of george floyd in minneapolis have now been formally charged. the officer who was kneeling on mr floyd's neck when he died has had his charges elevated to second—degree murder. mr floyd's family called the move a significant step. the government's insisted that a 14—day quarantine on people arriving in britain from monday is needed to prevent an upsurge in coronavirus cases. the new plans have been heavily criticised by mps on all sides, including senior conservatives, who are concerned about damage to the travel industry. police in germany and britain are appealing for information about a german national who has become the new focus of a long—running investigation into the disappearance of the british girl madeleine mccann in portugal 13 years ago. he's currently serving a prison sentence in germany on an unrelated matter. now on bbc news, wednesday in parliament.

hello and welcome to wednesday in parliament. on this programme: labour ha rdens its attack the government over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but boris johsnon reckons the country wants to see a united front. i really do not see the purpose of these endless attacks on public trust and confidence. i have supported the government openly and i have taking criticism for itm but he makes it difficult to support this government. government and oppositon mps want to know why the govenment is bringing in a quarantine for travellers to the uk now. these are not just a three—week fudge to spare the government embarrassment for failing to deal with this issue at the right times.

and tough questions for the head of the new covid—i9 test and trace service. you do not actually know how many tests come back within 2a hours and you are in charge of nhs test entries? test and trace. you as a curtain raiser for prime minister's questions, the labour leader had said that borisjohnson now needs to "get a grip" on the coronavirus pandemic. it's more full blooded political criticism that sir keir starmer has made so far during the crisis. and he continued his attack in the commons. the telegraph this morning is reporting that the prime minister decided to take direct control of the government's response to the virus. an obvious question for the prime minister, who has been in direct control up to now? i take full responsibility for everything this government has been doing in tackling coronavirus and i am very proud of our record. if you look at what we have achieved so far it is considerable. we have protected the nhs and we have driven down the death rate.

we are now seeing far fewer hospital admissions. what i think the country would like to hear from him is more signs of cooperation in that endeavour. mr speaker, he asked for a sign of cooperation, a fair challenge, i wrote to him in confidence two weeks ago to ask if i could help build a consensus for getting children back into our schools. i did it confidentially and privately because i didn't want to make a lot of it but he has not replied. i am surprised he took that and when i took the trouble to ring him up and we had a long conversation in which i briefed the right honourable gentleman about all the steps we were taking and he did not offer any dissent at that stage i may say. he thoroughly endorsed our approach and i believe he should continue

to endorse it today. mr speaker, he is confusing scrutiny for attacks. i have supported the government openly and taken criticism for it, but boy, he makes it difficult to support this government over the last two weeks. keir starmer moved on to the government's test and trace programme for england. two weeks ago today at the dispatch box the prime minister promised that we will have a test, track and trace operation that will be world beating and yes, it will be emplaced by the ist ofjune. but it is not. a critical element, a critical element, the ability of local authorities to respond to local spikes is missing. as one council leader put it to us, we are weeks away from having this fully up and running. i really do not see the purpose of these endless attacks on public trust and confidence when what we are trying to do, and i think what the public want to hear from politicians across all parties is clear messages about how to defeat this virus. tests and trace is a vital tool

in our armoury and contrary to what he says, actually we did by the end of may get up to 100,000 tests a day and we got up to 200,000 by the beginning of this month. can i congratulate the prime minister on his 200,000 daily capacity target for testing, which puts us up on top of the european league table for testing. the prime minister rightly said he wanted 24—hour turnaround for testing. could he tell us how many of the tests are currently being turned around in 2a hours and would he be willing to publish on a regular basis that number? we already do 90% of tests turned around within 48 hours. of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres as well as mobile test centres, they're all done within 24 hours. and i can undertake to him now to get all tests turned around in 24

