polls have closed in more than half of the us states taking part in the super tuesday primaries. senator bernie sanders is projected to win vermont, his home state, whilejoe biden is projected to win virginia, north carolina and alabama. it's estimated six other states could go either way. the who says the mortality rate of those believed to have had the coronavirus appears to be just under 3.5%. that's higher than the usual rate for the flu. the us central bank has made an emergency interest rate cut over economic risks posed by the virus. in the us, at least 25 people were killed as tornados ripped through the city of nashville and across the state of tennessee. buildings collapsed and tens of thousands of people are without power. it struck overnight while many were asleep and unable to take shelter.

now on bbc news, tuesday in parliament. hello and welcome to tuesday in parliament. the headlines at westminster: the health secretary has laid out the government's strategy for coping with coronavirus. the situation facing the country is increasingly serious. globally and at home the number of cases continues to rise. but labour says some workers won't be able to afford to take time off if they suspect they have the virus. does he accept, people should not be forced to make a choice between the health and financial hardship? also, mps are alarmed at an outbreak of violence in delhi. we must learn from history,

not to be fooled by those an insidious aim is to divide society, hell bent on killing or destroying religious places, all in the name of religion. up to a fifth of the workforce may be off sick during the peak of a coronavirus epidemic in the uk, the government has said in its latest plans. speaking in downing street, borisjohnson said the government was committed to doing everything possible to prepare for all eventualities, and its priority was keeping the country safe. the virus, which is also known as covid—19, could become widespread. if it does, some non—urgent hospital care may be delayed to focus on treating people who are infected. in the commons, the health secretary made a statement. the international data continues to and educate that for most people this disease is mild, and the vast majority recover in full. —— to indicate. we responded to a wide range of disease outbreaks in the recent past. the nhs has been preparing

for a pandemic virus for over a decade. we have world class expertise to make sense of the emerging data, we have a strong base on which to build. he said the response was in its first stage, containing the outbreak. he outlined what would happen if it became widespread. so the emphasis will be on caring for those who are most seriously ill and keeping essential services running at a time when large parts of the workforce may be off sick. our plans include notjust the most likely case but the reasonable worst—case. labour was worried about workers who wouldn't be paid if they needed to self—isolate. does he accept that people should not be forced to make a choice between thier health and financial hardship? we are told he is considering emergency legislation. will he bring forward legislation to remove these barriers to self isolation so all workers can get the sick pay they deserve? this is in the interest

of public health. if he brings forward that legislation, we will help him get it on the statue box quickly. he can do it this week, he can do it next week, we will support him. let's give every worker the security that they deserve. those who do need to self—isolate for medical reasons to protect others, that counts as being off sick. they do not need to go to a gp, because there is a seven day allowance for self declaration. i hope that addresses that point directly. msteering there, the snp spokesperson explained why. while the secretary of state referred to the seven days self certification, isolation is for 14 days and we do not want people turning up at a gp surgery halfway through that period. so can that be looked at? several mps pressed the point

about workers who didn't qualify for sick pay, what's known as ssp. millions of people are not only in the gig economy but who don't qualify for sick pay who would be out of pocket for doing the right thing so does he therefore agree that solving this problem and giving people the confidence that they have to do the right thing and self—isolate is one of the most important things he can do in the next few days to ensure that we can continue with containment? so far, the minister has still not been able to despite all the good things he has done, has not been able to answer this essential question for those on zero—hours contracts. that is a large number of my constituents who would want to do the right thing but from what he said so far, will be financially out of pocket because there are no means of recompensing them. we surely must put this right because we have a massive problem in the plan. as i said many times, we have a robust ssp system and we hold it under review. one of matt hancock predecessors

commended him for his approach. but he had this concern. some of the people at greatest risk are front line health workers. one study in china showed 7% of the people who got the virus in wuhan were health workers. will the health secretary confirm whether hospitals, gp surgeries, care homes, nursing homes have enough facemasks, gloves, hand gel, and any other measures he is taking to make sure nhs staff are kept safe? matt hancock said the answer was yes, health care services did have the resources necessary. a labour mp's question was about people who provided care for elderly relatives. if those people end up having to self—isolate or getting ill, what support will there be both for them where they may not be getting any sick pay but also for the elderly relatives who depend on some urgent support and may not have any relatives nearby to provide that.

