trial started in these

impeachment proceedings, you've seen donald trump make a point so this week we got the signing of this trade deal and yesterday there was the announcement. last week he was in davos touting his economic record and the deal between the united states and china are being signed right here. there has been a real effort by those in the administration to portray the president is going of the country, being president —like, statesman—like, and carrying out his promise to the people. it remains to be seen how much sway that has in the polls, but clearly there is a definite counter programming going on at the moment. michelle, many thanks, keep us updated as to all those events happening outside the white house, the signing of the new north american trade deal.

the ftse100 has fallen back into positive territory. we have been seeing a rally over the week because the ftse100, like the 250, which comprises mostly uk companies, have declined quite considerably over fears of the coronavirus and again it has just stepped back a little bit, so keep an eye on it. now it's time for a look at the weather. we can cross the newsroom to susan. things are on the up in terms of the weather across the uk. it was a frosty start with snow piling on across the uk, still some sunshine in the south but this band of cloud isa in the south but this band of cloud is a one front and it is bringing rain but also assuring in milder air to the south of it so overnight tonight, temperatures will be similarto tonight, temperatures will be similar to yesterday afternoon. rain migrating its way north across scotland, lingering in the

northwest, elsewhere quite a lot of cloud, misty and murky, especially in the south first thing on thursday, even some drizzle around. thursday, even some drizzle around. thursday, quite a breezy if not windy day, especially across the northwest of scotland where the wind will get quite gusty. the wind could help to break up the cloud a little bit in sheltered, eastern spots but generally most of us with fairly overcast skies, that southwesterly wind really bringing in that area from a long way south in the atlantic. we are looking at temperatures up to 14 celsius in london. that's a whopping 67 celsius on temperatures we saw earlier on this week. —— six or seven.

hello, you're watching afternoon live, i'm simon mccoy. today at 3: end of the line, troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. and we are going to come forward with a white paper called the williams review which will put this into a much more stable and long—term state but for today, i think at least northern passengers and staff know that the government is taking action. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they'll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. we don't want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes it safer for those then that is what is necessary. road blocks and ghost towns, the virus has caused more than 130 deaths in china and has now spread to at least

16 other countries. 999 under pressure. every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. coming up on afternoon live, all the sport: the world number one and 19 time grand slam champion rafa nadal is knocked out in the quarter finals of the australian open by dominic thiem. thanks. and susan powell has the weather. we continue to chase the ups and downs of the uk's weather, things turning milder now for the rest of this week. could be getting unseasonably warm across some parts of europe, we will try to have a look around there for you as well in the next half an hour. also coming up — the european parliament is set to reaffirm the uk's departure from the european union this afternoon. before that we'll be taking your questions on immigration once the change takes place in your questions answered at 3.30.

hello everyone, this is afternoon live. the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. northern, is to lose its franchise the service has been accused of allowing unacceptable delays across its network. northern connects towns and cities like preston and blackburn in the west — to places like york and hull in the east — via the big cities of manchester and leeds. in a statementjust released, northern's owner arriva, has apologised to passengers, but said "largely because of externalfactors, the franchise plan had become undeliverable". here's what the transport secretary grant shapps had to say. i've been very concerned about northern since i became transport secretary and so i immediately put steps in place to look at the alternatives and issued formal notices and today what has happened

is essentially the northern franchise has hit the buffer. they are to be stripped of that franchise and instead it will go to what is called the office of last resort which means we will take over running this franchise and start to bring in improvements. it is a massive network, 108 million passengers a year and 500 stations so it is really large so improvements will take some time but there are things we will do straightaway such as deep clean the trains to start with and make sure there is a proper cleaning schedule in place. improve for example those sunday services where the trains just haven't been running, immediately get things like that back into place as quickly as possible. i have actually asked what is called the office of last resort, those are the people who are now run that for me, to come up with a 100 day plan so that within at 100 days they are both making improvements and recommending the way forward to relieve some of this condition. for example, 30 platforms with extensions to avoid overcrowding and

many other steps to be introduced such as getting more trains into next year. our corrrespondent danny savage has more on the problems which led to this decision. early morning at chapeltown station in sheffield. lots of commuters use this stop. the next service is half an hour behind this one, so everyone has to squeeze on. this is normal, and people are fed up with northern, who operate these services. today this is actually fairly roomy, but usually, you know, i either don't get on because it's too busy, and i've had to wait for the next train. and sometimes even the train after that. at one point we had a game with the northern rail twitter account which was how many people can we fit into your toilet. which is eight, if you want to know! eight people can fit in the toilet. because that is the only space that was left on the train? yes. and we left people at the platform. overcrowding, cancellations, and delays are an everyday occurrence.

but some passengers aren't sure what difference northern losing its franchise will make. well, it's hard to say because there's the whole problem in terms of infrastructure. would the new franchise have enough trains, have enough capacity on there? would itjust be like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic? we've got conductors on the train who get verbal abuse from customers as well, which i've seen in the past, which is not fair on them. they're here to do theirjob, it's not their fault the capacity is not enough. just over a year ago i travelled to work with vanessa bremner. she is another commuter on northern. her route is doncaster to leeds. at least, it was. because now, she's given up and uses the car. i know numerous people who have had to stop taking the train and have started driving. you know, leeds city council is talking about congestion charges. we are all focused on climate change and the environment. they are all being forced into their vehicles. those that are still using the trains, even this morning at least five members of my team came in late because of delays on the trains. those campaigning for extra investment in the north say extra

platforms are needed in leeds and manchester to increase capacity. there is for investment in the north say extra platforms are needed in leeds and manchester to increase capacity. stripping northern of its franchise is not a game changer. the challenges and issues on northern are not really related to the company who runs the franchise, they are to do with the failure to build infrastructure here in west yorkshire and across the pennines in manchester. few will mourn the end of northern's tenure. the passengers are not naive, they know a change in operator will not necessarily fix the problem. they are looking to the government for a proper solution in northern england. danny savage, bbc news. britons returning from the chinese city of wuhan, which has been hit by the corona virus, are to be put in quarantine for 14 days. people are likely to be taken to a military base once they arrive home and may be asked to sign a contract before boarding the plane, agreeing to being placed in quarantine. it's thought around 200 british nationals are in wuhan. the virus has caused more than 100 deaths,

and spread to at least 16 other countries. it comes as british airways suspended all direct flights to and from mainland china, because of the outbreak. here's richard galpin. the empty streets of wuhan, the city where this epidemic began. and where many people are holed up in their homes, including 200 british nationals who have finally been told planes are being chartered to get them back to the uk. but it's been chaotic. the british government initially saying when they arrived in the uk they would have to make their own way home and then go into isolation. but now the government is saying they will be quarantined immediately on arrival, possibly in a military base. khan lambert who lives in wuhan has lost his place on tomorrow's flight out because of the mix—up but welcomes the change of policy. i am happy that they have been listening and put that in place. first and foremost, we don't want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes

it safer for those then that is what is necessary i think. other countries have been much quicker to get their citizens back home. this group of japanese arriving in tokyo earlier today. and the australian government has been quick to announce that this migrant detention centre on christmas island will now be used to keep people returning from china in quarantine. they will be transported to christmas island where we will also be putting in place the ausmat team that will be travelling there to provide medical support and that will be supplemented as is necessary by other defence support. australian scientists have also taken the lead in tackling the new coronavirus, replicating it in the lab for the first time. this step makes it possible for a lot of things to move forward that have been delayed and we are just delighted to have been able to fill that gap in the space between 2am

saturday morning when the first case was diagnosed in australia and monday when we believe we had the virus growing in culture. here in the uk emergency procedures are now being put into place, staff in protective clothing treating a patient in birmingham yesterday who had been in wuhan and had virus—like symptoms. but experts are calling for calm. i suspect when the full analysis is done, those who probably would have died anyway, these tend to be people who are very seriously ill to start with or compromised. but the virus is continuing to spread across china and other countries and so far there is no sign of it weakening. richard galpin, bbc news. the health secretary will be heading a cobra meeting and at that for 30

pm. that is just coming a cobra meeting and at that for 30 pm. that isjust coming in a cobra meeting and at that for 30 pm. that is just coming in from downing street. our beijing correspondent stephen mcdonnell has quarantined himself in his home — and he spoke to me earlier. the authorities have said that anyone who was in hubei province and travelling to another city should not go to their normal workplace, should stay—at—home for two weeks and since we are in a hubei, this is the province where the coronavirus emergency started, i am staying in my place for two weeks. i'm sure my bbc colleagues here in the bureau don't want to catch this virus in case i am carrying it. they are saying that it could take from the first point of contact to actually getting sick, it could take two weeks was up i the sea, people may not know they are sick, they don't have any symptoms and they are travelling with this virus and potentially infecting others so that

is why i am here, reporting from home. let's talk now to professor sian griffiths. she co—chaired the hong kong government's inquiry into the 2002 to 2003 sars outbreak and is emeritus professor at the chinese university of hong kong. first of all, the compulsory quarantine, 14 days, is that the right thing to do? absolutely. you don't want to bring people back from where you know there is a lot of infection and let them go into the community, it is much more sensible to keep them under close observation in case they develop symptoms of the disease, they can get treated very quickly but most of all they won't spread to other people. 14 days, that's the optimum time, is it? spread to other people. 14 days, that's the optimum time, is mm is based on the science and the science at the moment tells us it is about 14 days, the incubation period, so that is the guidelines that have been adopted. the professor, when we are looking at a city of 11 million people and something that has killed at the

moment 100, some may say, this seems an overreaction. i don't think so because we have an organism we don't understand and if we don't understand and if we don't understand how an organism is going to behave it could become worse, it could become more acute, they could be more deaths and more illness so it is very much the precautionary principle and we call it a proportionate response, need to try and contain the virus, understand it scientifically and clinically and make sure that it doesn't spread, particularly to vulnerable people. more cases than the sars outbreak but fewer deaths, what have we learnt from that? implies that it is less fatal, fatalities are lower but you have to always be very careful because numbers of deaths of depending on how many people come forward so they could be more people in the community who have had the disease and got better and so you don't actually know and the same is true of sars but it don't forget in

