related to covid—19 than any other country in europe. it's overtaken italy's total of more than 29,000. the death rate related to the virus in care homes in england and wales is still rising, it's now near 6,000. only the united states has lost more lives to the pandemic. one of the british government's senior scientific advisers has resigned, he's admitted breaking social distancing rules that he helped setup. professor neil ferguson's advice led to the prime minister implementing a uk lockdown, at the end of march. he's said he made an error ofjudgement. president trump has confirmed he plans to wind down the coronavirus task force, within weeks, even though the american death toll has now passed 70,000, and a draft government report suggests it could reach 3,000 a day, next month. that's more than double the current rate. mr trump has admitted lifting lockdown restrictions will probably mean the virus kills more people.

it is 2:30am, you are up to date on all the latest news headline. now on bbc news, it's tuesday in parliament. hello again and welcome to tuesday in parliament. as ministers come under pressure over their handling of the pandemic... front—line workers like me have had to watch families break into pieces as we deliver the very worst of news to them. the health secretary admits more needs to be done. the number of deaths in care home is slightly lower but still far too high and there is a huge amount of work still to do. and had enough of home schooling? the education secretary promises a phased approach to re—opening english schools. we will always aim to give our schools, parents and of course

critically importantly, children, the maximum amount of notice as to when this is going to happen. but first, the government says that 29,427 people have now died in the uk after testing positive for covid—19. the figure is higher than italy's, although the uk has a bigger population and our largest city is three times the size of italy's. separately, new data shows that almost a quarter of all deaths before april 2a were in care homes. england's health secretary told mps the number of deaths in care homes was still "far too high" and there was a huge amount of work still to do. matt hancock spent a total 90 minutes answering mps‘ questions. he was put on the spot by a labour mp who has been working as a doctor in a&e. front—line workers like me have had to watch families break into pieces as we deliver the very worst of news to them.

that the ones they love most in this world have died. the testing strategy has been nonexistent. community testing was scrapped, mass testing was slow to roll—out and testing figures are now being manipulated. does the secretary of state commit to a minimum of 100,000 tests each day going forward and does the secretary of state acknowledge that many front—line workers feel that the government's lack of testing has cost lives and is responsible for many families being unnecessarily torn apart in grief? no, i don't mr speaker. i welcome the honourable lady to her post as part of the shadow health team. i think she might do well to take a leaf out of the shadow secretary's

book in terms of tone. i am afraid what she said is not true and there has been a rapid acceleration of testing over the last three months in this country including getting to 100,000 tests a day. we have been entirely transparent on the way that has been measured throughout and i have confidence that the rate will continue to rise, currently capacity is 108,000 a day and we are working to build that higher. after that "routine" question time, he faced an urgent question from his labour shadow about the pandemic. can i say to the secretary of state that clapping and campaigns for medals are appreciated but does he agree that nhs and care workers deserve fair pay and access to mental health support? we are tracking to having one of the worst death rates in the world. we have seen the figures again today. i know he said we are through the peak but could the same be said of the care sector given the number of deaths we have seen

in the care sector today? of course it is incredibly important to protect those who live in social care and receive social care in theirown home. i am glad that in the number is released this morning, the data released, the number of deaths in care homes is slightly lower and it is still too high and there is still a huge amount of work still to do. some mps tried to clear up confusion over what the lockdown meant for some groups of people. my inbox has been packed for days with questions from over a 70—year—olds saying they simply do not understand what the government advice is. should it be that none of them ever no matter what their circumstances leave the house for 12 weeks, when did the 12 weeks began and when will it end? or will there be another 12 weeks?

it is very clear that there are three groups of people, if you have received a letter from the nhs saying you must shield for 12 weeks and you're in that category and if you have not then you are not. and i that there has been some media reports that have stated otherwise but i would really implore people to follow the guidance clearly set out on the nhs website. many of my constituents had their treatment deferred and are keen to resume it but are nervous about going to hospital in case they catch coronavirus, can he assure them that their treatment when it resumes will be safe to go to hospital? the message i get to my honourable friend's constituents is if you are advised by your doctor to go to hospital then you should go to hospital because they will have taken into account all of the different risks and decided that is the best advice to give so if you are asked to go to hospital by a clinician please do go.

