research into vaccines and treatments for coronavirus — their statement says a common threat to humanity requires a concerted response. china and the united states did not take part. a0 countries and donors did join the online summit, hosted by the european union. 4.5 million italians have returned to work after two months in lockdown. people are also allowed to see relatives within their region as restrictions ease. for the second consecutive day, italy has recorded its lowest death toll since the lockdown began. dave greenfield — the keyboard player with the stranglers — has died at the age of 71 after testing positive for covid—19. statement on social media said he was in hospitalfor a heart condition but died from covid—19. he wrote many of the most successful songs of the berms. —— bands.

now on bbc news — monday in parliament hello again and welcome to monday in parliament. ministers under pressure over the lockdown, an mp demands a debate. about the ethics of trading lives tomorrow to save lives today. senior mps tell the big banks, we're watching you. i don't need to remind you the absolutely critical role that you now play in this crisis. and a challenge for the work and pensions secretary over welfare payments. does she think that the current universal credit allowance

ofjust under £5,000 per year for over 25s is enough to live a dignified life on. all that to come and more. but first: as the uk entered week six of lockdown, ministers have come under growing pressure from conservative mps over the economic impact of its stay home, protect the nhs, save lives message. the eerily silent streets of our major cities may be a key part of keeping us all safe but at what cost to our long term financial health and our sense of well being? a health minister said the regulations in england were appropriate and proportionate, but he acknowledged some concern over how they had been policed. as honourable members will be aware. guidance was given to police, they will continue to be updated and clarified. it is important that the police operate within the law and that is the law as it is set out in these regulations. and we all know the damage this virus is doing to our society

— we know these measures are needed to live with that damage, but we should not forget their impact. businesses shutting down overnight and not knowing businesses shutting down overnight and not knowing when they'll reopen. they cannot understand why they cannot see their friends any more. grandparents cut off from their families and miss out on their grandchildren growing up. everyone is facing their own challenges. the physical and mental toll is huge. some cross party agreement there but in the debate that followed tory mps queued up to highlight apparent flaws in the lockdown rules including advice to some older people to self—isolate. we have today, the healthiest, most active elderly generation of all time. it is a bit tragic if government threatened this by trying to extend a so—called lockdown for those most at risk based on age. why notjust give them the best advice and limit the risk for themselves.

there is no reason why my constituent, who is a keen cyclist, who wrote to me, age 70 in november, should not continue to keep cycling is 30 to 60 miles like he did before the lockdown was imposed. here in cumbria. we are deeply concerned about our tourism and hospitality industry. we had to shutdown completely, just to shutdown completely, just as we were gearing up for the high season. for the rest of cambria, hospitality and tourism is seasonal. they operate their trading year on something with a feast and famine basis. the coronavirus hit right at the end of the famine and there will be no feast. can i remind the minster that the economy is lives. it is our health service, it is our schools, it is our policing, it is our patrons, it is our roads, it is our mortgages, it is our workplace, and it is so many more things. in short, it is us.

we need to have a frank, open and honest debate about the ethics of treating lives tomorrow to save lives today. the chief medical officer has made it perfectly clear that there are people who are going to die of cancer, who otherwise would not have died of cancer because of this lockdown. it may well be after that debate that we do decide that this is a terrible trade we want to make, but we need to have that discussion both as a parliament and a country. i would urge them to have constructive conversations with the many uk governments over the next few weeks so that people across all nations can continue to respect the legislation

and their counterpart regulations in wales, scotland and northern ireland. crucially, and if the foreign nation approaches to mean anything meaningful, all government should have an equal voice and in detail in those decisions. 0thers questioned the way rules have been enforced. there've been very severe problems arising because the police have sought to enforce rules that are not actually in law. for example, the law in england does not specify that people may not drive to exercise and that there are people who have stayed at home because they need to drive a short distance from a place where they can exercise to when were they cannot, and people have been accused of not sweating adequately when cycling, and have been accused, when performing yoga, not exercising. these things are absurd and wrong and worrying to law—abiding people. there were warnings that loopholes in the regulations left some at the end of unfair and unsafe treatment. 0ne shocking example that i want to raise,