sars, we didn't totally know what the organism was to start with but we know that this organism is very similar, it is the coronavirus, it hasjumped similar, it is the coronavirus, it has jumped from animals into similar, it is the coronavirus, it hasjumped from animals into man and then spread human to human and whenever you have anything like that you do have to be quite cautious, you do have to be quite cautious, you can't say, it is less important than because you don't know what is going to happen i think it is that doubt that makes us all take more precautions than we might otherwise. how was the sars outbreak eventually dealt with? it was dealt with in a similar way to this. there were individuals who were given information about avoiding mass gatherings and close contact with lots of other people, people were advised to not go queueing to their gp or hospital because that's just risks the spread and to seek help, the hospitals isolated cases so that it didn't spread within the hospital

and we monitored closely the numbers and we monitored closely the numbers andi and we monitored closely the numbers and i think they are very important, you need to understand how many people are affected, how fast the infection is growing and then you look at the epidemic curve and what you are hoping for is that it gets to the top and begins to turn back down again and that is where we are at the moment. the problem with anything respiratory is that it affects the vulnerable, the elderly, the young and there will be parents... are you surprised that we haven't seen a confirmed case here? i think there have been very good measures here taken in the uk to monitor people coming in from china but we haven't yet seen the spread so you could say, you might have expected it given the numbers... you think is here already? know i don't think is here already? know i don't think it's here already, i think it isa think it's here already, i think it is a numbers game. 11 million people in wuhan, there certainly aren't 11 million cases there and the spread across the world has been very much

from contact with people in wuhan so i think the people who have been contacted from those micro, we just don't happen to have had any cases here, it is likely that we will get some cases that we are very well—prepared. some cases that we are very well-prepared. i listen to you, the voice of reason, calming, are you surprised that we seeing levels of panic that perhaps we saw with sars. we definitely saw levels of panic with sars because we saw people at the border rushing for white vinegar because that is to clean the surfaces, rushing for masks which again in this country we aren't clear that they are that effective but other countries believe they are so you do see a rush on the supplies, food, there is absolute in no need for that in the uk at the current time. there are no confirmed cases and people who think they might have it are going in and being tested so i feel relatively calm, as the chief medical officer said, it

isa the chief medical officer said, it is a low risk, wejust the chief medical officer said, it is a low risk, we just need to behave sensibly and if you do come into co nta ct behave sensibly and if you do come into contact with someone who has been to wuhan and you do then get symptoms of flu, it is up to you to go and make sure that you call 111 and you get assessed and quite a few people have been assessed and have been negative for the virus and let's hope it stays that way but in case it doesn't i think the measures are perfectly sensible and in proportion to the reaction that i would expect. thank you very much for coming in. every week thousands of seriously ill patients in england and wales are waiting more than an hour for an ambulance to reach them, a bbc investigation has found. people suffering medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes are not meant to wait more than 18 minutes, and experts warn the delays are a threat to patients' lives. nhs bosses have blamed rising demand, and ambulances being delayed at a&e. here's our health correspondent, nick triggle.

derrin cozart was at his home in northumberland on his own when he collapsed. he came to and rang 999. over an hour later, an ambulance arrived. he was dead. he had suffered a gastric haemorrhage, causing massive internal bleeding. the case is now being investigated by the north east ambulance service. his partner, mark mitchell, has been wondering whether the delays cost him his life. nobody will ever know whether an ambulance arriving eight minutes or 18 or 38 minutes later, derrin would have still have been alive. but the fact we don't know the answer to that doesn't mean there shouldn't be accountability somewhere to say, when we don't meet these targets, people die. the bbc has been investigating long waits for emergency ambulance responses like this and has found they have been quite common since the start of 2018. the highest priority calls are split into two categories by the nhs. ambulance emergency,

is the patient breathing? immediately life—threatening cases are basically situations where a patient is not breathing, where their heart has stopped or where they are bleeding uncontrollably. long waits are very unusual for this small group of patients known as "category one" by the nhs. in england, only one in 270 take longer than 30 minutes to reach, but for patients in the next most serious category of calls, long waits are much more common. one in 16 take longer than an hour to reach, and this can include patients having strokes, heart attacks and fits. that works out at over 4,000 waits of over more than one hour every week in england, far worse than the target response time of 18 minutes on average. significant problems are also being reported in wales, where each week, more than 1,000 calls take longer than an hour, although there are some differences in how they categorise patients there. nhs bosses blamed rising demand and delays handing

over patients at a&e. it is certainly not easy to reach everyone as quickly as we would all like, but let's be very clear, all of our staff are working flat out to keep everybody, first and foremost, to keep all of our patients and everybody as safe as possible. many ambulance services said they had increased staffing, only to find the extra resource largely swallowed up by delays at a&e. nick triggle, bbc news. you're watching afternoon live, these are our headlines: end of the line, troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise, and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus — britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they'll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. 999 under pressure. every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance.

world number one rafael nadal is out of the australian open. beaten in the quarterfinals by dominic thiem infour the quarterfinals by dominic thiem in four sets. england will be withoutjoffre archer for their t20 series in south africa because of his elbow injury. and manchester united have condemned the attack on the home of their executive. cheshire police are investigating after a group gathered outside his home chanting that he was going to die. i will be back with more of all of those stories at 3:30pm. more now on the news that the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. responding to the government's decision, the managing director of arriva, which owns northern, chris burchill has said....

let's get more now on the decision to nationalise the northern rail franchise. joining us now is andy mcdonald who is the shadow transport secretary. it is the right decision, isn't it? most certainly. it vindicates what i have been saying for many years now and many of my colleagues that this northern service had fallen into disrepute and it ought to have been brought back into public ownership soiam brought back into public ownership so i am pleased that the step has been taken and ijust so i am pleased that the step has been taken and i just would encourage a grant shapps, now that he seems to have accepted nationalisation to continue with it and make sure that all of those franchises that are failing come back within public ownership at the earliest possible opportunity. we don't need the german state operator to work for us. there is no magic

bullet for us, nationalisation in itself is not going to solve this problem? it is going to need money, because staff and passenger conditions are awful. there's investment needed throughout the railway and i think getting an operator the way, it makes a of what is necessary much more visible and now can be put into place if the right plan is actually produced. i look to people like the head of the operator of last resort to come up with those proposals and to secure the backing from the government that the backing from the government that the northern passengers really need because they have had years of misery on these lines and i am glad that there is a potential of that coming to an end now. passengers have lost trust in northern, what makes you think they will have any more trust in politicians running the airways? you should never have

politicians running railways and i have never advocated that but i've said what you should do is bring the track and train together in one arm's—length company, separate from the department for transport and thatis the department for transport and that is what i would have done and i would have also brought about 33% reduction in railfares by migrating monies from other budgets so i don't wa nt monies from other budgets so i don't want politicians to ever run ra i lwa ys want politicians to ever run railways but what i do want is for local areas to have a real say in their services and we look at the north of england, a population of 16 million people or thereabouts and with ridership reducing we want to see that pattern increase and it is important that local people have their say through their respective bodies to deliver the services that they and their communities and their economy need and that has been lacking but i hope that the serious consideration will be given to adopting that sort of approach right throughout the country, notjust filling northern franchise will stop

if it is northern today, who should it be tomorrow? well, there are others. it would be a big disrespect form for me to start listing them but it is well known that there are other franchises in difficulties and i think we will see this repeated is a format over the coming months and yea rs. a format over the coming months and years. what i would say is that i think we will be much better and more honest if we were to say is a better way to run the railway, let's bring it together in one single entity and put an end to this failed, fractured franchise system with the private sector which has been trying to run for so many yea rs, been trying to run for so many years, it has fallen into repair macro disrepair. i'm delighted that grant shapps now seems to be persuaded of that model.

"it's not goodbye, it's au revoir" — that's the sign that greeted british meps above the chamber of the european parliament today, put there by a coalition of socialist parties. the parliament is expected to approve the terms of the uk's departure from the eu later this afternoon. it will mark the last stage of the ratification process, before the uk leaves the eu on friday. let's talk to adam now. where are you? i'm in the european parliament in brussels and they are having one of their official settings here in brussels rather than strasbourg where they usually have them, they occasionally have them here in brussels where all the other eu institutions are based. i'm standing on what is called the passerelle which is the french footbridge. they have just had a service to mark... holocaust memorial day another doing some procedural stuff about what is going to happen in the rest of the session

and then they will get down to this debate about the withdrawal agreement and then in a couple of hours' time there will be a vote approving the brexit deal and we know it will be approved because all at the parliamentary committees that have been involved in brexit have given their approval to the deal in writing in the last few weeks. most meps are in favour of it and there just isn't enough meps who are either opposed to brexit or post of the terms of the deal that could derail the whole thing at this point. so, what we can see now for the rest of the afternoon is a lot of theatre. i think we will get a speech from michel barnier, he has been walking around here talking to any journalist he been walking around here talking to anyjournalist he was beat him. i think this is a big moment of personal triumph for him. then we will hear from people we have got to know through the brexit process like the european parliament brexit coordinator and then we will hear a load of mamas of the european parliament who are staying here who will be sad about seeing the brits go it will probably say that brexit isa go it will probably say that brexit

is a historic mistake that they will regret and then we will save some british meps, some quite tearful about the fact that the time of offices up and that on friday, the uk will be leaving the eu. then after that there will be a small ceremony outside the chamber where some people will say some remarks, then we will get the real theatre, and told the snp group have arranged for a bagpiper to play them out of the building and there are a few other special guests. i just saw miss belgium, the winner of the beauty pageant wandering around, she has been invited by an mep to witness the proceedings and labour meps are all wearing pro—eu football scarves made by one of the labour meps who is packing up his office like the rest of them to leave on friday. adam, more from you later. thank you very much. that is the latest there from brussels. now for a look at the weather. both