0n the day a new mobile phone app was launched on the isle of wight as part of a test, track and trace system designed to keep infection rates down, matt hancock tried to re—assure sceptical mps. so what data protections will be put in place to ensure the public are confident that this tool will be secure and that data cannot be misused? we can have confidence not the least because the data is held on your own phone and until you need to contact the nhs when naturally of course you need to tell the nhs your identity in order to be tested. and so in that sense, there are privacy is thereby designed. there is a wider point though where the app and the test, track and trace system will help keep people safe. as i said yesterday when launching the pilot in the isle of wight,

download the app to protect the nhs and save lives. it is on the isle of wight, the civic duty to do so and across the country it will be your civic duty to do so. matt hancock. before facing mps, the health secretary and the government was given a warning from the speaker. it has been widely reported that the government will make a major announcement about review of lock down this sunday. i consider this a matter of regret, it is important that the press is kept informed but it is the duty of this house to account, not the media. major government announcement should be made first in the house and assist more important than ever during this time of crisis. sir lindsay hoyle firing a shot across the prime minister's bows ahead of borisjohnson‘s expected statement to the nation on sunday. now, the uk government's chief scientific adviser has told mps on the health committee that it would have been "beneficial" to have ramped up covid—19 testing quicker.

the uk moved away from community tests and contact tracing on 12 march, before the health secretary announced in april the target of 100,000 tests a day. but sir patrick vallance said testing alone would not control the virus. very important thing going forward is having very good surveillance systems to be able to pick up risk early. nothing is going to be risk free. everything as we go back to rest social distancing will carry a risk of their being an outbreak somewhere or a few more cases or in worst case scenarios, we need a very effective surveillance system to pick it up. it is essential to know where the buyer in the mifi rest is if we are going to track it. —— where the virus is. do you think it is right to stop community testing on the 12th

of march rather than ramping it up like we decided to do an april? if we had unlimited capacity and ongoing support beyond that, perhaps we would choose a slightly different approach but with resources we had and i mean that in a broad sense because many of the specialists and expertise you need to carry out additional contact tracing will also be supporting the other changes that have been very successful, for example ramping up nhs capacities. testing, she said, had continued, but it had been a question of resources. there is a balance point in this with resources you have available and i use that in its broadest sense, it is a specialist follow through testing. you need to prioritise that and i think at the time that we did that, we had to balance our resources across testing and other areas.

in the early phases and i have said this before, if we manage to ramp testing capacity quicker it would have been beneficial. and for all sorts of reasons that did not happen. i think it is clear that you need lots of testing for this. but to echo what jamie harrison has said, it is completely wrong to think of testing as the answer. it is just part of the system we need to get right. the entire system needs to work properly and you need to have something to contact trace and isolation. and what about advice on the use of face masks or coverings? if you were in a supermarket that was full, everyone is social distancing at two metres apart and there were people in there perhaps coughing or perhaps not even showing that they have

coronavirus, would you feel more comfortable in a queue if everyone was wearing a mask versus everyone that wasn't? sir patrick said no one with a cough should be in the supermarket. where masks may have a role is where situations where distancing is not possible so there may be cases where that is not possible. where there may be undue crowding but ideally there should not be crowding, then there may be times where wearing masks can therefore be beneficial to stop the spread. it is important that those coverings are worn properly to cover the nose and mouth and it is important people do not handle their face a lot because there is a much higher risk in terms of transmission from hand to face and touching things. still a rather boring but important thing, washing hands remains absolutely critical in this. facemasks may have a relative decrease transmissions

