the world health organization says there are signs that coronavirus has stabilised in china. however, it has cautioned against reading too much into the data, saying the outbreak could still worsen. china has announced a new way of classifying infections, leading to a jump in the reported number of cases. the italian far—right leader matteo salvini has responded with defiance after the senate voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity. mr salvini is now facing a trial for illegally detaining migrants at sea when he was interior minister last year. he said he would do the same again. pope francis has decided not to allow married men to be ordained as priests in remote regions where there is a shortage of clergy. a synod voted in favour of the proposal last year, but the pope has been under pressure from conservative factions not to relax rules on celibacy.

now on bbc news, wednesday in parliament. as the prime minister defends his immigration policy. it is entirely right that foreign national offenders should be deported from this country, in accordance with the law. butjeremy corbyn gets personal and wonders if the same law would apply to someone... with blond hair who later dabbled in class a drugs, and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist. also in this programme, as terror laws are rushed through parliament, a voice of experience offers advice. does my right honourable friend agree that actually, we will never deal with this issue of terrorism until we deal with the ideology that drives it?

all of that to come and more, but first, prime minister's questions. a very personal pmqs, asjeremy corbyn brought up boris johnson's past, asking whether he could've been deported to the united states, where he was born, because he dabbled in class a drugs and conspired to beat up a journalist. the labour leader made the link after the deportation earlier this week of 17 convicted offenders to jamaica. chanting: we want human rights! the flight prompted protests outside downing street and a legal challenge that stopped the government deporting 25 others. some of those on the flight had come to the uk as children, although the government says none is a british citizen. mr speaker, doesn't the prime minister think that someone who came to this country at the age of five, and was in... and was a victim of county lines

grooming and compelled to carry drugs, released five years ago, and never re—offended deserves to be deported? prime minister. mr speaker, i think the whole country would agree that while i cannot comment on individual cases, it is entirely right that foreign national offenders should be deported from this country, in accordance with the law. jeremy corbyn. the government has learned absolutely nothing from the windrush scandal. this cruel and callous government are trying to mislead the british people into thinking it's solely deporting foreign nationals, who are guilty of murder, rape and other very serious offences. this is clearly not the case. take the example of a young black boy who came to the uk at age five, and is now being deported after serving time for a drugs offence. if there was a case of a young white boy... jeering.

with blonde hair, who later dabbled in class a drugs and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist, would he deport that boy, or is it... mr speaker, is it one rule for young black boys from the caribbean and another for white boys from the united states? prime minister! mr speaker, i think, quite frankly, that the right honourable gentleman demeans himself, and by the way, besmirches... besmirches the reputation, besmirches the reputation of the wind rush generation. who came to this country to work in our public services, to teach our children in this country, to make lives better for the people of this country. he has no right to conflate them with those foreign national offenders that we are deporting today. jeremy corbyn widened his attack

to ask about the government's role in seeking the extradition from the united states of anne sacoolas, who is alleged to have killed harry dunn, the 19—year—old motorcyclist, by dangerous driving. mr corbyn wants to know why the us was blocking her extradition, and about the role of the foreign secretary, dominic raab. i now ask the prime minister, straight, this question, is anna sacoolas being shielded from justice because she's a former cia officer? mr speaker, i think the whole house will know that not only the foreign secretary, but i, and at every level of government, we have tirelessly sought the extradition of anne sacoolas forjustice in this country, and we will continue to do so. jeremy corbyn! it is widely reported that anna sacoolas is in fact a cia operative. now we know that the foreign secretary misled the dunn family, who are being denied justice by the us government. will the prime minister commit to his removalfrom office tomorrow in his reshuffle?

prime minister! what a stupid man you are. mr speaker, the right honourable gentleman knows very well that the foreign office have been told that anne sacoolas was notified to the uk government as a spouse with no official role. and we will continue, without fear or favour, to seekjustice for harry dunn and for his family. and we will continue to seek the extradition of an sacoolas from the united states. jeremy corbyn. this morning, charlotte charles, harry's mum said, we thought we'd "bridged the gap of the government, but they've not been honest with us. mr speaker, this is only the latest case of our country's one—sided extradition treaty with the usa. this lopsided treaty means the us can request extradition and circumstances that britain cannot do. while the us continues to deny justice to harry dunn,

will the prime minister commit today to seek an equal and balanced extradition relationship with the united states? prime minister. mr speaker, to be frank, i think the honourable gentleman has a point in his characterisation of our extradition arrangements with the united states, and i do think that there are elements of that relationship that are unbalanced, and i certainly think it's worth looking at. but it is totally different from the case of harry dunn and anne sacoolas, and we continue to seek the extradition of anne sacoolas to face justice in this country. the prime minister. emergency legislation designed to end the release of people convicted of terrorism offences halfway through their sentence has been backed by mps. the new law was drawn up after the knife attack at streatham in south london earlier this month.