you and i know the curse of being a little bit average which is what the uk is at the moment. this starts to bronze up a little bit and look a bit to simon toned, things are bubbly sizzling further south across northern spain and france towards the weekend so there is significant warmth in the rest of europe. we had snow yesterday but are likely to see any of that in the near future but just look at northern spain in the next few days, eight or 9 degrees above average. all of that warm air is getting pulled up all the way across the atlantic and the azores is pushing into spain and france as you saw on that anomaly chart for the dark red areas were. look what happens to the uk, it raises income a little bit of blue, attack of something called briefly to the north of the uk but nothing properly cold setting across northern europe really in the coming days. —— a tuck

of something blue. this banter rain has pushed its way in and it is a warm weather fronts so mother has already flooded in the south of the uk and through this evening and overnight, overnight lows look the same as yesterday's highs, it is a very mild night to come. that itself will be a mile today, a lot of cloud around, misty, murky to the south and by the coast. wet and 20 for the north west of scotland, quite gusty winds actually at times, potentially even some slightly destructive winds here. further south, a notable breathe, it will be quite a gusty wind but nonetheless it is that south—westerly wind direction that is key to assessing temperatures up to 14 degrees in the south—east of england. for the rest of the week, once the warm air is a cross as it is keen to stay put up a cold by the french tried to drift in but nothing especially cold it doesn't really

penetrate that colder air into any web the rest of the uk so temperatures are still rather exceptional. it will break up showery as it drifts south—eastward but again some pretty remarkable temperatures, 13 or 14 degrees in hull. something a little cooler to the north of uk for the weekend but u nfortu nately we deftly the north of uk for the weekend but unfortunately we deftly have a wetter story to contend with as we head through the coming days.

this is bbc news. our latest headlines: end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they'll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. 999 under pressure — every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. restructuring for bbc news — 450 job loses are announced to help save £40 million. sport now on afternoon, live with chetan. you can tell us about a major shock at the australian open. world number one rafael nadal is out of the australian open

after being beaten in the quarter finals by the austrian dominic thiem it was a four—set thriller that went late into the night in melbourne. john watson was watching. we have witnessed a huge upset here on day ten. rafa nadal, world number one, knocked out by the fifth seed, dominic thiem, it came over for sets, a topsy—turvy match. nadal hit back to take the third set. thiem had those three match points, taking it on the third in that fourth set, tie—break. it means it is the earliest exit of rafa nadal since he lost at this stage in the tenant back in 2018. dominic thiem marches on into the semifinals where he will face alexander zverev, after stan wawrinka today. after that victory, promised to donate the winners check to the bushfire relief effort if he goes on to win the tournament this year. —— cheque.

in the women's semifinal, that is all complete. we saw simona halep progress to the last four, she will play garbine muguruza who came through in straight sets against anastacia pavlyuchenkova. all eyes on the women's semifinals. we will see ash barty, world number one and big australian hope in action against sofia kenin. muguruza and halep will be in action as well. we will also see roger federer up against the defending champion, novak djokovic. the big talking point today, though, the exit of rafa nadal here at melbourne. manchester united have strongly condemned an attack on the home of their executive vice—chairman ed woodward. cheshire police confirmed they were called to deal with an incident of "criminal damage" involving a "large group" at the property. they were chanting that woodward was "going to die". he and his family weren't home at the time.

united say anyone committing an offence will be banned for life. united are fifth in the premier league, 33 points behind the leaders liverpool and there's been growing frustration amongst some supporters. england fast bowler jofra archer's been ruled out twenty20 series against south africa next month because of an elbow injury. the 24—year—old returned to england after the 3—1 test series win in which he played the first match but missed the next three. he'll be replaced by saqib mahmood. that's all your sport for now. i'll have more for you in the next hour. as we've been hearing, bbc news is to cut around 450 jobs as part of plans to meet a savings target of 80 million. jobs will go at the world service, 5live and bbc two's newsnight as well as the victoria derbyshire programme. the bbc‘s director of news and current affairs fran unsworthjoins me now. those watching now and using the website, what are they going to notice? what is going to change?

what we're trying to do in order to meet this hefty savings target, we are also trying to change the model of how we produce news because at the moment we have lots and lots of different outlets and programmes who all have the power to commission their own stories, to send their own teams to places, so what we want is to coordinate that much better so that teams will actually cooperate and collaborate with each other so that we don't get lots and lots of different teams are going at different teams are going at different times to do stories so if you're watching an individual outlet on that basis, you might not see that much difference. well, why have different programmes and outlets thanif different programmes and outlets than if they are all going to look the same? because people consume different services and they won't all be the same because we will be leaving numbers of people in the production teams who want to pursue a different angle on a story, the radio four output is a different service than this channel for insta nce service than this channel for instance and we want to preserve a different programme remits and leave enough people in the programme teams

to come up with ideas and think about things but we also want to eliminate some of the unnecessary wastage and commissioning that goes on at the moment and we are producing an awful lot of stories every day and we think that our duty is to keep the public informed, and we think we can do that at the same time as well is taking quite a lot of money out. 450 jobs as a lot of jobs and experience suggests that with fewer people, there is more pressure on those that are left. we are reorganising so we will be making programme teams smaller and we are creating things story teams and the idea is that they will be delivering things which are polished and finished to programme outlets and finished to programme outlets and in that way, we hope that we can't be placing more pressure on individual teams because they are flat out as it is. we just think this is a more efficient way of delivering content to audiences. if

lots and lots of different outlets are all doing the same story on one day, we think we can do it better. how so, what are audiences telling you that makes you think that is where the future is? what we see from the audience research we are doing is that we are really super serving a more limited section of the audience than others so the licence fee, everybody pays into the licence fee, everybody pays into the licence fee, everybody pays into the licence fee and everybody has to get something out of the licence fee. we've got very good reach in news. i think about 80% of the uk public come across bbc news once a week but there is no doubt that audiences too are traditional —— audiences for traditional services, tv and radio, is going down, online audiences are not filling that gap as much as one would like them too and also we see a big drop—off in audiences the age of 35, many of whom are getting news

from digital space, the website, social media, and they have so much morse choice, there are many aggregator apps, like google news and apple news. —— so much more choice. is there an argument to say that these young people will grow older and come to the bbc? in that case we cannot take money off everybody. we have a universal licence fee, everybody pays in and everybody has to get something out so if we are not reaching younger audiences, we have to do more to enable that to happen i don't think it's enough just to say that these audiences will grow into the bbc. when you and i were growing up, we had the bbc habit. our parents were watching the bbc. it was in our bbc mac dna. i don't think it is for

this generation. —— it was in our dna. new management at the bbc have suddenly realised, we are so short of money. if this particular savings plan isn't anything to do with over 75 is. we have to see what the bbc‘s finances are in, we've been asked to deliver a set of savings and this plan delivers them but nothing is forever, we don't know what the finances of the bbc might be in yea rs finances of the bbc might be in years to come. we just got to live with the reality that we find ourselves in then. is the difficulty we all talk about the move to digital change,, nobody we all talk about the move to digital change, , nobody really we all talk about the move to digital change,, nobody really knows the make—up of the business we are in and what is going to be in five yea rs never made in and what is going to be in five years never made ten or 15. absolutely right. it's a very fast moving environment this plan, really, is, how do we keep pace with that? how do we stay fleet of foot? how do we stay adaptable? i think

it's really important for the future of bbc news which i think it's an absolutely vital service for the uk. i think we play a vital role in underpinning democracy and i think it's important we survive and we work hard to make sure we are used by all audiences in the uk. many people may not argue with what you're doing. it's often the way these things are done. there was a lot of upset, as you know, the victoria derbyshire programme has been axed, confirmation of today,, but people found out reading the times on monday. yeah, i'm really sorry about that, it was incredibly u nfortu nate sorry about that, it was incredibly unfortunate and nobody from bbc management leaked that story. well, who else knew? we a very chatty organisation and obviously people have to be brought in. you can't plan something on this scale without talking to quite a lot of people. i think this might have come out through speculation rather than anybody being told anything, to be honest. it was very well informed

speculation! i have apologised to the team about the way they heard this, it was absolutely not ideal. 450 job losses, fewer people in the organisation, does that mean fewer managers? yes. the 450 jobs are coming out across the board. if we change the model, we are going to be working over the next two months to see exactly which jobs and which programmes and outlets and areas of the bbc, that will include everybody across the board, managers, operations, journalists, everybody. so you got a target of 450 jobs but do not entirely sure where they are all going to go yet? not entirely, we wa nt all going to go yet? not entirely, we want to test what we're doing, we wa nt to we want to test what we're doing, we want to trial what we are doing, we wa nt to want to trial what we are doing, we want to involve the staff and we got ideas about it but we really think it's important that if we're going to make it work and we're going to continue to serve audiences properly, there might need to be some finessing around it and we want everybody‘s in doing that. ——

everybody‘s in doing that. —— everybody‘s involvement. changes to the rules around surrogacy could see advertisements on facebook and instagram for the first time urging young women to become surrogate mothers. currently surrogacy is legal in the uk but only if it's not for profit, although expenses can be paid. but the government asked the law commission to review the issue, amid concern about the commercialisation of women's reproductive function. under the commission's new proposals, a blanket ban on advertising could be lifted. jim reed reports. caroline and ian had been trying for a baby for years, but there were health problems and a series of miscarriages. we had a black cloud over us, basically. but we were so determined that we wanted to have children, that you just keep going. ivf didn't work. so theyjoined surrogacy uk, a not—for—profit group, and met another couple who already had their own children. i remember going home to my mum and dad... sorry. why am i crying at this bit? this is the good bit!