we are very concerned about this issue. and in the communications i indicated earlier will publish soon to social care providers, we will address precisely the issue that she raises. the secretary of state said he was mindful of the scientific advice of reacting too early carries its own risks. could he set out for the house what those risks are? if you ask people too early to do things that are disruptive to their normal life, then they may try to return to normal earlier than they otherwise would. at the moment, the number of cases is relatively small and if we go into a reasonable worst—case scenario, it will rise sharply and be high fora number of weeks and then we need to get people to do

the right, responsible thing over and numberof weeks. if we ask them to move too soon, they will question whether that advice was the right advice. as the virus possibly spreads members of the public will be worried about what they should and should not be doing and can the secretary of state confirm how he would specifically communicate with members of the public to prevent panic particularly if there was an event if we have to restrict public meetings and the use of public transport? i understand, of course i do that people are worried about this and i also understand that some things we are proposing and some things other countries are doing are not the sort of things that a government in a free country does normally. that is why we are taking this approach. now, another aspect of the threat from coronavirus was under discussion on the committee corridor. the governor of the bank of england told mps the effect on the economy could be large, but temporary. appearing before the treasury committee, mark carney outlined plans to help businesses and households in the event of a major outbreak. the bank of england's role is to help uk businesses

and households manage through an economic shock that could prove large, but will ultimately be temporary. the bank will take all necessary steps to support the uk economy and financial system consistent with its statutory responsibility. we are monitoring the situation closely across all of our functions and insuring all necessary contingency plans will be put in place. the bank was looking at a variety of policy responses, he said, depending on the impact the virus had on the economy. we will act as appropriate. andrew bailey and i are in continual contact over this whole range of issues, consistent with our statutory responsibilities and in order to ensure a smooth transition on the 16th of march. the chancellor and i have had a series of discussions and bank officials are in regular contact with our counterparts at the hm treasury. we could conceivably see supply—side shock, you have demanded problems as well. we might use monetary policy to try

and make banks lend more, of course, the banks still have got to take a view of as to whether or not the lending is a good idea in the particular circumstances. it is reasonably plausible that the demand impact could be greater than the supply impact in the near term. in part because of confidence effects, amplifier effects as well. it is a consideration for the stance of monetary policy. turning to the financial system, precisely what you asked, there are things that we can do in order to ensure that those bank balance sheets have considerable capital and strength to build that up over time, that that is used as effectively as possible. what the bank didn't want to see was viable businesses going bust. we would want the banks to use the balance sheets to support their customers and by extension, support the economy. so, we are looking at those types of facilities and other things

would be to look at facilities that could help us support sme lending and others. you yourself have said that the economic shock could be large. how large could it be? have you changed your assessment of the global and uk economy since january? and if you have, can you say specifically what your view about those issues are now? the prospect with the situation is that we will have disruption and not obstruction and that is the focus of the policy, will be the focus of the policy we can bridge over and headline the shock could be large and i am afraid that i'm not going to provide a precise figure. we are working through this information and we have not agreed those precise scenarios. but the persistence of that impact should be different. can, should come up we would like to say well, but depends on the

reaction than in 2008. back in the commons, the government was pressed over another potential impact of the coronavirus. while they said they should view isolation as sick leave, the law does not state that, even if this was so, there are contracts and insecure work that will be unlikely to have work sickness cover. in meeting those with little means have to choose between health and hardship and an issue that i've raised with the health minister month ago. what discussions have they had with cabinet colleagues to ensure that workers are financially protected to stop the risk of spreading coronavirus. the honourable lady is right, this is a very serious issue that affects individuals and challenges businesses. can i say to her that for those who do not qualify for sick pay,