which is the plight of call centre staff, new research at a university shows the thousands of staff are working in centres or social distancing is not practised, it continues and colleagues have fallen ill from covid—19 with some being threatened that unless they go to work, they will lose theirjobs. they have tried to whistle—blow and told there is nothing that anyone can do. it is all too easy for us members of parliament, with a guaranteed high salary paid into our bank account every month, whether the economy does well or badly, to be a little too dismissive of the struggles going on for people who may be but they do not get their tips or their bonuses or their commissions and they may have lost theirjobs already, and many of them are living in fear that the company they work for will run out of cash and not be able to trade. sirjohn redwood. the work and pensions secretary has told the commons that following initial problems, the benefits system is standing up

well to the challenge of coronavirus, but several mps said their constituents were still facing difficulties. therese coffey began by setting out the task her department was facing. since 16 march to the end of april, we have received 1.8 million claims of universal credit, over 250,000 claims ofjobseeker‘s allowance and over 20,000 claims of support allowance. overall, this is six times the volume that we would typically experience and in one week, we had a tenfold increase. the claims appear to have stabilised about 20 to 25 per day which is double that of the standard week, pre—covid—19. 20 to 25,000 per day. labour recognised that universal credit or uc had been increased significantly, but... people on legacy benefits, jobseeker's allowance and support allowance are not seeing a corresponding increase in their benefits. over a hundred charities pointed out that this discriminates against disabled

people in particular. when will these benefits be upgraded? we have a system at a working tax credit system that is digital and far more straightforward and quick to change that. 0ur older systems, the legacy benefits systems, it would take quite some time and i'm talking about several months to get this to change. what is your assessment of what might've happened if we had not taken the tough decisions to modernise and streamline the welfare system when we were still operating under the highly complicated legacy system ? the reality is, and i'm told by senior officials, there's no way the historic legacy benefits system would have been in any way able to cope with the situation that we have had. the move to universal credit has been successful and we still want to make sure that it rolls out universally, but i think it is shown that it has absolutely stood the biggest test of all. the snp favoured a different approach to the benefits system. circumstances have been made more

difficult by the decisions of the uk government. by introducing schemes instead of a far simpler universal basic payment and universal basic income, millions have been forced onto a still and average universal credit. in terms of universal basic income, there is a variety of analysis on there. i think the latest report i saw said it would cost over £400 billion a year. it is not targeted at the poorest in society. i think it is not an appropriate way for us to try and distribute money. does she think that the current universal credit allowance of just under £5,000 per year for the over 255 is enough to live a dignified life on? in terms of the figure that she quotes, that is solely the standard allowance, mr speaker. there are other elements of universal credit for which people may be entitled to. whether they have children,

whether they have housing costs, so to ease the rolling up of benefits, she only focuses on one, that equates currently to about £95 per week and i think £91; per week and i think that is a reasonable assumption regardless of all of the other costs. last week i was contacted by a constituent who has a heart condition. they are also immobile because of a problem with the spine and they had a liver transplant he applied in october in 2019 and still has not had a reply. when i contacted the dwp, i was told because of covid—19, there would be delays in responding to me. as i said, this application was from october and now i am sure the minster agrees that this is unacceptable. what is she going to do to ensure that benefits are processed at a reasonable time? ido want i do want to make sure that we are not ignoring situations. new claims being processed and i accept that there may be people that we need to be following up on and for my

honourable friend to do that on her behalf. therese coffey. you're watching monday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come how will government plans to get us back to work keep us safe? a new business lending scheme known as bounce back has been launched. under this scheme, the government will guarantee 100% of the loan. the banks told mps on the treasury committee that demand had already been huge. and they conceded that there had been problems with the existing coronavirus business interruption loan scheme or cbils. there's been i think it is fair to say particular criticism leveled at lloyd's in terms of the loan finance out of the door in relation to the small business lending market.