the perpetrator, sudesh amman, had been freed from prison ten days earlier. the measures will apply in england, scotland and wales. thejustice secretary explained how terrorist prisoners would be affected. there are two main elements to this. first, to standardise the earliest point at which they may be considered for release at two thirds of the sentence imposed, and secondly, to require that the parole board assess whether they are safe to release between that point in the end of their sentence. this will apply to all terrorists and terrorist —related offences, where the maximum penalty is above two years. including those offences for which sudesh amman was sentenced. the issue of rehabilitation, the work that is done both in prison and when they are out of prison, is so important. there's been much... many efforts of this over the year, but as recent incidents have seen, that it has not always been with success. does my right honourable friend agree that, actually, we will never deal with this issue of terrorism, until we deal with the ideology that drives it? and will he reassure me that the government is taking extra

efforts to find new paths to ensure that we can turn people away from the extremism and the terrorism that takes other people's lives? there is a constant, if you like, a self questioning amongst those responsible for these particular programmes. to make sure that they are properly calibrated, that they understand the particular drivers that mean that people are compelled to commit these acts. given the extra time in custody that many of these prisoners will now serve, these sorts of effective, and, in many cases, very brave interventions by prison imams will be given the extra time available to take further effect. my right honourable friend, the former attorney—general speaks with great experience and knowledge of these matters. he's absolutely right to focus upon the specialist intervention of our imams.

i think i referred to the fact that we were going to increase resources and increase the number available within our prisons. both the home secretary and i have seen it first—hand, the partnership working that goes on within the high—security estates, when it comes to dealing with these particular challenges, and it's precisely that type of specialist intervention that he and others can be confident about that we will be supporting in the years ahead. the resources available to police and probation is also a critical part of this, a change in legislation won't be enough. is he also committed to making sure that the resources required through the justice system will be in place to make any change effective on the ground? she can be rest assured that whatever resources are needed in order to deal with this issue, we will devote them to this particular line of important, intensive work. labour supported the measure in principle. while i do think the house today is entitled to ask the question as to why we have ended up requiring this law to be made by emergency

legislation, automatic early release is hardly new. it's been part of our system for many years, and could've already been dealt with by a government that took a more strategic approach. the home affairs committee had been given a warning from the uk head of counter terrorism, neil basu. the government has known about the problem for some time. the home affairs committee took evidence from neil basu in october 2018. during the course of the fact of consideration of counterterrorism and border security bill at that time, and he told us, "the point that some of our radical "are getting short sentences coming out early and being able "to continue is a problem. "as it is not having sufficient resources in place to use desistance "or disengagement programmes. " i'm always conscious of the analogy of wasps in the jar. if you shake them all about, and you let them out, then you are going to get stung. no absolute assurance

that we recognise can be given, but he is he as certain as he can be that we won't face protracted litigation, rewrite orfurther emergency legislation, and indeed the potential calamitous problems that may fall upon that with reference to the analogy of wasps in a jar. the legislation passed all its stages in the commons and will now be examined by the house of lords. you're watching wednesday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come a pay rise for the house of lords. the snp has accused the uk government of "washing its hands" of the syrian people amid distressing scenes from the civil war there. since december, 700,000 people have fled the northwest province of idlib, where president assad's army is fighting turkish—backed rebels. it's the biggest exodus during the nine years of the war.

at prime minister's questions, the snp‘s westminster leader, ian blackford, warned the humanitarian situation in syria has "reached crisis point". in northern syria, displaced women and their children are literally freezing to death. there are reports of babies dying due to the extreme conditions, and 16,000 people have been stranded with nowhere to go. mr speaker, the syrian war is considered to have caused the biggest wave of displacement since the second world war. can the prime minister tell the house what responsibility his government has taken for this humanitarian crisis? well, mr speaker, i think the whole house will now as i think i said several times in this house that the uk leads the world in supporting the crisis and supporting humanitarian relief efforts in syria, {3.2 billion this

country has committed to that cause. ian blackford. mr speaker, the question was about the children that are literally freezing to death. that wasn't an answer from the prime minister, and of course in 2017, as foreign secretary, this prime minister enacted a policy of accepting the syrian dictator assad's rule over the country. assad has delivered death and destruction on his people, a man who has gassed his own civilians. the humanitarian situation has reached crisis point and there are now concerns of all—out war. is the message the prime minister wants to send out from this house today that this uk government is washing its hands of the syrian people, and that he is content with assad's regime to continue enacting these atrocities? i really think that the right