and we got a call from surrogacy uk to say that shell and al wanted to help us to try and have a baby. shell was implanted with caroline's fertilised eggs. later that year she gave birth to twin girls. surrogacy like this is legal in the uk only if it is not for profit, though expenses can be paid. the government has now asked an advisory body, the law commission, to update the law in england, wales and scotland. under its plans, the new or intended parents will take legal responsibility for a baby at birth. a blanket ban on advertising would be lifted. something the fertility regulator has warned could lead to significant cultural change and perhaps criticism. the most controversial question, payments, is left open, with the public asked for its views on whether surrogates should receive more than just expenses. you only hear the rose—tinted version of what happened. you never hear what happened when things go wrong. anna, not her real name,

agreed to carry a baby for a friend. then something happened. i started to encounter hostility from the intended mother, but it was too late and i was pregnant. the birth was traumatic. one of the twins was starved of oxygen. an investigation into medical failings took two years. pregnancy can go wrong, it has serious consequences which we cannot legislate for. the law commission is taking absolutely the wrong approach to this. we should just ban any form of surrogacy altogether. the law commission claims its plans will better protect all sides, including the surrogate. our intention is not to liberalise surrogacy, our intention is not to increase surrogacy. our intention is to provide a safe and effective legal framework. the full consultation will last until 2021 when a new law will shape surrogacy in this country for the next generation. jim reed, bbc news. let's take you live

now to brussels where meps are not debating the brexit withdrawal agreement ahead of a vote to ratify the deal. i have to tell you that since the outcome of the referendum, more than three years ago, i have heard many opinions about it. everybody has an opinions about it. everybody has an opinion about it. some people are saying, well, look, we are simply afraid, the british, of losing their sovereignty, that's the issue, but what does sovereignty mean today in a world that is completely dominated by powerhouse of school like china —— powerhouses like china, india, where we have to challenge international problems like climate change and digital supremacy? let me

say it more punchy. what is threatening britain's sovereignty most, the roles of our single markets or the fact that tomorrow there will be, maybe, planting chinese five jeep masts there will be, maybe, planting chinese fivejeep masts in british isles? —— 5g masts. european countries have lost their sovereignty already a long time ago and europe is just sovereignty already a long time ago and europe isjust the sovereignty already a long time ago and europe is just the way to regain that sovereignty in the coming yea rs. studio: we will leave events in brussels, the last day meps are there from the uk but discussions will be under way in earnest between

the two sides. now, the day is approaching. now we're going to be answering your questions on what we can expect in the run—up to the uk's departure from the european union on friday, throughout this week we're taking a look in—depth at a number of issues and trying to get your questions answered. today we're focusing on immigration, and freedom of movement. joining us is our reality check correspondent, chris morris, and jill rutter, senior research fellow from uk in a changing europe. we've got loads of questions coming. jill, we have owned a house in france for 17 years, we spend about five months a year there. we would like to be reassured that that will continue. that's from maureen laurent. the first thing we need to

look at is whether there is the possibility of using whatever scheme the french are putting out to secure the french are putting out to secure the position of uk citizens. the problem is they are not permanent residents there so do not really meet the test for having free movement. so we need to look and see whether they can qualify for whatever scheme is the french have put out there. i don't think ultimately it's going to prove a big problem but there is a problem that the uk wanted to talk about what the long—term position of uk citizens in eu countries would be, the people who aren't able to secure permanent residence now and the eu said, that's a matter for the future negotiation, so we really got to see those details filled in. i would say get in touch with french authorities and the asking them now. i'm pretty sure they will be all right it's not my court. fairly certain that every six months you will be able to stay in another european country and europeans will be able to come here for 90 days without a visa, so we're

looking at five months a year in chunks over the year, i'm certain that would be ok. five months in a row probably remains to be negotiated and then there are other things which may be bureaucratic inconvenience or may be more serious. have you thought about health care arrangements, for example, after the end of the transition, the end of this year, and until the end of this year nothing is going to change pretty much but after the end of the transition, will you need health insurance and how much do you think that might cost? let's talk about this month. i'm italian and i want to live in the united kingdom. are there any differences if i enter the uk before and afterjanuary 31? will immigration be the same? that is a transition question and the answer is, it will be the same until the end of 2020. if he arrived today or if he arrived in a weak's time after

brexit day because the transition is still there when all eu rules and regulations to stay the same, he would have the same right to apply for settle status as the uk authorities called it and once he had been in the country for five years, he'd tapped the right to stay here pretty much on a permanent basis. —— he would have the right. you getpru settled status which you can apply for as soon as he arrives here —— you get pre—settled status. if you want to stay here long term after the end of this year, get your pre—settled status which starts the clock running to get settled status in five years time. the key deadline is the 31st of december at the moment. hamilton haskins, do i need to apply for a visa to stay in france, italy and spain with my british passport? not for the rest of the year but

these are details about what the post regime is. these are free travel will be for short—term visits after we leave —— visa free travel. you might need to get a esta, the same as when you visit america or australia, but you do that once every couple of years or so. what's not clear is wanting to be there longer term or wanting to work there, that's all up for negotiation in what's called the mobility framework but if you look at the slide is the eu has been putting out as part of its preparations for negotiations, they make very clear the uk is not asking forfreedom of movement, the uk does not want a special deal with the eu so we will have to wait and see. if there is no agreement with how the eu treats

third country nationals. going for a holiday for a few weeks should be a problem, to go and work, we will have to look at what eu nationals do and probably imposes something similaron and probably imposes something similar on us. what will happen to freedom of movement and will european health insurance card is still be valid? valid this year, we don't know if it will be valid after the end of this year. that will be one of the things we negotiate. the government is fully quite keen to keep those cards there but that will depend on health and security coordination, that will be one of the future negotiation areas and it will depend on the uk making a similar officer to eu citizens and we know that the government has been quite concerned about what it calls health tourism so we will see and we will have to do a balance of advantages but that is up for negotiation but for this year, you're ok. it covers notjust things

like breaking an arm on holiday, i cover things like pre—existing conditions so it is a real benefit to people and people are concerned about losing it. taking out insurance would be an expensive alternative. i'm currently living in the uk but i am planning to leave before the end of the year. should i apply for settlement status anyway? iam apply for settlement status anyway? i am french, apply for settlement status anyway? iam french, do i need apply for settlement status anyway? i am french, do i need to apply for settle m e nt i am french, do i need to apply for settlement status? side make no special deal for the french. you need to apply if you want to stay here. if he is leaving before the end of this year, he doesn't have to apply but if he has been here for five years already, he could apply for settle status to allow him to come back in future. if he is going back to his home country, he's not

coming back to the uk, then he doesn't need to apply before the end of this year. eleanore says, do i need an insurance green card to drive in europe during the transition? no, everything stays the same for those purposes and it will then depend on the deal we do with then depend on the deal we do with the eu. you'll remember when the government put out all those getting ready for brexit notices and was telling us what to do, those were some of the things that you did need to do, get out special insurance and to do, get out special insurance and to apply for international driving permits, then there was that oddity that the convention that covered driving in france was different that covered driving in spain, so one international driving permit wasn't enough. i'm sure people will be attempting to make sure that that bureaucracy isn't going to affect their citizens but we'll have to see where it is and as we know, the eu keeps on saying there is a lot to get agreed in their very short

window and some of these issues which may not be the source of competence of the eu are going to be very complicated so they are going to be some rough edges and this might be one whereby the end of the year we are going to have to go back into the post office to get international driving permits. what you have to get separate registration plate stickers? there's no reason you can't but you don't have to have it any more. there could be slightly different rules in different countries. international driving permit i think is £5.50 at the post office. eu citizens might need to give up a british licence and geta need to give up a british licence and get a local driving licence instead, they might not be able to go along the same system of international driving permit because they are resident in those countries. ruby in coventry says, i'm currently studying in bulgaria

but i'm a british citizens. what does this mean for me? at the moment, go on studying in bulgaria, but if you want to stay long—term in bulgaria, you need to find out what system bulgaria has for allowing you to stay, whether there is a long—term scheme you can apply to or whether you need to because there is a mix of approaches being taken by eu countries, some countries going through the sort of active application registration scheme that the uk has introduced with the settle status scheme. they might register people already and see it asa register people already and see it as a deck —— system. if you are expecting it to end before the end of the year —— if you're expecting to leave before the end of the year, make sure you have all your paperwork done in good time. simek if she is starting if she is

studying under the erasmus scheme, it will continue as it is. the next funding round for erasmus is next month and anyone getting an erasmus scholarship in february, that will be fine, even if it goes beyond the end of the transition period. what happens after that is for students in the future, will the uk still wa nt in the future, will the uk still want to sign up to erasmus? if you wa nt want to sign up to erasmus? if you want to sign up to erasmus? if you want to be part of it, you pay money into the eu budget. last question, what happens if no deal is agreed with the eu by the 1st of january 2021? it's really different now that we are leaving with the withdrawal agreement to if we had been leaving without one because the one thing that the withdrawal agreement does secure is the rights of people who have already exercised or those

freedom of movement rights or proposed to exercise them during the transition. whereas there would have been a sharp cut—off without the transition, if we had left in october or march without a deal, now the citizens‘ rights provisions add in place and they are guaranteed by international treaty which is what the withdrawal agreement is. it‘s an international treaty and their oversight arrangements so if you don‘t think you are being treated fairly, there is a european court of justice, it will have to set up something called the independent monitoring authority to see how it does it so it‘s quite different because we have withdrawal agreement. now it‘s time for a look at the weather with susan powell. hello. our wintry weather keeps us on our toes again. yesterday it was snowing and a frosty start this morning, now milder air is flooding into the uk. to the south of this band of cloud which is a warmer

weather front. this evening and overnight, this front will continue to produce some rain for the far north of northern ireland initially but then also across northern england, retreating into the northwest of scotland through the small hours. quite a bit of cloud further south, a misty and murky end to the night with overnight lows are similarto to the night with overnight lows are similar to yesterday‘s highs. thursday is said to be a mild day from the get go, perhaps drizzly rain and thicker cloud in the south, wet and windy for the northwest of scotland. that keen southwesterly wind particularly gusty across the uk but especially for the northwest of scotla nd uk but especially for the northwest of scotland but that southwesterly wind direction ushers in some much, much milder air, temperatures as high as 14 celsius in the southeast of england, up to a living in aberdeen.