there was a quoting in fact in the times and which you may have seen in much of the member of lloyd's staff was recorded saying quite a high proportion, do not actually qualify against the criteria that the government set out and that is a massive help. could you explain what you thought that person meant when they made that statement? good morning mr chairman and thank you. so i do not understand that statement at all. that's not the way i would characterize it at all. we are doing our absolute level best to help customers up and down the country, and huge credit to our colleagues, as they said, working themselves every day to try to help so i regret that quote and not what i reckon at all and certainly not true that there are large portions of customers who are not qualifying for the scheme.

and if i may give you some numbers, we have done over 4,500 loans totalling 6.5 million pounds which has increased. we had a slow start. another committee member raised complaints she'd received about cbils under which government backs 80% of the loan. clearly there is frustration out there that the pace of lending, certainly under the civil scheme, has not been as rapid as we would have liked and as a constituent mp i have had heaps of companies on to me who had been declined when they thought that was unreasonable and we have actually successfully challenged some of those. so i think we are all looking at the bounce back scheme as an easy and efficient way to get the cash out there to small businesses. we launched this morning at 9am and we had 200 applications in the first minute of going live.

the process to get access to the money is super simple and designed over the last course of ten days, so within minutes all 200 of those applications were fully improved and we expect cash to be at those clients and the next 2a hours. since then we have seen applications at a rate of 35 minutes a session. the first scheme was based on an existing lending system a decision which perplexed a labour committee member. surely it would not have taken a genius to work out that was going to be quite cumbersome. were there not discussions about that at the beginning? when this approach was being designed with the treasury? there were. treasury and government generally were very engaged with industry in those days and i think it was a case... nobody pointed out this was a cumbersome scheme and requiring banks to consider

their own commercial lending first would actually make it really slow. that was the way the efg worked before, so it was not unusual as a precedent. we had to do efg under normal commercial terms before we made request for the scheme and of course with hindsight i think we could have either started with the government being the lender of first resort, and absolutely we would all the knowledge that. to the credit of the government, we got there quite quickly and now maybe we should've got there at that earlier and i recognise that. closing the session, mel stride had a message for the banking executives. when we are through the end of this extraordinary dreadful crisis and the story is written the banks will be right at the centre of that story in terms of how well the economy coped and how we all got through this and so i do not need to remind you the absolute critical role you now play in this crisis.

and he said the committee would be looking closely at the performance of each bank in getting money out of the door and to struggling businesses. the government's plans to get people back to work have raised "urgent concerns" over safety, according to union leaders. ministers have consulted on proposals, with the prime minister promising to reveal a "road map" out of lockdown on sunday. the bbc has seen one out of seven draft plans which urges employers to minimise numbers using equipment, stagger shift times and maximise home working. in the commons at question time, ministers were repeatedly pressed over the need to keep people safe in the workplace. we share the desire for returning to work as soon as it is safe to do so, and want want to ask two specific questions. he will know firms with more than five employees are obliged by law to carry out risk assessments on safety, does he plan to give confidence to workers by publishing these risk assessments and secondly,

on enforcement of safe working, the hse is operating on substantially reduced resources, can i ask the secretary of state will do to ensure the guidelines are enforced so all workers can feel safe? we both agree we want workers to feel safe when they return to a safe work place. there's work going on in relation to the consultation, i don't want to pre—empt that, but he makes important points and he's welcome to write to me and i will look at that very carefully. on the hospitality sector, which he knows is facing challenging times, can i urge him to look favourably at a proposal that has a support of 80 of his own backbenchers to increase business support grants are £180,000 rateable value, making a difference to tens of thousands of pubs, restaurants and other businesses that are the lifeblood of our communities. we have provided support