hours by the end ofjune, except for difficulties in postal tests or more problems like that. the snp‘s westminster leader turned to the protests in the usa over the death of an unarmed african—american, george floyd, who died after being knelt on by a white police officer. there would be nothing short of hypocrisy if we were to turn a blind eye to events unfolding in the us. however, actions speak louder than words, and the prime minister can shake his head but the uk exports millions of pounds worth of riot control equipment to the us, including tear gas and rubber bullets. the prime minister must have seen how these weapons are used on american streets. with the government's own guidance warning against equipment being used in such way, will the prime minister urgently review such exports? as he knows, all exports are conducted in accordance with the consolidated guidance and the uk is possibly the most

scrupulous country in that respect in the world. now, regular viewers will remember on tuesday we brought you the pictures of mps queuing up to vote on how they vote. they were being asked to approve measures to end electronic voting, which had allowed them to vote remotely during the peak of the coronavirus. but in order to vote on that they had to form a giant, socially—distanced line dubbed by the opposition the ‘mogg conga', stretching from outside parliament, through westminster hall and eventually into the chamber. the government did win the day, abolishing remote voting, but more than 30 conservative mps rebelled, arguing those with health conditions or anyone shielding a family member would be discriminated against and disenfranchised if they couldn't continue to vote electronically. the labour leader challenged borisjohnson to think again. the scenes yesterday of mps queuing to vote and members being unable to vote were frankly shameful.

this should not be a political issue. members on all sides know this is completely unnecessary and unacceptable. if any other employer behaved like this, it would be a clear and obvious case of indirect discrimination under the equalities act. a clear and obvious case. so can i urge the prime minister to stop this and continue to allow online voting and the hybrid parliament to resume. i do not think it unreasonable that we ask parliamentarians to come back to this place and do theirjob for the people of this country. i know it is difficult and i apologise to colleagues for the inconvenience, and i apologise to all of those who have particular difficulties because they are shielded or elderly. it is vital that the change we are making today, they should be able to vote by proxy. borisjohnson with a concession for mps there, meaning those

who can't come to the commons will be able to nominate another mp to vote for them. later in the day, the announcement was welcomed by the former cabinet minister, karen bradley, who now chairs the commons procedure committee. but she said she did have concerns about the way it was announced and how it would work. she wondered if the speaker, sir lindsay hoyle, had been kept in the loop. what advance notice that he half of the prime minister's intention to make this announcement today? could he confirm that the current, present pilot scheme for proxy voting, and let's be clear, the proxy voting scheme we are currently using for maternity and paternity leave is a pilot scheme. she said the pilot was due to end next month and was not at the moment suitable to be rolled out to dozens of mps. and she hoped the speaker would not agree to any system which forced mps

to reveal private information about their health in order to take part. the right move at the wrong time. that was the verdict of several conservative and labour mps on new quarantine rules for travellers. from monday, most people entering the uk will have to self—isolate for fourteen days. the home secretary priti patel said that with coronavirus passing the peak, the changes were necessary to protect the british public. these measures are backed by science and supported by the public and are essential to save lives. we know they will present difficulties for the tourism industry but that is why we have an unprecedented package of support, the most comprehensive in the world, for employees and business. we will all suffer in the long run if we get this wrong, and that is why it is crucial we introduce these measures now. let us not throw away the ha rd—won progress in tackling this virus. we owe it to the thousands of people who died and also to the millions of people across the whole of the united kingdom he sacrifice

over the previous months in the form of social distancing have together brought this virus under control. labour wondered why quarantine rules weren't introduced at the start of the outbreak. there has to be reassurance, the quarantine has a genuine public health benefit now, that according to the government, it did not have in past months. and that these measures are not just a three week fudge to try to spare the government embarrassment of failing to grip this issue at the right time. there has been widespread concern that the uk has been out of step with most of rare countries that introduce public health measures at their borders far earlier in the pandemic. the best way for her to address the failure to introduce any measures to date, and also the effectiveness of the measures she now proposes, is to publish the evidence and advice upon which she has relied.