hello, you‘re watching afternoon live, i‘m simon mccoy. today at 4: end of the line, troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. and we are going to come forward with a white paper called the williams review which will put this into a much more stable and long—term state but for today, i think at least northern passengers and staff know that the government is taking action. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they‘ll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. we don‘t want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes it safer for those then that is what is necessary. it comes as british airways announces it‘s suspending flights to and from mainland china.

the health secretary will chair an emergency committee on the virus in half an hour‘s time. the world health organization is also due to give an update shortly. in other news, 999 under pressure. every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. restructuring for bbc news — 450 job loses including cuts to newsnight and radio 5 live are announced to help save millions of pounds. coming up on afternoon live, all the sport: the world number one and 19 time a grand slam champion rafael nadal is knocked out in the quarterfinals of the australian open by dominic set. thanks, and we‘ll bejoining you for a full update just after half—past. susan powell has all the weather. where trying to keep up with the uk's where trying to keep up with the uk‘s weather, it has been snowing in the last 24 hours but milder air is flooding in to our shores. i will

bring us more details as to what is ahead in the forecast in the next half an hour. also coming up: we‘ll go live to the european parliament where meps are debating the brexit deal and will later approve it, as the uk prepares to leave the eu on friday. hello everyone, this is afternoon live, i‘m simon mccoy. the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. the service has been accused of allowing unacceptable delays across its network. northern connects towns and cities like preston and blackburn in the west, to places like york and hull in the east, via the big cities of manchester and leeds. in a statementjust released, northern‘s owner arriva, has apologised to passengers, but said "largely because of externalfactors, the franchise plan had become undeliverable."

let‘s go now to our correspondent danny savage, who‘s in leeds. what danny savage, who‘s in leeds. has the reaction be evening what has the reaction been? yes, the evening peakjust getting under way. many of the trains here operated by northern and many of the passengers i know it that things can‘t really get much worse than they are at the moment and i hope things will get better if the government takes over as it is going to end march. but will it? because that is the big challenge with the government because lots of the problem is that northern experiences it argues are not down to it being their fault. they might be stuck bit behind those running late operated by trans—pennine or signal failure. if the government suddenly go to make all of that better? that is what grant shapps had to say when he announced that northern are having their franchise ta ken off announced that northern are having their franchise taken off them to be taken over their franchise taken off them to be ta ken over by their franchise taken off them to be

taken over by the government. i‘ve been very concerned about northern since i became transport secretary last summer and so i immediately put steps in place to look at the alternatives and issued the formal notices and today what has happened is essentially the northern franchise has hit the buffer. they are to be stripped of that franchise and instead it will go to what is called the office of last resort which means we will take over running this franchise and start to bring in improvements. it is a massive network, 108 million passengers a year, over 500 stations so it is really large so improvements will take some time but there are things we will do straightaway for example just deep clean the trains to start with and make sure there is a proper cleaning schedule in place. improve for example those sunday services where the trains just haven‘t been running, immediately get things like that back into place as quickly as possible. i have actually asked what is called the office of last resort, those are the people who will now run that for me, to come up with a 100 day plan so that within at 100 days

they are both making improvements and recommending the way forward to relieve some of this congestion. for example, 30 platforms with extensions to ensure that the overcrowding on these trains reduces and many other steps that we‘ll be taking including such getting more trains trains onto the network, getting rid of those pacers and then more trains into next year. at the centre of this are passengers and commuters was not paint a brief picture of what it is like here in northern england, it is not like the south—east and london where trains run south—east and london where trains ru n every south—east and london where trains run every few moments so if your train is too crowded when it arrives there will be another one along to a three minutes later. it doesn‘t happen like that in northern england. you either get on the train that comes along or you wait half an hour potentially for the next one. people this morning were tweeting that the service from harrogate to leeds was just two carriages at rush houragain, leeds was just two carriages at rush hour again, that is not big enough for rush—hour volumes of passengers here in this part of the country for over the last few days, i have been travelling around the region with passengers on northern.

early morning at chapeltown station in sheffield. lots of commuters use this stop. the next service is half an hour behind this one, so everyone has to squeeze on. this is normal, and people are fed up with northern, who operate these services. today this is actually fairly roomy, but usually, you know, i either don‘t get on because it‘s too busy, and i‘ve had to wait for the next train. and sometimes even the train after that. at one point we had a game with the northern rail twitter account which was how many people can we fit into your toilet. which is eight, if you want to know! eight people can fit in the toilet. because that is the only space that was left on the train? yes. and we left people at the platform. overcrowding, cancellations, and delays are an everyday occurrence. but some passengers aren‘t sure what difference northern losing its franchise will make. well, it‘s hard to say because there‘s still a problem in terms of infrastructure. would the new franchise have enough trains, have enough capacity on there?

or would itjust be like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic? we‘ve got conductors on the train who get verbal abuse from customers as well, which i‘ve seen in the past, which is not fair on them. they‘re here to do theirjob, it‘s not their fault that the capacity is not enough. just over a year ago i travelled to work with vanessa bremner. she is another commuter on northern. her route is doncaster to leeds. at least, it was. because now, she‘s given up and uses the car. i know numerous people who have had to stop taking the train and have started driving. you know, leeds city council is talking about congestion charges. we are all focused on climate change and the environment. they are all being forced into their vehicles. those that are still using the trains, even this morning at least five members of my team came in late because of delays on the trains. those campaigning for investment in the north say extra platforms are needed in leeds and manchester to increase capacity. stripping northern of its franchise is not a game changer. the challenges and issues on northern are not really related to the company who runs

the franchise, they are to do with the failure to build infrastructure here in west yorkshire and across the pennines in manchester. few will mourn the end of northern‘s tenure. the passengers are not naive, they know a change in operator will not necessarily fix the problem. they are looking to the government for a proper solution in northern england. that is the problem, there is going to bea that is the problem, there is going to be a quick fix to this and no one is suggesting otherwise? know, and i was talking to a member of northern staff today about what difference it would make to them. do they think this. the problem? and they don‘t, they think there are so many issues that affect the train problems because cable theft was a problem that often occurs here in west yorkshire, thieves steal the signalling cables overnight. that

causes all sorts of delays in the morning for dot that is not northern‘s fault. if there are tres passes northern‘s fault. if there are trespasses on the railway, that is not their fault. if a trans—pennine express service is running slow in front of them, delays them and that is beyond their control and so i don‘t think there is any magic wand that will be waived from the 1st of march that the government will make a difference for in that respect so what commuters will probably do is give the government some time to sort out the problem, give them a period of grace to make life better for commuters here in northern england, get rid of the old pacer trains to get the new trains that have been promised in place but if after a few months things aren‘t improving, people will begin to crumble loudly again. they don‘t wa nt crumble loudly again. they don‘t want delay repay, they don‘t want compensation, they want to be able to get home on the time and to work on time so that their families aren‘t seething because yet again they are late. that is what northern computers and passengers want.

whether they will get that, we will have to wait for a few months‘ time. it is always good to see you passionate. we will see you later on. the health secretary matt hancock will chair a cobra meeting shortly to discuss plans to try and contain the cornona virus. earlier the government confirmed britons returning from the chinese city of wuhan are to be put in quarantine for 14 days. downing street conformed that a plane carrying 200 british nationals would depart from wuhan tomorrow morning. people are likely to be taken to a military base once they arrive home and may be asked to sign a contract before boarding the plane, agreeing to being placed in quarantine. the virus has caused more than 100 deaths, and spread to at least 16 other countries. here‘s richard galpin. the empty streets of wuhan, the city where this epidemic began. and where many people are holed up in their homes, including 200 british nationals who have finally been told planes are being chartered to get them back to the uk.

but it‘s been chaotic. the british government initially saying when they arrived in the uk they would have to make their own way home and then go into isolation. but now the government is saying they will be quarantined immediately on arrival, possibly in a military base. khan lambert who lives in wuhan has lost his place on tomorrow‘s flight out because of the mix—up but welcomes the change of policy. i am happy that they have been listening and put that in place. first and foremost, we don‘t want to put the uk public at any risk and if this makes it safer for those then that is what is necessary i think. other countries have been much quicker to get their citizens back home. this group of japanese arriving in tokyo earlier today. and the australian government has been quick to announce that this migrant detention centre on christmas island will now be used to keep people returning from china in quarantine.

they will be transported to christmas island where we will also be putting in place the ausmat team that will be travelling there to provide medical support and that will be supplemented as is necessary by other defence support. australian scientists have also taken the lead in tackling the new coronavirus, replicating it in the lab for the first time. this step makes it possible for a lot of things to move forward that have been delayed and we are just delighted to have been able to fill that gap in the space between 2am saturday morning when the first case was diagnosed in australia and monday when we believe we had the virus growing in culture. here in the uk emergency procedures are now being put into place, staff in protective clothing treating a patient in birmingham yesterday who had been in wuhan and had virus—like symptoms. but experts are calling for calm. i suspect when the full

analysis is done, those who probably would have died anyway, these tend to be people who are very seriously ill to start with or compromised. but the virus is continuing to spread across china and other countries and so far there is no sign of it weakening. richard galpin, bbc news. our beijing correspondent stephen mcdonnell has quarantined himself in his home and he spoke to me earlier. well, the authorities have said that anybody who was in hubei province and travelling to another city should not go to their normal workplace, should stay—at—home for two weeks and so since we were in a hubei and this is the province where this coronavirus emergency started, i am staying in my place for two weeks. i‘m sure my bbc colleagues here in the bureau don‘t want to catch this virus in case i am carrying it. because the thing is, they‘re saying that it could take

from the first point of contact you actually getting sick, it could take two weeks. obviously, people may not know they are sick, they don‘t have any symptoms and they are travelling around with this virus and potentially infecting others and so that is exactly why i am here, reporting from home. just hearing that around 200 americans are being evacuated from the epicentre in china and landing in california as we speak. also hearing that the world health organization committee will reconvene tomorrow to decide whether to declare an international public health emergency after this outbreak of coronavirus. the director—general saying that they have decided to reconvene tomorrow to advise on whether the outbreak constitutes that emergency. that is just coming you‘re watching afternoon live, these are our headlines: end of the line, troubled rail operator northern

will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they‘ll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. 999 under pressure. every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. world number one rafael nadal is out of the australian open. beaten in the quarterfinals by austria‘s dominic thiem in four sets. england will be without jofra archer for their t20 series in south africa because of his elbow injury. and manchester united have condemned the attack on the home of their club executive, ed woodward. cheshire police are investigating after a group gathered outside his home chanting that he was going to die. i will be back with more of all of those stories at 4:30pm.