as some have described. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come: is it time to pension off older members of the house of lords? the education secretary, gavin williamson, has emphasised that schools in england will not open until scientific and medical advisers judge that it is safe. his new labour shadow, rebecca long—bailey — making her first appearance at the despatch box in the role — pressed her opposite number on the issue. last week, it was reported the government was looking at best practice in other countries. this weekend, it was reported that the government would reopen schools for year six pupils on the 1st ofjune. and last night, it was reported that there were discussions in government about giving schools and multi—academy trusts the flexibility to decide for themselves, amid concerns that ministers were coming under pressure to help kick—start the economy. i'm sure the secretary will want to reassure parents, pupils and staff that their safety

is the government's number one priority, so will he clarify on what basis the government is making decisions in relation to school and college opening? and when will he make the scientific advice to putting his strategy publicly available? we will take a phased approach in terms of reopening schools and we will always aim to give schools, parents and, of course, critically importantly, children the maximum amount of notice in terms of when this is going to happen. nearly a million pupils in english schools are in classes of 31 or more, an increase of 28% since 2010, so there's understandable concern that social distancing will be difficult in schools. everyone wants to see a return to vital education, to support pupils and to stop the ever—widening attainment gap, but does the secretary agree with me that, first, we need to see a national plan for social distancing and personal protective equipment, evidence of a sustained downward trend in cases, comprehensive access to testing for staff and pupils, a whole school strategy for when cases emerge and protection

for the vulnerable? because in the words of the national education union, anything else will be a dereliction of duty from government. i think the honourable lady would very much appreciate the fact that i take my responsibilities to the safety and the health of children who attend school is the absolute principle motivation for everything i do, as those who work in schools, and i'm always welcome to have constructive dialogue with her. that's why we've made every effort to do so, in terms of how best we can support children to be in schools. and let's not forget. the overwhelming majority of schools — over three—quarters of schools — are currently operating in a safe, considered and proper way, supporting the children of critical workers as well as those children who are most vulnerable in society.

gavin williamson. the government's been urged to tell airlines to speed up refunds to customers who've lost out on flights because of coronavirus, with one peer accusing firms of acting fraudulently. the demand came as virgin atlantic announced plans to cut more than 3,000 jobs and end its operation at gatwick airport due to the slump in demand. lord blencathra had a blunt message to airlines and travel providers. sitting on £7 billion of customers‘ money and inventing scams like telling people to claim online or by telephone and then not answering those calls is a breach of the 2018 regulations, which require a full refund within14 days, and they must do that. but will they also stop their pyramid selling of phantom flights which will never happen, taking customers‘ money and then not refunding them? is this just not fraudulent? the minister said customers who asked for refunds should get them, but the government also

recognised the enormous demands on businesses. they've got very large volumes of such requests. and on the other side of that, they may not have availability of staff, who may be furloughed, and they have capacity constraints from social distancing. so the regulators are working very, very closely with the industry to find out what the problems are, to ensure that customers get their money back. the government and the civil aviation authority should not, though, allow clear statutes to rise to be ignored by some parts of the industry. i come back to the point made by lord blencathra. when are the government and the caa going to actually act to protect consumers' rights — consumers whose financial position may now well be critical — as opposed to simply talking about doing it? what support is the government minded to lend to the airlines at this crucial time? and what discussions is she and the department having with our international partners to enable flights to take off at some point this year?