several conservatives had doubts about the proposals. if i'm honest, i think many people will think this is the right move at the wrong time. we keep being told to use common sense but the idea was wrong when we were in the centre of a pandemic and right now, it does not add up to me but maybe that isjust me. i cannot get my head around the public health mental gymnastics of this policy. if such a barrier was required, why wasn't it introduced earlier in the outbreak and if it is a contingency measure against the so—called second wave, why apply to countries with a lower infection rate than we already have? a labour mp accused the home secretary of putting up a massive "britain is closed sign". at the very least, will she demand from the chancellor of the exchequer that he extends the furlough scheme to hundreds of thousands of workers being thrown on the dole in the next few weeks?

i did find the right honourable gentleman's town objectionable. i have been supportive of the aviation industry and i can hear sarcastic cries of "tough". it is important to reflect the way in which the aviation industry is dynamic to our economy and i am not shutting it down. on the contrary, i am working with my right honourable friend the transport secretary, business secretary and all colleagues across government. these are ci’oss government measures which i will restate to all members of this house when it comes to protecting the public health of our nation. while the aviation industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, several mps say airlines, such as british airways, are using it as a justification to implement longstanding plans to make staff redundant. british airways which has benefited from covid—i9 to taxpayer support has issued redundancy notices to its entire 42,000—strong workforce, and shamelessly intends to make 12,000 redundant and rehire the remainder on much

worse contracts. so british airways has taken hundreds of millions of pounds of government money intended to protect workers‘ jobs. in the words of the many british airways employees in my leicester east constituency, who are fearing for their futures, this is immoral, opportunistic and greedy. the minister said she'd expect employers to treat employees fairly and in the spirit of partnership. the head of the nhs test and trace programme in england, dido harding, has rejected a request from mps for information about its performance. test and trace was launched on friday and aims to alert people who've been in contact with someone who's had a positive test for coronavirus. they're then required to stay at home for 14 days. the chair of the health and social care committee, wanted to know how the system was working.

since you've launched, what is the proportion of new covid cases that have been contacted by a clinician within 24 hours? dido harding explained the information needed to be accurate and validated but she didn't have that data now. it's an operational service that is touching hundreds of thousands of people. it is very new. it's important that we make sure that we share accurate data. i'm very happy to give a flavour of what we are learning over the first six days, but ijust don't have those statistics to a level that i think would pass the test of our uk statistics authority as we stand today. as we stand at the moment, over 90% of all tests come back to the individual within 48 hours. we know that one, yes. if you look at the different channels, so if you go to one of our drive—through centres, our regional test sites, or if you are testing... we know the majority of those are within 24 hours. what no—one wants to tell us is the overall proportion of tests

that come back within 24 hours. you must know that. thatjust can't be right. you're saying you don't actually know how many tests come back within 24 hours, and you are in charge of nhs test and trace? no, i have not had the data validated all. i have not have the data validated by the authority who has expressed concern over previous testing data, not having been validated. so will you write to us within a week with a validated date as to what proportion of tests are coming back within 24 hours. because the government... you are very willing to tell us that 90% of tests are within 48 hours, but no—one wants to tell us how many are within 24 hours, which is what we have just heard from professor fraiser is so important. so, will you write to us and tell us? again, i'm sorry to be boring, provided that the quality of the data is good enough, what i don't want to do is,

it's a service that is only six days old is launched with data that been... no, but we are saying within a week? provided that the quality of the data is good enough, that's all i'm saying. i'm fully expecting to be able to do that, but ijust don't want to give you false assurance. you're watching wednesday in parliament, with me, alicia mccarthy. three former chancellors have been telling the commons treasury committee what they'd do to tackle the economic hangover left by the pandemic. alistair darling, george osborne and philip hammond — who between them ran the treasury between 2008 and 2019 — gave their prescriptions for future taxes, creating jobs and supporting businesses — with little real disagreement. when we get to the happy day that we are recovering and on the path to recovery, my view is quite clear. yes, we are going to have very high deaths like we had at the end of second world war.