honourable gentleman needs to consult his memory better because he will find that this country and this government has persistently called for the end of the assad regime, and indeed has led the world in denouncing the cruelty of the assad regime towards his own people. that has been continuously the policy of the british government. the prime minister. the incoming governor of the bank of england says the uk and the eu must find a way to settle disagreements over the workings of the financial services industry without "descending into a metaphorical punch up". andrew bailey was talking to a lords committee about the future relationship between the uk and europe's financial institutions following brexit. where do you envisage the relationship between the eu and uk financial services ending up? a slightly different limb to that,

where would you like it to be? because it's slightly different from where you think it is going to end up. regulatory cooperation post the referendum has remained very strong and we have very deliberately on both sides gone out of our way, very strong relations with our continental counterparts. and we have been very keen to make sure those were not eroded. secondly, i think you have to have mechanisms to say ok, at the end of the day, we each take our decision but the process by which we reach the assessment is not going to be done on a separate planet as it were. we do have strong effective coordination who want to understand what each other is doing. history will tell us that there is plenty of scope otherwise for this not to work effectively. it is only back to 2012 when some remember the then european commissioner for financial services was accusing us of seeking competitive advantage while imposing higher capital requirements on banks. we thought that was a mistake at the time to conclude that. you would want to have a mechanism to say, ok, let's sit down and talk about what we're doing here because we don't think we're doing that.

we think we're doing sensible things. if that ended up in a sort of a metaphorical punch up every time and a threat to withdraw equivalence, that process whichjust not work properly. equivalence, as i'm sure you know, is a system where partners recognise each other‘s laws and standards as being "equivalent" to their own, allowing simpler access to financial markets. but would that continue once the uk was out of the transition period at the end of the year? are you confident that if we do diverge and say like building societies which are unique to the uk or annuity pensions or these various areas where there would be very good reasons for us to have domestic divergence, and we may on some things which actually cross over into international types of areas of business for good sound reasons. are you saying that you think the mechanisms are there then to have the dialogue so that we don't lose the equivalence? and, if you do, do you think that there is a danger for various

either political or protectionist reasons that europe will withdraw equivalence in perhaps what is not necessarily an entirely logical way? well, can we... i think someone has spoken on this. it's interesting to want to pick that because i think you go right to the point about what are the circumstances in which we would want to in essence move apart somewhat? and i can see three things there. one, clearly both of us are going to have to review our rule books because we do because the world moves on. and let's be honest, we don't land everything perfectly the first time. it would be a bizarre world if we did that. secondly, there are bits of european legislation that just don't work particularly well for the uk. you referred to... the world expert sitting next to me who have retired from the subject, and simply been dragged right back into it.

and thirdly, you bring up the building society. that's an interesting one because that is a case of what about firms that do not actually do international business? now, white working class boys are being let down by the education system and need more help. that's the conclusion reached by the conservative ben bradley, who's worried that the issue is becoming a "taboo subject". the education minister for england said that schools should adopt tried and tested methods of reducing the attainment gap. we know that on average boys consistently underperform girls, and white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds going to perform against all races and ethnicity of other boys, i'm going to read off some stats. —— go onto underperform. by age five already, white boys from disadvantaged backgrounds are 13% behind disadvantaged black boys, or 23% behind disadvantaged asian girls in their phonics for example. only around a third of white working—class boys pass their maths and english gcses. he thought the issue was being brushed under the carpet.

and i'm concerned that in too many places, this is a taboo subject, something we can't talk about, the fact that white boys need more help. boys are far more likely to say that school is a waste of time. we have to engage them in a different way to help them to see the value of that. i will give way. i commend the honourable gentleman for getting this debate and for the case he's made of which i agree with every word. does he see with me the real sadness that a generational, multiple generations of boys from nottinghamshire where we both represent, that have had that perception that school doesn't matter and as a result the waste in talent and all the good things they could be doing in our community if actually they had a better education and we had not failed them? i thank him for that and i agree with the number of young men that i meet who are bright and sharp and intelligent but don't have those qualifications, are struggling to find work, struggling to have that positive impact or see where their lives are going. there is a reason boys more than girls can be disruptive or badly behaved in a classroom setting. simply detention or exclusion

often doesn't help. according to the oecd, boys respond to a school's environment more so than girls. if they are in disruptive, chaotic, and disorganised settings, their capacity for self—regulation suffers. when they are labelled as the bad kid, they become the bad kid and often these kids don't have male role models at home, they are confused about masculinity and what it means in their role in society. we need to be supporting them through that, not punishing them. the statistics he cited at the start of his speech are the ones that have driven this government's education policy since 2010. closing the attainment gap between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more advantaged peers is what has driven our obsession with insuring children are taught to read effectively at the age of four or five and ensuring every six—year—old can decode words using phonics. it is what has driven our desire for children to develop a love of reading and to help develop a wider vocabulary. and he said all children benefited from the government's drive for what he called a knowledge—rich curriculum.