including the self employed, they may be able to claim universal credit or employment and support allowance. the business secretary, alok sharma. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, mandy baker. mps across the political spectrum have voiced their alarm at violent outbreaks in the indian capital, delhi, sparked by new citizenship laws. so far, 46 people have died as a result of the violence, largely targetting muslims, and dozens have been injured. the country's prime minister, narendra modi, is introducing a law that prevents muslims from neighbouring countries applying for indian citizenship. protestors have been demonstrating against the citizenship amendment act, or caa. recently in delhi there has been over a0 people killed by these mobs where attacking muslim homes and families and taking no authorities are taking any notice on this issue. as a result thousands of muslims have been dragged and burned from their homes in recent weeks, beaten to death in the streets

by the mobs, thousands have lost their livelihoods. and while the indian police looked on passively and modi benefits from electoral success. i can assure the honourable gentleman that we deplore what we have seen over the last few weeks, the violence that has been recorded and broadcast is deplorable. we condemn this but i assure him that we do and have raised our concerns with the indian government, especially when we have concerns over matters like this. he said the government had concerns about the citizenship amendment act. officials from the british high commission, as recent as mid february, raised our concerns about the impact of the caa and particularly the police response to this protest with the state government. i can give him our re assurance

that our dialogue is ongoing with the indian government. can he confirm he will use his high office, every power that he has to make sure that our concerns in the house today are relayed to the government, the indian authorities, and particularly the brutality that seems to be meted out by those who should be enforcing the law covered most recently by bbc coverage. one mp said the indian government had chosen a path of systematic discrimination. india is now controlled by supremacists, rss ideology with strong historic link to the nazi party and the current prime minister of india was a member of the rss. what step is the prime minister taking to call out the discriminatory practice at the heart of the indian government? the honourable lady makes a very powerful point. we are in constant contact with the government and i mentioned in my statement we do have concerns of the impact of what the caa legislation can have, particularly with muslims and she is right to raise at.

in cited more violence in delhi based on a person brings back painful memories, as a religious minority, of the 1984 genocide of the sikhs, while i was standing out there in india. mr speaker, we must learn by history, not be full by those an insidious aim is to divide society, hell bent on killing and destroying religious places, all in the name of religion. so i asked the minister at what message has he given his indian counterparts but persecution of indian muslims, many of whom has been peacefully protesting against the citizenship and then amendment act is utterly intolerable and that the police cannotjust stand idly by or worst still be complicet as is alleged by many victims and social activists and that perpetrators must feel the full force of the law. one of the things that we saw when i minister modi welcomed

donald trump a couple weeks ago, embracing each other and what reassurances in the scramble for a post brexit trade deal can the minister gave me that we will not be doing the same and will be raising these cases at the highest levels of government and not ignoring the human rights? absolutely, the link while trade is absolutely vital for our economy and future prosperity, there's no way compromises the united kingdom's commitment to holding human rights at the core of our foreign policy. the amendment act and the violence would be concerning enough if it were a single isolated act but we all know that it is not. it comes on the heels of modi's government actions and relations and the implementation of the citizenship register. it begins to look there for like part of a course of conduct designed to marginalise the muslim population in india.

a conservative said many constituents had deep concerns about family and friends in india. if there is one silver lining in this dark cloud, it is what one said to me is that he and his family values even more than ever at the pluralism and safety across faiths that this country provides. richard graham. mps have given their final approval to moves to refuse parole for killers who won't reveal the location of their victim's body or abusers who haven't identifed children in indecent images. the bill follows several high—profile cases. vanessa george was jailed in 2009 for taking photographs of herself abusing children in her care at a plymouth nursery and swapping indecent images over the internet. the local mp spoke in the debate. vanessa george still shows no remorse for the crimes that she committed. no remorse in the fact that she still refuses to name the children that she abused. we do not know how many children at little ted's nursery she did abuse because she has not told anyone, we know how many children were there, and we have a good idea over which children might have been