—— debts. but one of the things a government like ours can do — which we are a larger economy, and no one doubts our credit worthiness — you can actually carry that for some period. and what i've been very concerned about is we've got ourselves into a situation where — if you like — in the recovery stage you start clamping down on things prematurely and you stop the growth, whatever it is, and you drive the country back into a recession. if you want to stimulate the economy, the most obvious thing to do is to do a time—limited vat reduction. we did it ten years ago, i think the evidence is that it has some effect. i'm not sure about cutting income taxes. i don't think that's really going to make a difference between people going out to work longer or doing second jobs or anything like that. my guess is that in any scenario, because the declining amount that has been so dramatic over the last

few months, the first part of the recovery will look like a quite sharp v—shape, but the real question is, what does the last part of the recovery look like? there is a sense that if you want the protection of the state, you need to pay your taxes. either as an individual or as a company. you can talk as much as you like about taxing billionaires, taxing tech companies, all of those things, and it all adds up and helps, but the big money raisers are your income taxes, your national insurances, your vats, those big central taxes that the government relies on. and, you know, that is why there is speculation around our national insurance, so, you know, saying, you know, "we're just going to get the billionaires to pay for it" is a copout from the real question to both government and opposition to confront. i'd like to ask philip hammond

about the impact of coronavirus outbreak on the cost of the leaving the eu transition period without a deal. this is not the ideal environment to be trying to reach a long—term deal that will shape the relationship between the uk and its most important trading partner for decades to come, and if there was a way of doing something which is quick and dirty as it were, a simple arrangement, which may not suit either party as a long—term settlement, but which is an acceptable temporary stop gap, then that may be the best way forward. i think we will end up with something that is called a trade agreement by the end of the year but is actuallyjust an agreement to go on talking about this sector and that sector and whatever. so i'm more optimistic, i think, than a few people that we will avoid that cliff edge. i think a no—deal would be absolutely disastrous. you know, with everything we're

going through with covid—19, you'd have to be mad to want to end up in a situation where you erect huge trade barriers and tariffs just at the time when you are hoping your economy might be beginning to recover. now to holyrood where scotland's first minister was told that care homes are being "let down all over again" when it comes to testing for covid—19. the scottish conservative leader, jackson carlaw, reckoned if tests had been used "effectively", then every worker and resident would have been able to get checked twice in the last few weeks. i asked last week how many elderly people in hospital were sent to care homes before mandatory testing for covid—19 was introduced. yesterday, we finally got an answer, more than 1350 people. as we know, just over 1800 care home residents have tragically since died having caught the disease. today, i want to ask what this government is doing to prevent a repeat of this tragedy. can the first minister tell us how

many of scotland's 50,000 care home workers have now regularly been tested for covid—19 as promised two weeks ago by her health secretary? the programme of regular and routine care home staff testing is under way and when we have the robust and reliable figures to report from that, we will report that, that's the approach we have been taking to all of the data that we have been publishing. but the conservative leader said the policy had been dither and delay. the tragedy is this. scotland has the capacity to test. indeed, if you had used that capacity effectively since the end of april, you could've tested all the residents and staff at care homes twice. instead, capacity is being squandered and care home workers and residents who have already endured the horror of this crisis are being let down all over again. we will continue to take the careful and considered steps that we are taking. we will not shy away from the challenges that we face and the unprecedented situation we are dealing with.

scottish government will continue to take that careful cautious approach, making sure that, as we have done, build up our testing capacity but also, crucially, use testing in a way that is clinically driven and that is the responsibility i take seriously and will continue to do so. this week, not just care workers' trade unions but care home bosses have said that the government's focus is on generating headlines rather than delivering for workers on the front line. so, first minister, as we begin to ease the lockdown, what confidence can these workers have that your government will not just make more big announcements, but will actually deliver the real changes that we need to scotland's care services? without minimising the tragedy of what we are dealing with here, we see the number of deaths overall and the number of deaths in care homes declining now significantly, which says that the package of measures that we have implemented