every week thousands of seriously ill patients in england and wales are waiting more than an hour for an ambulance to reach them, a bbc investigation has found. people suffering medical emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes are not meant to wait more than 18 minutes, and experts warn the delays are a threat to patients‘ lives. nhs bosses have blamed rising demand and ambulances being delayed at a&e. here‘s our health correspondent, nick triggle. derrin cozart was at his home in northumberland on his own when he collapsed. he came to and rang 999. over an hour later, an ambulance arrived. he was dead. he had suffered a gastric haemorrhage, causing massive internal bleeding. the case is now being investigated by the north east ambulance service. his partner, mark mitchell, has been wondering whether the delays cost him his life. nobody will ever know whether an ambulance arriving eight minutes or 18 or 38 minutes later, derrin would have still have been alive. but the fact we don‘t know

the answer to that doesn‘t mean there shouldn‘t be accountability somewhere to say, when we don‘t meet these targets, people die. the bbc has been investigating long waits for emergency ambulance responses like this and has found they have been quite common since the start of 2018. the highest priority calls are split into two categories by the nhs. ambulance emergency, is the patient breathing? immediately life—threatening cases are basically situations where a patient is not breathing, where their heart has stopped or where they are bleeding uncontrollably. long waits are very unusual for this small group of patients known as "category one" by the nhs. in england, only one in 270 take longer than 30 minutes to reach, but for patients in the next most serious category of calls, long waits are much more common. one in 16 take longer than an hour to reach, and this can include patients having strokes, heart attacks and fits.

that works out at over 4,000 waits of over more than one hour every week in england, far worse than the target response time of 18 minutes on average. significant problems are also being reported in wales, where each week, more than 1,000 calls take longer than an hour, although there are some differences in how they categorise patients there. nhs bosses blamed rising demand and delays handing over patients at a&e. it is certainly not easy to reach everyone as quickly as we would all like, but let's be very clear, all of our staff are working flat out to keep everybody, first and foremost, to keep all of our patients and everybody as safe as possible. many ambulance services said they had increased staffing, only to find the extra resource largely swallowed up by delays at a&e. nick triggle, bbc news. bbc news is to cut around 450 jobs as part of plans to meet a savings

target of £80 million. jobs will go at the world service, 5live and bbc two‘s newsnight as well as the victoria derbyshire programme. i spoke to fran unsworth, the director of news and current affairs here at the bbc on what people are going to notice with these changes. what we are trying to do is in order to meet this hefty savings target but we are also trying to change the model of how we produce news because at the moment we have lots of different outlets and programmes who all have the power to commission their own stories, to send their own teams to places so what we want is to coordinate that much better. so that teams will actually cooperate and collaborate with each other so that we don‘t get lots of different teams or going at different times to do stories so if you‘re watching an individual outlet on that basis, you might not see anything that much different. why have different programmes if they are going to look the same? because people do consume different services and they went all

look the same because we will be leaving numbers of people in the production teams who want to pursue a different angle on a story. the radio four output is a very different service than at this channel for instance and we want to preserve the different programme and leave enough people in the programme is teams to come up with ideas and think about things but we also want to eliminate some of the unnecessary wastage and commissioning that goes on at the moment. we are producing an awful lot of stories every day and we think that our duty is to keep the public informed that we think we can do that at the same time as well as taking quite a lot of money out. 450 jobs is a lot of jobs and experience suggests that with fewer people there is more pressure on those that are left? we are reorganising so we will be making the programme team is smaller and we are creating things called story tea ms and we are creating things called story teams and the idea is that they will be delivering, you know,

things which are polished and finished to programme outlets and in that way we hope that, we can‘t be placing more pressure on individual teams because quite a lot of flat out as it is, we just think this is a more efficient way of delivering content a more efficient way of delivering co nte nt to a more efficient way of delivering content to audiences. if lots of different outlets are all doing the same story on one date then we think we can do it better. how so? what our audiences tell you that makes you think that is what the future is? what we see from the audience research that we are doing is that we are research that we are doing is that we a re really research that we are doing is that we are really super serving quite a more limited section of the audience than others. the licence fee, eve ryo ne than others. the licence fee, everyone pays into it and everyone has to get something out of the licence fee. in fact, we have very good reaching views, i think about 80% of the uk public come across bbc news once a week but there is no doubt that audiences to our

traditional services, tv and radio, is going down. our audiences to online are not filling that gap as much as one would like them to and also we see a big drop off in audiences under the age of 35. many of whom are getting their news now from the digital space, the website, social media and also they have so much more choice, there are many apps. much more choice, there are many apps, apple news, google news and we really wa nt apps, apple news, google news and we really want to cut through all of that. can we chase an audience that we are not getting? is never an argument to say that these young people will grow older and then come toa people will grow older and then come to a service we are offering, we the bbc cannot be all things to all people any more? in that case, we can‘t take the money of everybody. we have a universal licence fee, everybody pays in and everybody has to get something out so if we are not reaching younger audiences then we have to do more to enable that to

happen and i don‘t think it is enoughjust to happen and i don‘t think it is enough just to say that these audiences will grow into the bbc for stop when you and i were growing up, we had the bbc habit, our parents we re we had the bbc habit, our parents were watching the bbc, it was in our dna. i don't were watching the bbc, it was in our dna. i don‘t think were watching the bbc, it was in our dna. i don't think it were watching the bbc, it was in our dna. i don‘t think it is for this younger generation. the over 75 is, many of them won‘t be paying the tv licence. how much of this is because management at the bbc have suddenly realised that we are so short of money? in fact, this particular savings plan isn‘t anything to do with the over 75 is. so there is more to come? will have to see what the bbc finances are in, we have been asked to deliver a set of savings and this plan delivers them but are busily nothing is forever, we don‘t know what the finances of the bbc might be in years to come. we have just got deliver the reality that we find ourselves in then. that was fran unsworth. i‘m going to take you to brussels. nigel farage is on his feet for the last time in front of the european parliament.”

his feet for the last time in front of the european parliament. i really do. but the very significant point is this, what happens at 11pm this friday the 31st of january 2020 marks the point of no return. once we have left, we are never coming back and the rest frankly is detailed. we are going, we will be gone and that should be the summit of my own political ambitions for i walked in here, as i have said before, you will thought it was terribly funny, you stopped laughing in 2016 but my view has changed of europe since ijoined. in 2005, i saw the constitution that had been drafted, i saw it rejected by the french in a referendum, so site rejected by the dutch in a referendum and i saw you in these institutions ignore them, bring it

back at izzy lisbon treaty and based you could ram it through without there being referendums. the irish did have a vote and said no and were forced to vote against the top you are very forced to vote against the top you are very good at making people vote again but what we have proved is the british are too big to bully, thank goodness. so, i became an outright opponent of the entire european project. i want brexit to start a debate across the rest of europe, what we want from europe? if we want to trade, friendship, cooperation, reciprocity, we don‘t need the european commission, we don‘t need a european commission, we don‘t need a european court, we don‘t need these institutions and all of this power andi institutions and all of this power and i can promise you, both in you kip and indeed in the brexit party, we love europe, wejust kip and indeed in the brexit party, we love europe, we just hate the european union, it is as simple as that. —— ukip. i‘m hoping this

begins the end of this project. it isa begins the end of this project. it is a bad project, it isn‘tjust undemocratic, it is anti—democratic and it puts on that front row, it gives people power without accountability. people who cannot be held to account by the electorate and that is an unacceptable structure. indeed, there is a historic battle going on now across western europe, america and elsewhere. it is globalism against populism and you may loads populism but i tell you a funny thing, it is becoming very popular. and it has great benefits. no more financial contributions, no more european court ofjustice, no more common fisheries policy, no more being talked down to, no more being bullied, i mean, what is not to like. i know you are going to miss

us, i know you want to ban our national flags but we are going to waive you goodbye and we will look forward in the future to working with you as sovereign... if you disobey the rules you get cut off. could we please remove the flags. mr farage, could you remove the flags please. i'm finished. could i please ask for quiet. i'm really... please sit down, put your flags away, take them with you if you are leaving now. can ijust say, if i may say, the word hate was

used in the last contribution and i really think, given what we listened to her prior to this, we should not hate anyone or any people. i now give the floor for one and a half minutes. quite pleased at the back of the room. i must say the only thing i am absolutely sure... perhaps not the dignified exit that some would be expecting but that was nigel farage‘s speech to meps. still debating, many celebrating, some lamenting the end of the membership of the eu after 47 years. they will be voting later, a formal conclusion and will back the withdrawal agreement. a former belgian prime

minister. their knowledge, energy and wit would be missed has been said. we will keep an eye on that. we brought you nigel farage‘s speech and the flags. now it‘s time for a look at the weather. our wacky wintry weather keeps us on our toes. milder air is flooding into the uk, to the south of this band of cloud which is a warm weather front. through this evening and overnight, this fund will continue to produce some rain, retreating into the north west of scotla nd retreating into the north west of scotland through the small hours. quite a bit of cloud further south, misty and murky end to the night but the overnight lows similar to