and there is 100% holiday for the businesses in that sector and we are making £25,000 grants available to them and i can say in the grant scheme, the 25,000, £10,000 grants as of last monday, £7.5 billion have been paid out and we welcome that. with regards to wider measures he talks about we of course keep everything under review and i will look at anything that comes forward. 0ther mps were divided on the moves to get people working again. the proposals talk about what they expect employers to continue and say social distancing and hand washing should happen where possible to help, with insufficient attention being paid to ppe. taking the necessary steps to protect employees is not a matter of expectation all of guidance, it is the law, so will the minister confirm that covid—19 risk assessments will be mandatory for most businesses? we are engaged with businesses, business

representatives, organisations and unions to come to a shared view on how to make our places as safe as possible for when people return to work, and i can assure you we are also involving public health england and the health and safety executive. the best way to help there nurses to let them do business, not subsidise them to close. i know we have to help vulnerable people, but it's not going to help the vulnerable in the long—term if we crashed the economy, so long—term if we crashed the economy, so is the government working full pelt... obviously consistent with proper social distancing to get people back to work? my people back to work? my right honourable friend is quite right, we want to focus on getting business back to work, but these lockdown measures were introduced to protect lives. relaxing the measures, we feel too much, would risk damage to public health, our economy and all the sacrifices that we've all made. as my right honourable friend the secretary of state for education said last week, it's incredibly important we create environments that are safe to work

and learn in. we will adjust lockdown measures when the scientific advice indicates it is to do so. as the government looks to announce plans to ease some of our lockdown restrictions, how many facemasks suitable for wearing by the public are currently available and what work is being done with health experts to ensure the face coverings people are using are sufficient quality to stop the virus from spreading? it's important to recognise, the wearing of these face coverings afford no protection to the individual, but properly worn, they can bea individual, but properly worn, they can be a contribution to making sure that others are protected from the aerosols, the droplets, and all of us aerosols, the droplets, and all of us might cough or knees and be responsible for producing, and my right honourable friend lord agnew and lord dayton are working together to ensure we can increase domestic production of such face coverings. local councils in england who have speculated on property deals and are now facing a financial crisis in the pandemic may not be

fully bailed out by central government. mps on the communities and local government committee questioned the secretary of state, robertjenrick, about the the extra pressures faced by councils thanks to covid—19. he said he recognised that the nature of the lockdown was hitting councils' income. there are those councils who are losing income in the normal course of business, and that would be car parks and leisure centres and so on. there are some other councils who have very significant exposure to commercial investments, and there are some which i think are perfectly understandable, and there are some which are perhaps unwise investments to have made in the first place. and for the unwise investments, you know, i've long argued against councils establishing very large commercial portfolios, for example, using borrowing from the public works loan board. for those, i think we're going to have to work with councils and think about what the most appropriate response would the.

22 some councils have invested in property such as shopping centres outside their own area which have fallen in value during the pandemic. robertjenrick said he'd always been against tt councils using public money to invest in big property deals outside their own area. he said it was important to differentiate between councils which backed local development and... the small minority of councils who have chosen to get income through much riskier assets. 2 and there we will have to think carefully about what the right response is from government that doesn't create a moral hazard, and would prove unfair to those councils who have managed theirfinances responsibly. there have been reports that some councils reckon they're facing bankruptcy despite the extra money central government has put in. you said you're not aware of any authorities, but there are authorities, but there are authorities, such as windsor and maidenhead, windsor city council and others that are putting their hands up others that are putting their hands up and saying we're going to have to

make some really tough decisions here. how are you monitoring that and making sure those authorities don't fall into that position? well, we do monitor the finances of every council in the country. my officials have good relationships with council chief executives and treasurers, and if there are councils who are very concerned about their finances, then they should contact their regular point of contact at the department and raise those concerns, and we'll work with them. robertjenrick. now, the legal system, along with the rest of the country, came to a near halt with the lockdown, and mps on thejustice committee have been hearing about the implications of that. including a growing backlog of cases, and a devastating financial crisis for the legal profession. a bar council survey found that many barristers faced ruin. the results are frankly shocking.