and are delivering in care homes is having the effect that we want it to have. but she said care home bosses had a responsibility too to make sure care homes were safe. now, the education minister in wales has announced that schoolchildren are to return to their desks at the end of the monthjune the 29th to be exact. but that news came after first minister's questions, where the first minister was accused of causing confusion when he announced a relaxation of lockdown last week. under the change, people in wales can visit loved ones within a five—mile radius while socially distancing. the leader of the oppositon said that may have been welcomed by some, but had been met with "anger and frustration" by those in more remote areas. many of whom who felt the welsh government doesn't care about those who live in the more remote parts of the country, you said yourself that unfairness was inevitable. first minister, given that you are keen to tell us that your policies are based

on the latest scientific and medical advice available, where is the scientific and medical advice that you have received regarding this particular policy, and will you now put that scientific and medical advice in the public domain? there is no rule about five miles in wales. if there were a rule that would have been in the regulations. there is guidance, a rule of thumb for people in wales to understand what "local" might mean. do you think people are clear on the difference between those regulations, which may be legally binding, and your guidance, which is not? particularly when both have previously been described as rules. we have spoken before about the confusion engendered by your insistence on making welsh rules just a little bit different for the uk government rules applicable in england. further confusion is truly engendered by your constantly chopping and changing welsh rules. there is a very easy distinction

between regulations and guidance, and the government has never confused people. there are people who have sought to confuse people by saying the five mile limit is a rule, whereas i have always from the very beginning been very clear that it is a rule of thumb, it is guidance for people to interpret in their local geographies as to what local might mean for them. the welsh first minister, mark drakeford. and that's all from me for today but do join me at the same time tomorrow for our round—up of the week here at westminster. but until then from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye.

hello there, we are going to end this week on a very different note than we began the week certainly. we have lost our area of high pressure and low pressure starting to take control, it is going to bring windier, wetter, and cooler conditions and thursday looks like being another cool day, cooler than it was on wednesday in fact, and we will have some spells of rain at times too. our area of high pressure is continuing to retreat away westwards, low pressure is beginning to develop to our east and that is going to bring further spells of rain. northerly winds as well which is why it is going to feel on the cool side for the time of year. so, for thursday we start off on a grey note across the south—east with early rain. that should clear away and it'll turn dry for a time but we will have areas of showers or longer spells of rain moving down from the north — scotland, northern ireland — into northern england. it will turn breezy as well. windy across the far north of the country as temperatures range from 10—17 or 18 degrees in the south. so, much cooler than how we started the week off. through thursday night, it stays rather breezy, variable amounts of cloud, further showers or longer spells of rain at times and those temperatures falling to lows of around 5 to around 10—11 in the south.

now, as we head on into friday, we start to see our area of low pressure to the east of us developed further and it starts to push in towards our shores. you can see the isobars squeezing together indicating that the winds will turn stronger through the day on friday. so, it looks like being a blustery one with a bit of sunshine around. but there will also be plenty of showers, some of which will be heavy and thundery particularly across northern, central, and eastern areas. and then later in the day, an area of more persistent heavy rain starts to push into the north of scotland. here, it will really feel cold for the time of year, nine or 10 degrees. further south, 14—17 degrees. but you factor in the wind, it's going to feel more like autumn than it willjune. gusts of 50 miles an hour in the north, 30 miles an hour in the south, and those winds pick up further friday night

into saturday as you can see our area of low pressure, a real squeeze in the isobars across central and northern parts of the country. and don't be surprised, we could see gusts reaching 60 miles an hour in places. those sorts of gusts this time of year could lead to some disruption — remember, trees in full leaf. it stays very blustery on the cool side on saturday with further showers or longer spells of rain. then, it starts to quieten down a little bit as we head on into sunday. those winds begin to ease down, too.

welcome to bbc news, i'm mike embley. our top stories: all four officers involved in the death of george floyd are formally charged, but the state says it's only one small step towards justice. what i do not believe is that one successful prosecution can rectify the hurt and loss that so many people feel. what lies behind the prevalance of police brutality in the us? we have a special report. the british government announces plans to quarantine visitors for coronavirus, but it's criticised for being unworkable. and the odyssey finally ends. the russian ship forced to spend six months at sea by coronavirus finally comes home.