yesterday‘s highs. thursday is set to bea yesterday‘s highs. thursday is set to be a multi—day from the get go, perhaps drizzly rain and thick cloud in the south, wet and windy for the north—west of scotland, that keen south—westerly wind taking only gusty across the uk but especially for the north—west of scotland where that south—westerly wind direction ushering in some much milder air, temperatures are as high as 14 celsius in the south—east of england to 11 in aberdeen. this is bbc news. our latest headlines: end of the line — troubled rail operator northern will lose its franchise and be taken back into public hands on the 1st of march. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus, britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they‘ll be placed in compulsory quarantine for two weeks. it comes as british airways announces it‘s suspending flights to and from the mainland. this ba plane is the last

to come in from china. it landed at heathrow a short time ago 999 under pressure — every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. the grenfell tower fire inquiry — companies involved in the buildings refurbishment say they want immunity from prosecution before giving evidence. restructuring for bbc news — 450 job loses are announced to help save 40 million. sport now on afternoon live with chetan. you can tell us about a major shock at the australian open. world number one rafael nadal is out of the australian open. he‘ll have to wait for another opportunity to tie roger federer‘s record of 20 grand slam titles. he‘s been beaten in the quarter finals by the austrian dominic thiem, a man who nadal beat in two french open finals. but this time, thiem managed to get the job done

in what was a four set thriller in melbourne. john watson was watching. we have witnessed a huge upset here on day ten. rafa nadal, world number one, knocked out by the fifth seed, dominic thiem, it came over for sets, a topsy—turvy match. nadal hit back to take the third set. thiem had those three match points, taking it on the third in that fourth set, tie—break. it means it is the earliest exit of rafa nadal since he lost at this stage in the tenant back in 2018. dominic thiem marches on into the semifinals where he will face alexander zverev, after stan wawrinka today. after that victory, promised to donate the winners check to the bushfire relief effort if he goes on to win the tournament this year. in the women‘s semifinal, that is all complete. we saw simona halep progress to the last four, she will play garbine muguruza who came through in straight sets against anastacia pavlyuchenkova.

all eyes on the women‘s semifinals. we will see ash barty, world number one and big australian hope in action against sofia kenin. muguruza and halep will be in action as well. we will also see roger federer up against the defending champion, novak djokovic. the big talking point today, though, the exit of rafa nadal here at melbourne. john watson in melbourne and as he says the big games keep coming, we‘ve got federer against djokovic to look forward to tomorrow. what more reaction about the attack on ed woodward‘s home? as you‘d expect, manchester united have strongly condemned the attack on the home of their executive vice—chairman ed woodward. cheshire police confirmed

they were called to deal with an incident of "criminal damage" involving a "large group" at the property. they were chanting that woodward was "going to die". he and his family weren‘t home at the time. united say anyone committing an offence will be banned for life. united are fifth in the league, 33 points behind the leaders liverpool, and there‘s been growing frustration amongst some supporters. england fast bowlerjofra archer‘s been ruled out of the three—match twenty20 series against south africa next month because of an elbow injury. the 24—year—old returned to england after the 3—1 test series win, in which he played the first match but missed the next three. he‘ll be replaced by saqib mahmood. rugby league player keegan hirst has been speaking to us about israel folau‘s return to the sport. folau was sacked by rugby australia last year for making homophobic comments on social media, but he‘s now signed for the french super league club catalans dragons. hirst, who plays for halifax and is the first openly guy british rugby league player, says he‘s deeply disappointed and feels let down.

the line is crossed when people use religious beliefs or political ideologies or whatever to justify any kind of prejudice and the thing that‘s disappointing about it is if what he had said had been about race or another religion, then this wouldn‘t even be being discussed, but it seems like homophobia is a lesser prejudice and all prejudice should be treated equally as intolerable. keegan hirst talking to us earlier. that‘s all your sport for now. more now on the news that the struggling rail operator, northern, is to lose its franchise and will be nationalised in march. responding to the government‘s decision, the managing director of arriva, which owns northern, chris burchill has said... it was clear however that largely because of external factors, the franchise plan had

become undeliverable. shortly after today‘s announcement, we heard from the transport secretary. i‘ve been very concerned about northern since i became transport secretary last summer and so i immediately put steps in place to look at the alternatives and issued the formal notices and today what has happened is that, essentially, the northern franchise has hit the buffer. they are to be stripped of that franchise and instead it will go to what‘s called the office of last resort which means we will take over running this franchise and start to bring in improvements. it's a massive network, 108 million passengers a year over 500 stations so it‘s really large and improvements will take time but there are things we‘ll do straightaway like deep clean the trains and make sure there is a proper cleaning schedule in place. sunday services where it trains haven‘t been running, immediately get things like that back into as

quickly as possible. i‘ve asked what‘s called the office of last resort, the people who will now run that for me, to come up with the 100 day plan so that within that 100 days they are both making improvements and recommending the way forward to relieve congestion. for example, 30 platforms with extensions to ensure that the overcrowding on some of these are services reduces and many other steps including bringing on more trains, getting rid of pacer trains into next year. that was grant shapps, i also spoke to shadow transport secretary andy mcdonald. here‘s his reaction to the decision it vindicates what i‘ve been saying for many years, and many of my labour colleagues that this northern service had fallen into disrepute and it ought to be brought back into public ownership so i‘m pleased that the step has been taken and i would encourage grant —— grant, now that

he accepts the programme, to continue with it and make sure all of those franchises that are failing come back within public ownership at the earliest possible opportunity. if we can run our the earliest possible opportunity. if we can run our own the earliest possible opportunity. if we can run our own railways, we don‘t need a german operator to run it for us. there isn't a magic bullet, nationalisation in itself is not going to solve this problem. no, you‘re quite is going to need money —— you‘re quite right. accommodation is woeful, there is investment needed, there is overcrowding, and i think getting a private operator out of the way makes sight of what is necessary much more visible and can be put into place if the right plan is actually produced. i look to people like head of the operator of last resort to come up with those proposals and to secure the backing from government that the northern

passengers really need because they have had yea rs passengers really need because they have had years of misery on these lines and i‘m glad that there is the potential of that coming to an end now. key firms involved in the refurbishment of the tower at grenfell have asked for guarantee that any evidence given to the inquiry cannot be used in any criminal prosecutions. the head of the inquiry said he was surprised by the timing of the request. experts have previously said that the work on the tower failed to meet building regulations. the kensington and chelsea council has issued an apology after admitting it made several key failings before signing off the refurbishment of grenfell tower, which saw the building coated in flammable panels. survivors group grenfell united said there was "no true remorse" in the admission by the council. nicola sturgeon has called on members of the scottish parliament to support her demand for a second independence referendum later this year. speaking at holyrood today, she said the brexit was happening against the will of the scottish people and the only way for scotland to rejoin the eu was by voting for independence

from the rest of the uk. well, let‘s join our scotland correspondent lorna gordon who‘s in glasgow for us. this was a symbolic debate that has been taking place at the scottish parliament this afternoon. nicola sturgeon opened that debate. she said that the democratic case for a second independence referendum is now overwhelming and that scotland passed my future should be decided by the people who live here. the motion itself says that, as scotland will leave the eu at the end of this week, this will be a material change in scotland‘s circumstances and that a referendum should be held and that word should is key, it doesn‘t say will be held, it says should be held, because the power to hold a referendum resides with westminster, they have to grant it to the scottish parliament and they have said that will not happen, but it is nonetheless a symbolic debate, it is a significant debate in this ongoing

constitutional stand—off and that relationship with the eu is key. of course, a majority of people who voted here in scotland voted to remain as part of the eu and nicola sturgeon reference to that relationship with the eu in her opening remarks. because we are not independent, we have a borisjohnson lead majority government that scotland did not vote for and we stand just two days away from losing our eu membership and all of the rights that go with it. in my view, it is beyond doubt now that the only realistic way for scotla nd now that the only realistic way for scotland to return to the heart of europe and ensure that we get the governments we vote for is to become an independent country. her political opponents have called this a political stunt and a distraction. jackson carlaw for the conservatives said this was an attempt to convince the yes movement that something is happening and that nicola sturgeon knows there won‘t be a referendum this year, that her

position is a charade. richard leonard from labour said the debate was a contemptuous use of power and willie rennie from the liberal democrats said it was dividing the country and damaging to the economy. nonetheless, it is likely that this motion will pass, it will have the backing of the snp and the greens, but it is symbolic, it is not likely to lead to anything at this point, but it is another step in this constitutional argument and nicola sturgeon said she will make a speech on friday setting out the next steps in her campaign to secure another referendum on scotland‘s future. changes to the rules around surrogacy could see advertisements on facebook and instagram for the first time urging young women to become surrogate mothers. currently surrogacy is legal in the uk but only if it‘s not for profit, although expenses can be paid. but the government asked the law commission to review the issue, amid concern about the commercialisation of women‘s reproductive function. under the commission‘s new proposals, a blanket ban on advertising could be lifted. jim reed reports.

caroline and ian had been trying for a baby for years, but there were health problems and a series of miscarriages. we had a black cloud over us, basically. but we were so determined that we wanted to have children, that you just keep going. ivf didn‘t work, so they joined surrogacy uk, a not—for—profit group, and met another couple who already had their own children. i remember going home to my mum and dad... sorry. why am i crying at this bit? this is the good bit! and we got a call from surrogacy uk to say that shell and al wanted to help us to try and have a baby. shell was implanted with caroline‘s fertilised eggs. later that year she gave birth to twin girls. surrogacy like this is legal in the uk, only if it is not for profit, though expenses can be paid. the government has now

asked an advisory body, the law commission, to update the law in england, wales and scotland. under its plans, the new or intended parents will take legal responsibility for a baby at birth. a blanket ban on advertising would be lifted, something the fertility regulator has warned could lead to significant cultural change and perhaps criticism. the most controversial question, payments, is left open, with the public asked for its views on whether surrogates should receive more than just expenses. you only hear the rose—tinted version of what happened. you never hear what happened when things go wrong. anna — not her real name — agreed to carry a baby for a friend. then something happened. the birth was traumatic. one of the twins was starved of oxygen. an investigation into medical failings took two years.