56% of all barristers cannot survive six months in practice. that takes us from the date of the survey to 0ctober us from the date of the survey to october of this year. 69% of publicly—funded barristers can't survive six months, and almost 75% of young barristers, that's those in practice for less than seven years, will not survive six months. the mps heard evidence of a backlog of cases a justice minister suggested the government was looking at raising the retirement age forjudges and magistrates so more would be available to tackle delayed cases. we in thejudiciary we in the judiciary are seeking to prioritise the cases which are most important and urgently need to be heard, so, for example, domestic violence protection orders are all being heard because they are so important. of course, all overnight custody cases are being heard. anything that is of a really

pressing nature to the public or justice system is being put right to the front of the queue. what reassurance can i have that historic right to a jury trial in front of one's peers, that's in public, is going to be kept and that there will be no erosion to that historic right? there is categorically no question at all under any circumstances of the right tojury trial being under any circumstances of the right to jury trial being removed. under any circumstances of the right tojury trial being removed. there isa tojury trial being removed. there is a fundamental right that goes back centuries in our history, and it will never be removed at all. and chris philp said ministers were looking at reducing the minimum size of a jury from nine to seven. well, that was monday in parliament. thank you for watching. i hope you canjoin me at the same time tomorrow for tuesday in parliament. bye for now.

hello there. the highest temperature on monday was 20 celsius, that was in west wales. today it's going to be cooler across the board. but as the week goes on, so temperatures will rise once again, peaking on friday in the sunshine. for many parts of the country, our weather is dominated by that area of high pressure, keeping it dry and clear. the fly in the ointment, and it's a big fly, is this weatherfront here, bringing in wet and windy weather into the south—west. through the early hours, and as we head into tuesday morning, it's a wet start in the south—west of england, some heavier rain, strong and gusty easterly winds across devon and cornwall, the isles of scilly on the south—west of wales. gusts of 50, even 55mph. those winds will ease down later on in the morning and through theafternoon, but the rain will edge eastwards along the south coast of sussex, northwards into south wales and become lighter and more patchy in the afternoon. elsewhere, it's likely to be dry with lots of sunshine

around. a bit of a keen breeze to start with across england and wales, perhaps northern ireland. the winds will ease down and the highest temperatures will be across western scotland and north—west england, but cool underneath the rain in the south—west, only 12 degrees here. the rain continues to peter out during the evening. the cloud a little more reluctant to break up overnight, and there will be some cloud spilling its way around the top of the area of high pressure into shetland and 0rkney. but where we have the clearer skies in eastern scotland and the north—east of england there could be a pinch of frost in some rural areas once again. that cooler air will be pushed away by the gentle, southerly breeze which will bring the warmth up from the south—west and temperatures will rise. by the time we get into wednesday, most places will be dry with a good deal of sunshine. there's just the chance of a shower in the far south—west, and there will be more cloud coming in across the northern isles of scotland, so cooler here. otherwise, a warmer day on wednesday. those temperatures getting up to 20 or even 21 celsius in the sunshine.

and those temperatures continue to rise for many areas during thursday and friday. there'll be a bit more cloud for scotland and northern ireland, maybe a few more showers. for england and wales, probably dry and in the sunshine in the south—east, temperatures could reach 25 degrees on friday. what a shock to the system for this weekend — the wind changes to northerly and strengthens and draws down cold air, unusually cold air for the time of year. cold enough even for some wintry showers.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm mike embley. $8 billion to help find a vaccine — world leaders club together on a coronavirus e—conference. the divide deepens in us—china relations as president trump continues to blame beijing for the outbreak. loved ones meet for the first time in weeks as italy tentatively lifts its social restrictions. tributes are paid to dave greenfield of the stranglers who's died from covid—19 at the age of 71.