exposed to her cruel and evil crimes. it is really important on behalf of the families i try to get as robust a bill as i possibly can here because the experience of those families, of not knowing and going to the nursery or being told in the first instance that their child, a baby or a toddler may have been abused, the image is shared with a network of paedophiles and the uncertainty of not knowing whether it was their child but also the crushing uncertainty of thinking that an image of their child being abused might still be on a paedophile‘s hard drive somewhere on some rotten corner of the dark web. that is something that is a demon that sits with these families for quite some time. the law has become known as helen's law after helen mccourt, who disappeared in merseyside in 1988. ian simms was convicted of her murder, but her body has never been found. simms was recently released from jail. a labour mp who represents helen's

mother marie praised her quiet, dignified and tenacious campaign. it is bittersweet because the murderer of her daughter has already been released but as i said at the second reading, it is testament to the character of hurt that her campaign continued despite the knowledge that that was likely to happen so other families would not to suffer. labour wanted to see a bigger overhaul of the rights of victims. the fact that parole board placed conditions on the release of a prisoner in my view does not go far enough and cannot address the willful refusal of non—disclosure of information. let's be clear, the bill does not extend the prisoner's sentence but makes it clear that nondisclosure must be a factor and accessing their fitness for a prisoner to be released and potential risk to the public. thejustice secretary paid tribute to all the affected families. i hope that they will be able to take some comfort from knowing that their dedication provides some hope for other families affected

by the cruel and heartless actions of those who refuse to disclose vital information. the justice secretary, robert buckland. some house builders have been accused of ripping off home buyers with dodgy sales techniques and increasing charges. the house of lords heard claims that, in some cases, couples were unable to sell their homes. the government has promised to change the leasehold laws. buying a leasehold property gives you the right to live in it, but you have to pay ground rent and other charges. last week, the competitions and markets authority — the cma — said it had found worrying evidence that people who bought leasehold homes in england and wales were being misled and taken advantage of. does the noble lady agree with me that some freeholders, property developers and service companies is scandalous? leaseholders ripped off with ever escalating ground rents, service charges, permission fees and frankly dodgy sales practices. effectively making tenants, homeowners, tenants in their own home.

will then noble lady go further and commit the government's firm action on outlawing all these practices and sign off the leaseholders immediately. urgent action needed now. my lords, the noble lord is correct and that these unfair practices have absolutely no place in the modern housing market. neither do excessive ground rents that exploit consumers like and nothing in return and that is why we are reforming the system so it is fairer for leaseholders. in december 2019 we announced we would move forward with legislation on leaseholder reform, reaffirming our commitment to making the system fairer leaseholders and that will include measures to ban the newly sold leaseholders houses, restrict ground rents, give equivalent rights to challenge unfair charges and close loopholes

to prevent unfair evictions. but opposition peers said ministers had ignored past warnings and victims couldn't wait any longerfor change. can she explained to them what happened to javid's promise to change the law before a summer 2018? that she accept that currently leaseholders rights continue to be sold to speculators with little government protection from doubling of ground rents to extortionate fees to correct issues such as dangerous cladding? i do agree with the noble lady that this has taken a long time in gestation for our legal legislation to come forward but we have done a number of things in the entrance since his report in the other place. i wonder if she would care to comment about persimmon homes, the average cost of the house they build is £250,000, on which they make a profit of £65,000.

and a large number of their homes have already been declared unsafe in relation to fire and other matters. and last year the chief executive received a bonus on top of his salary of £73 million. is that not absolutely outrageous? what is the government going to do about that? as my previous answer said, the competition and markets authority report updated their investigation into the extent of miss selling and will address this issue, maybe not the profit but the consequences of their past actions. there remains a problem doesn't it not those couples who have bought as it happens particularly in the north and midlands, who want to move home and find their property is totally unsellable. the noble lord who raised this was absolutely right and it will make noble friend have a closer look at that situation because we really cannot have a situation where young couples buy what they think is a home and then are stuck there and unable to move.