there is in aviation restart and recovery team which has been set up specifically at dft to work with the aviation industry that understand all the challenges that they will have in terms of getting our planes back in the skies and making sure people can once again travel. now, for a question we're all asking — what will life be like post—lockdown? at stormont, the infrastructure minister, the sdlp‘s nichola mallon, told mlas of her plans to help give people the confidence to return to towns and cities — for leisure orfor work. i am very aware that this health emergency has forever changed the ways in which we live and work. and it is difficult to ascertain the impact that this will have on how we use these spaces in the future. however, in the darkness of this pandemic, we are being presented with an opportunity to reimagine these places, and it is one that i believe we should seize. in order to give a real focus to a green recovery,

where we will embed more active ways of travelling in the very heart of our overall transport policy, i am delighted to announce today that i am creating a walking and cycling champion within my department. 0ur champion will ensure that we deliver our commitment to increase the percentage of journeys made by walking and cycling, inspiring our communities, restructuring our spaces, changing forever the way we live and changing it for the better. and from one champion to some more. senior officials from the world of sport have been talking about how the coronavirus outbreak has affected their finances. it's almost two months since the football season was suspended and the officials painted a gloomy picture when they took part in a virtual evidence session before mps on the digital, culture, media and sport committee. worst case scenario. after, say, the next 12 months, as we come out of this covid—19 situation, how many football clubs in the efl could we lose as a result, worst case scenario?

it's a very difficult question to answer. clearly, our objective is to try and make sure that we lose none. our aim is to emerge stronger, leaner, more efficient to have a proper reset post—covid. we are heading for a financial hole of about £200 million by the end of september, a cash hole which we will need to fill, and clubs are stacking up creditors as well. we have a great deal of uncertainty around next season, of course — the great undetermined matter being when we're going to return to playing in front of crowds, which for the efl is absolutely critical. we're much more dependent on revenue, and indeed we're much more dependent upon the atmosphere generated by crowds, potentially, than the premier league. what discussions have you had with the premier league about promotion and relegation?

0ur conversations have been very straightforward. we expect three clubs to be promoted. the premier league is aware of our position on that. in all of the conversations that we've had with the premier league, i think their position is they expect three clubs to be relegated. what would happen if they changed their mind on that? well, i think you can expect the lawyers are going to get wealthy if that happens. there will be a degree of outrage, varying degree of outrage, from a number of our clubs in the championship. it would be a breach of the tripartite agreement between us, the premier league and the football association. i suspect the football association would have a position on it as well, so i think the safe answer that is it would get very messy because our expectation is that there will be three clubs promoted from the championship. cricket is also facing a shortfall.

we've already stated there will be no professional cricket in this country before july 1. that is the earliest possible date that we're even planning towards. and we're obviously... we're not planning on playing a test match on the 1st ofjuly, but there are some significant lead times in terms of getting players fit and ready, of getting venues and pitches ready, which are... and the process of assessing which venues in our country are best suited to deliver behind—closed—doors cricket in line with the government guidelines, as and when they are agreed. all of those questions need to be answered. but if i tell you that a fast bowler, for example, will need between six and seven weeks from now — having been in lockdown, at home for a period of time — it's six or seven weeks before that bowler is fit and ready to take the field in an international match. so that's just

the training elements. 0bviously, you've got all the logistical elements, including bringing overseas teams over and providing the same level of preparation for overseas teams. it's a very complex scenario — but with the following wind, we hopefully will be able to play a significant number of test matches this summer, which will help us mitigate those financial losses that we're facing at the moment. and it could take rugby yea rs to recover. we'll have a reduction in revenue of 15 million through to the end of our financial year this year, which ends injune, and we're looking at three potential scenarios through to the end of our next financial year in ‘21. if the autumn internationals go ahead in november, which are key for us — they're a major revenue generator, but we're assuming certain declines in spectator attendance. but if the autumn internationals go ahead, we'll still lose something like 32 million in revenue through to the end of next financial year.