as her majesty's chief inspector said recently, in the schools that teach children and teach reading really well really systematically using phonics, the gap narrows or is even eliminated. and that, sir george, is the essence of this issue. ensuring that our schools adopt teaching methods and curricula that the evidence suggests narrows or eliminates the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils and between girls and boys. nick gibb. the scottish secretary, alisterjack has told the commons that trade between scotland and the rest of the uk is worth "three times more" than that with the eu. the exchanges came during appropriately enough scottish questions. will he confirm that scotland's trade with the rest of the uk is worth more than three times that with the eu? this is only one of the benefits on offer of being part of the united kingdom, not least for british firms. mr speaker, the scottish

government's own figures say that scotland's most important trading partner is the rest of the uk, and that is worth as my honourable friend said more than three times the trade with the other 27 eu countries combined. in other words, the scottish government's figures show that over 60% of scotland's exports go to england, wales, and northern ireland. and indeed i would argue mr speaker that this is one of the many benefits that scotland has from being part of the united kingdom. labour msp monica lennon has introduced the period product built of the scottish parliament to give free provision to women in scotland. it's being opposed by the snp government because of tampon raids from the english into scotland's to steal products. if that is the case, what kind of border does the secretary of state would be required in the event of an independent scotland with separate currency, a different regulatory environment, and different provisions on trade?

the honourable gentleman makes an exceptionally good point, and that is a border we need to avoid. and it makes no sense in having any sort of border between gretton and berwick. and as to the snp opposing that and that opportunity to reduce back rates and other things that would help people, people of the poorest incomes, i simply don't understand what they're thinking. if the secretary of state truly values the trade between scotland and the rest of the united kingdom, why is he prepared to countenance a situation where we would lose frictionless trade between scotland and northern ireland? as the prime minister said, there will be unfettered access between scotland and northern ireland and indeed the rest of the united kingdom. an snp mp asked one of alisterjack‘s ministers about future fishing rights. can the secretary of state reveal the uk government's stated attention of agreeing on a mechanism of cooperation within the eu on fishing or include an extended agreement of access to waters

as part of an eu trade deal? clearly mr speaker we are in discussions about this going forward but i have to say we have a positive vision for our fishing industry in scotland now that we have left the european union. and how does that reflect on the vision of the snp for fishing in scotland to take us back into the european union, to be shackled once again by the common fisheries policy, something many scots and many fishermen voted comprehensively to leave and the snp want to put us right back into it? douglas ross failing to convince steven bonnar there. finally, we're still waiting for a list of new members of the house of lords, a list that's been expected since the general election. and a list that's expected to include the former chancellor kenneth clarke but possibly won't include the former speakerjohn bercow. when the new peers arrive in the lords, they'll find some good news awaits them.

the new daily allowance for the unelected and unaccountable peers being stuffed into the house of lords by the prime minister is set to arise to £323. the monthly allowance for a single person over 25 on universal credit is £317.82. is that the levelling up the prime minister keeps talking about? actually, i hate agreeing with these people, i do find... ido find... i do find that it is odd that the house of lords has chosen to do that but it is a decision for them. a rare moment of agreement between the prime minister and the snp there. that's it for wednesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me at the same time again tomorrow for the latest from the commons and the lords. until then, bye for now.

after a quieter day on wednesday we are seeing wetter and windier whether returning to most parts of the country. not just whether returning to most parts of the country. notjust rain but across central and southern scotland, the far north of england there will be snow for the hills, snow levels rising through the day. probably turning dry through the morning in northern ireland, heavy showers further south across england and wales where it is windy and the south of england and through the english channel. costs of 60 mph. the wind will leave the best bit as heavy showers pushed through the eastern parts of england and further north, improving story. those place isa dry north, improving story. those place is a dry and bright, still damp and cold in the south—east of scotland in the north—east of england. by the time we get to friday after a chilly start we will find the wind picking up start we will find the wind picking up again quickly, rain coming from the north—west, snow in the mountains of scotland so snow elsewhere is melting because we have a strengthening south south—westerly wind meaning the area is getting milder and we will find temperatures

in the range of 8— 12 celsius.

welcome to bbc news, i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: china says virus cases are stabilising, but the world health organization warns the epidemic is impossible to predict. this outbreak could still go in any direction. italy's parliament votes to allow ex—interior minister matteo salvini to face trial for stopping migrants from landing. the pope says no to married priests, even in the world's most remote regions. and a turtle as big as a car. scientists in south america unearth a fossil of giant