i agree with my noble friend and that is why we are working closely with the law commission, with the cma, to inform future legislation because this really has become a particular problem to the north of england. lady bloomfield. finally, let's return to the subject of coronavirus and one very eminent doctor in the lords was troubled by social interaction. it seems to me that simply not shaking hands is only part of the problem. it seems to be something that we should not be doing, it is very easy to do that. someone tried to kiss me twice today, and i did not mean in a way that my wife might be listening to this is concerned but also i think we have to realise that we should not be touching our nose, our mouth, our eyes, all of which are very likely to be possibly contaminated. that is very important, if you have to be in fact —— happen to be infected as well.

the minister, lord bethell, had this to say on the matter. feet noble lord is absolutely right about kissing. kissing is wonderful but potentially dangerous. laughter and he went on to say that the most important thing was not to touch your nose. apparently, we touch our noses between 70 and 100 times a day, and that's why you need to wash your hands, so that when you touch your nose, there's no risk. and that public health message brings me to the end of the programme. i'll be back again tomorrow, when it's prime minister's questions, of course. but for now, from me, mandy baker, goodbye. hello. we know, of course,

it was a very wet winter. now the met office says it was the uk's third least frosty winter on record. and we're going to start wednesday with a widespread frost. but there's more rain on the way as the weather fronts head in and particularly into parts of england and wales. so even where you start with some sunshine you're going to see cloud increasing and the chance of seeing some rain pushing north, but a lot of uncertainty about how far north that rain will get. may not see too much for northern ireland and northern england and much of scotland staying dry. this is how it looks temperature wise. first thing, that widespread frost. but notice we're not cold towards south—west england. that's because here4 we're starting the day with cloud and outbreaks of rain. and this very gradually spreads further north across the rest of southern england, wales, into the midlands during the day. but it's a slow process and you may not see too much rain towards northern england and northern ireland. though cloud will slowly increase and you may get a few showers starting to break out. showers, too, for western scotland,

whereas to the east it's mainly dry. you have a bit of sunshine as well. it will feel a bit cooler. the chance of seeing a bit of hill snow into snowdonia, perhaps the peak district, especially as this begins to pull away on a wednesday night. and then skies will clear — northern ireland, scotland, northern england, in particular, for a chance of frost again going into thursday morning. so for some of us it will be a cold start on thursday, but the frost isn't as widespread as elsewhere, temperatures hold up underneath cloud. and then the potential on thursday for seeing some soaking rain into the channel islands, perhaps also southern counties of england, with quite strong winds as well. though there's a lot to play for in how far north any rain here will get on thursday. so watch this space. showers into north—west scotland, wintry on hills, elsewhere a fair amount of dry weather on thursday. and then into friday we're going tojust to bring a weak weather system east across the uk, just pick out some thicker cloud here and the chance for seeing some patchy rain and perhaps some hill

snow out of that. not amounting to too much. and it's fairly quiet at the moment on friday. but, unfortunately, that is not going to last. because we have a stronger weather system, a deeper area of low pressure heading our way into the weekend. here it is. and that means the weather at the weekend will get windier again and this weather front will take rain southwards on saturday. the further south you are you may not see too much rain during daylight hours. and then on sunday, once this weather system begins to pull away, it's sunshine and blustery showers. that's your latest forecast.

hello, and a very warm welcome to this bbc news special. a good start to super tuesday forjoe biden, the former vice president has a strong showing in the southern states, predicted to win virginia, north carolina and alabama. senator bernie sanders is still very much in the runnning with predicted wins in vermont and colorado. several other states are currently toss ups between the pair. it's been a disappointing night so farfor the billionaire michael bloomberg, who's rejecting calls to leave the race, in favour ofjoe biden. my my method is simple. i am running to beat donald trump.