if the internationals go ahead but behind closed doors, that will be a negative impact of 85 million. and if the games are cancelled entirely, that would be 107 million on top of the 15 we've already lost, so it's a very significant loss of revenue and we're doing what we can to mitigate it. uk sport is asking the government for more money to help prepare for the postponed tokyo 2020 olympics and paralympics. sport is effectively at a standstill. as much, we'd recognise. every athlete that would have right now been three months away from the biggest event of their lives is isolated individually at home, trying to do some training but not able to access the usual venues that they can. so, in a very different world. the sports that support them, we know, are already in some financial risk — and the longer the situation goes on will be greater risk going forward, and it means that the risks going to the actual games next year is increasing. as far as uk sport are concerned, our sort of funding runs out at the end of march 2021, which obviously leaves a few months

gap leading up to the olympic and paralympic games. and unless we know that's going to be filled, then the risks increase for everyone. dame katherine grainger. the government has flatly denied that it's considering excluding peers over the age of 65 from the house of lords. the idea was reported in the sunday times at the weekend. the house of lords currently has 811 members — with an average age of 70. the question was asked by a conservative peer who turned 65 at the end of last year. what has been done by the government to rebut the sunday times report that ministers are examining whether they could retire every member of this house over the age of 65 and that we are all told that there is no prospect of us doing ourjob? and will the government name the whitehall source responsible for this false and malicious briefing — and if not known, invite the cabinet secretary to investigate and, if identified by him, ensure that they are summarily dismissed?

replying for the government, lord true — 68 — was equally robust, describing the sunday times article as a "third rate story". there is no substance in this story. and i repeat that to the house. it is not the intention of the government to introduce such a policy. but he didn't answer lord forsyth‘s question about whether the source of the story would be found and fired. that's it for tuesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me at the same time tomorrow for wednesday in parliament, which will include question times from westminster, holyrood and cardiff bay. until then, bye for now. hello there. there's a real shock in store for this weekend but,

before we get there, it is getting warmer. it will turn very warm in many places. mind you, early wednesday morning, it's not going to feel very warm, maybe a pinch of frost in some rural parts in eastern areas, underneath the clearer skies and lighter winds. with the lighter winds, it will feel warmer in the sunshine on wednesday. and, for many of us, there will be a lot of that to come. one or two exceptions, a bit more cloud threatening one or two showers in the far southwest of england and wales. and there is more cloud coming in across the northern isles of scotland. but with later winds, it will feel warm in the sunshine. temperatures are likely to be higher on wednesday, probably peaking at around 19—20 degrees. now, during the evening and overnight, we will start to see more of this cloud running its way northwards, up through the irish sea and towards northern ireland, threatening a few more showers for these western parts of the uk. further east though, we will have clearer skies and light winds. again, another chilly but, because it's a bit warmer by day, it may not get quite as chilly by the end of the night and into thursday morning. we have still got high pressure in charge. it will shrink away towards the southeast,

and that is where we will see the heat for longer. further north and west, these weather fronts encroaching, threatening some showers and a bit more cloud. and we will certainly see more of that coming in on thursday across northern ireland, up into scotland — a few sharp showers here, and perhaps the chance of a shower across more western parts of england and wales. head further east though, a good chance it will stay dry. still a fair bit of sunshine around, and those temperatures are continuing to rise, up to 22—23 celsius. probably the peak of the warmth is going to be on friday, and that's for the southeast of the uk. it may be a bit more cloud across england and wales, northern ireland, maybe one or two showers breaking out as well. but we have got this band of rain across northern scotland, and, here, those temperatures are dropping away quite markedly. further south, where we will see those temperatures 211—25 degrees, a very warm day. that band of rain is on that weather front there, and that will be significant, because it's that that's going to sweep its way southwards during this weekend, and, behind it, a stronger northerly wind will push down much colder air

across all areas. now, on saturday, it will be cooler across the northern half of the uk, perhaps some rain. further south, still largely dry and warm, with some sunshine, but, even here, it gets much colder on sunday, with temperatures dropping as much as 10—11 degrees.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. my name is mike embley. the uk records the highest number of deaths linked to coronavirus of any european country. ministers claim it's too early to compare. one of the british government's senior scientific advisers stands down after breaking social distancing rules. president trump confirms the white house is planning to wind down its coronavirus task force despite the high number of cases in the us. and we meet the choir that comes together online to fight isolation and support each other.