the law commission claims its plans will better protect all sides, including the surrogate. our intention is not to liberalise surrogacy, our intention is not to increase surrogacy. our intention is to provide a safe and effective legal framework. the full consultation will last until 2021 when a new law will shape surrogacy in this country for the next generation. jim reed, bbc news. northern will lose its franchise on the 1st of march. as the authorities in china fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus — britons being evacuated from wuhan from tomorrow learn they‘ll be placed in compulsory quarantine

for two weeks. 999 under pressure — every week, thousands of seriously ill patients are waiting more than an hourfor an ambulance. here‘s your business headlines on afternoon live. ovo energy is to pay £8.9 million for overcharging customers — after more than 500,000 received energy bills that were inaccurate. owners of hotpoint and indesit washing machines may have to check again to see whether their model is on a recall list of fire—prone appliances. an extra three models have been added to the risk list. more about this on the bbc website. uk house prices rose at their fastest annual rate for 14 months, with an increase of1.9% injanuary. that‘s according to the nationwide. some crediting a release of pent—up demand following the clear general election result last year.

so how have markets performed today? we‘ve seen european shares recover over the course of the week and that has continue today but there was a weird blip of the afternoon where markets on both sides of the pond went down again for a bit and traders very quick to point out that almost simultaneously, we heard from two airlines in the cruise operator on plans to suspend operations in china in response to the virus. we‘ve now seen the ftse recover back into positive territory but everything is happening within quite thin trading margins today. in this quite short period of 30 minutes, both the ftse100 and ftse 250, more

uk focused companies, have been up about 2% through the day. let‘s get more on this from an expert. joining us now isjeremy stretch, head of g10 fx strategy. i‘ve been talking about the virus in china affecting industries on both sides of the pond. another issue is from the major central banks, the federal reserve tonight and the bank of england tomorrow. that's right, two major central banks. they are expected to hold rates at current levels. the federal reserve did cut rates three times during the course of 2019 to remove headwinds from global trade tensions last year but while there is no expectation of a policy change, we do get a press conference from the chairmanjerome

powell which will give him an opportunity, if he should so wish, to underline to the markets that the federal reserve is prepared to provide additional stimulus should it prove necessary because of these external risks and then we move onto the of ingle tomorrow which will be a very close—run thing, as to whether the bank will continue cutting rates now. it is mark carney‘s last meeting after 6.5 yea rs carney‘s last meeting after 6.5 years as the governor of the bank of england. we expect rates to be left on hold but it could be a close—run thing and that has left many investors are scratching their heads as to how to trade into that tomorrow lunchtime. it's going to be mark carney‘s last interest rate decision as head of the bank of england so i think a lot of people will be watching that tomorrow at 12 noon. let‘s talk about boeing, reported its first annual loss of more than two decades, the fallout from the 737 max continuing to hit the firm‘s bottom line.

from the 737 max continuing to hit the firm's bottom line. whilst the numbers are incredibly bleak and indeed they have increased the scale of the impact of the ground over the 737 max to something in the region of $18 billion, double the previous estimate, ironically, in early trading the shares were trading higher due to the fact that investors were relieved that perhaps the company are getting ahead of some of that bad news and really putting out all of the worst scenarios into the marketplace and perhaps allowing some degree of relief to play out through the minds of investors in the short term at least. again suggesting it didn't come as a huge shock to the market either. another interesting stock that‘s been on the mood today, mcdonald‘s. they are comfortable beating estimates and doing well today. you might guess, this is the first quarterfor might guess, this is the first quarter for the new might guess, this is the first quarterfor the new chief might guess, this is the first quarter for the new chief executive who came in and rather unusual circumstances late last year so it‘s

good news for him to have a big beat in terms of the metrics overall.m seems to be the case that despite elevator degrees of competition in that sector, the fast—food bellwether is continuing the share price to move higher. it‘s unseen what will happen in its chinese operations but it is suggesting it won‘t have a material impact on their bottom line. there was a 30 minute blip in the middle of the day when markets on both sides of the pond dipped. for the most part, we‘ve seen markets on this upward trajectory since that fall but we saw on monday, largely over fears of the virus in china. what do you see happening with markets over the course of the week? if you look at january as a whole, we had two big risk events, we had a rainy intentions at the beginning of the month and divide us now and its remarkable how stable markets have

been —— iranian tensions. yes, we will see headlines which are very damaging for the market and also in terms of the human cost in terms of lives lost but in terms of most cases, people are assuming the issue will be largely contained over time and if it is a worst—case scenario, was a central bank decisions will help to limit any risk as far as financial markets are concerned. jeremy, thanks very much. we‘ll have a quick look at the markets. they have just stepped back into negative territory aboutjeremy talking about how robust markets have proved to be so far over the course of the year in the interest rate decision is due tomorrow. then there is another big event on friday, of course!

yesterday, we brought you a report about the giant glacier in the antarctic, which scientists fear could be at risk of collapse. the melting of the thwaites glacier would cause a dramatic rise in sea levels, threatening to swamp many of the world‘s major cities. our chief environment correspondent, justin rowlatt, has been travelling with a team of scientists on the biggest and most complex field survey in antarctic history. today, justin looks at the challenges facing the project in one of the most hostile environments on earth. antarctica is the stormiest continent on earth, and west antarctica is the most remote and stormy part of it all. so we‘ve been out here for like, i don‘t know, an hour and a half, and this is the result, and it gives you an idea of why it is so difficult to operate here. all the planes are grounded. they are saying we won‘t fly anywhere for at least three days. it has taken years of preparation to get the scientists out here. last year two ice—strengthened british ships brought hundreds of tonnes of fuel and cargo to a remote ice shelf. then a team of specialist snow vehicles dragged it

1,000 miles over the ice. across some of the toughest terrain and toughest weather imaginable. and all at a maximum speed ofjust ten miles an hour. six people can do a huge amount, but we just truck along day from day. nobody really knows where we are. and then we just suddenly turn up! delivering bounty! the us provided air muscle, flying in the scientists and their equipment and ferrying everything down to the camps at the front of the glacier. then the really hard work began. digging snow, and lots of it. the scientists need ten tonnes of the stuff to fill this. a water container the size of a small swimming pool. this will be the most southerly jacuzzi in the world, i think! a bank of boilers heats the water to just below boiling point. it is sprayed onto the ice to melt

a hole almost half a mile down to where the ocean water meets the glacier. only now, scientists deploy their instruments. the whole of this region is below sea level, which is why the so—called doomsday glacier is so vulnerable. the water can just keep on melting it. only by taking measurements here can we hope to get accurate predictions of how sea—level is going to rise in future. even if it means arousing the curiosity of some of the creatures that live here. this year‘s work has confirmed the scientists‘ fears. warm sea water is melting the ice of west antarctica increasingly rapidly, raising sea levels worldwide. the challenge now is for the rest of us — reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for the rising oceans we will face in the decades to come. justin rowlatt, bbc news, west antarctica.

arejust are just hearing alistair stewart will step down as an itv presenter, following errors of judgment will step down as an itv presenter, following errors ofjudgment in his use of social media. the director of current affairs at itv says he has been a long—standing familiar face for viewers, resenting and reporting with distinction. we wish him the very best for the future. alistair stewart in a statement said about, whatever it was that happened, and i cannot actually enlighten you, he said it was a misjudgment which i regret but it has been a privilege to bring the news to households throughout the uk for the past 40 yea rs. throughout the uk for the past 40 years. alistair stewart, stepping down from itv news. that‘s it from as for today. now let‘s get the

weather. some notable contrasts today, some rain on and off which has been heavy, too. patchy cloud but dry weather and we saw some generous sunshine here in devon. one thing thatis sunshine here in devon. one thing that is happening to all parts of the uk currently, is milder air moving in. the cloud to the north is a warm weather front, to the south, the skies are clear but the milder airwill the skies are clear but the milder air will flood its way right across the uk is that front advances further across scotland through this evening and overnight. a does the start of the evening rush hour, some showers to the far north of scotland, still more persistent rain feeding into the southern uplands and through the central belt, affecting beaches of northern ireland and affecting downpours to the west of the pennines especially as we move through the evening.

scattered showers further south and largely dry and quite a quiet end to the day across southern england and south wales. it looks like it will stay fair here overnight, rain pulls away from northern ireland then really co m es away from northern ireland then really comes into focus again on scotland, particularly the northwest of scotla nd scotland, particularly the northwest of scotland when the totals start to add up. overnight lows close to daytime highs yesterday, milder even as we start thursday. wet and windy to the northwest of the uk throughout the day, particularly again for the northwest of scotland and fog orkney and shetland. elsewhere, some cloud around but i think a elsewhere, some cloud around but i thinka dry elsewhere, some cloud around but i think a dry story, quite windy for the northwest of scotland, a little bit gusty elsewhere, just the chance of cloud thick enough to the far south to bring some drizzly rain at times look at temperatures, up to 14 celsius in london, very much on the mild side once again. as we look towards the end of the week, we still stay in the milder air. another frontal system approaches

the uk on friday but the cold air doesn‘t really get very far, perhaps getting into the western isles by the end of the day. elsewhere, temperatures are saying in double figures, rain for all temperatures are saying in double figures, rainforallareas temperatures are saying in double figures, rain for all areas at some stage, generally lighter and more showery as it works its way eastwards but temperatures even with the rain around on friday still hitting double figures.

today at 5:00, brexit will be signed and sealed in a historic vote this afternoon — before being delivered on friday night. members of the european parliament look certain to approve the withdrawal agreement in the next half hour — a move welcomed by nigel farage. no more being talked down to, no more being bullied, no more, i mean... i mean, what‘s not to like? i know you‘re going to miss us. i know you want to ban our national flags, but we are going to wave you goodbye. i‘m adam fleming come alive at the european parliament building in brussels, we will bring you the result of the vote in the next half an hour, and all the reaction.