this is bbc news, i'm simon mccoy. the headlines... the government actively avoided investigating possible russian interference in the scottish independence and eu referendums — that's the verdict of the long awaited russia report from mps. the report reveals that no one in government knew if russia interfered in or thought influence in the referendum because they did not want to know. few questions were asked as the uk welcomed russian money with ‘open arms‘ — with cash recycled through what the report called ‘the london laundromat‘ £35 billion — the cost of the uk response to coronavirus injune — the third biggest monthly figure on record.

a lot to talk about — the us secretary of state mike pompeo is meeting borisjohnson in downing street — with china high on the agenda at thejohnny depp libel trial his ex—wife is questioned about the injuries she says were caused by him. and thousands of people line the streets of ashington in northumberland to pay tribute to football great jack charlton. the long awaited report into alleged russian interference in uk democracy and society has said moscow poses an ‘immediate and urgent threat to national security'. parliament‘s intelligence and security committee accuses the government of not being willing to investigate whether moscow interfered in the 2016 brexit referendum — and of welcoming with ‘open arms‘ russian money. the foreign secretary dominic raab says the government will be resolute in defending the uk from hostile state activity.

we‘ll be getting reaction from westminster and moscow shortly. but first with the details of the report here‘s our political correspondent nick eardley. what influence does russia have here? in our politics and wider british society. did russia interfere? it‘s been months since an influential group of mps investigated russian interference. today, after accusations of delay and cover—up, we finally found out their conclusions, that the government hasn‘t done enough. in our opinion, the uk government took its eye off the ball because of its focus on counterterrorism. the government had badly underestimated the response required to the russian threat and is still playing catch up.

russia poses a tough intelligence challenge and the agencies here must have the tools they need to tackle it. the committee noted widespread allegations russia tried to interfere in the brexit referendum through the use of online trolls and russian media. but they say it‘s impossible to tell if that was successful. but what impact it could have had because nobody was trying to find out. the report reveals that no one in government knew if russia interfered in or sought to influence the referendum because they did not want to know. the uk government have actively avoided looking for evidence that russia interfered. it was claimed the government should have learned the lessons of 2014 in scotland voted to reject independence. the report says there is credible, open source evidence russia did try to influence that campaign. though other parts of its findings having done

haven‘t been made public. there are concerns about russian money, members of the house of lords linked to russian companies and russians in the uk linked to president putin. few if any questions have been asked regarding the provenance of considerable wealth. this open door approach has provided an ideal mechanism by which illicit finance can be recycled through the london laundromat. the report doesn‘t have a smoking gun which shows how russia changed the political events in the uk but nevertheless, it is highly critical of recent government decisions, saying, essentially, they weren‘t looking, turning a blind eye, to the possibility of russian interventions. the government rejected the idea of a retrospective analysis of the brexit vote but said russia did pose a significant threat which it was taking extreme it seriously. i think the report is quite damning, it paints a very bad picture of a government that was far too slow to wake up to the threat posed by russia towards democracy. far too slow to take the action

is required to defend us. if today‘s report shows how concerned some are about russian interference and influence, it is unlikely to put to bed questions about its impact on politics here. nick eardley, bbc news. our correspondent sarah rainsford has been giving me the latest reaction from moscow. they said it was russophobia in a description. the kremlin was dismissing it saying that russia doesn‘t meddle on anyone‘s there are electoral processes or it does not tolerate anyone meddling in russian

affairs, so as you might expect, a big dismissalfrom here in russia andi big dismissalfrom here in russia and i think what russia will latch on to is the element of domestic political battling of that is now going on in the uk about this report, distracting very much from the focus of the report itself which, of course, is also russia‘s malign influence. russia will point to the fact that there is no evidence of its meddling in the eu referendum, for example, that is something that is always dismissed and it has not stood up by this report, and of course that is because the government did not look for that evidence but i think there was also in a way a backhanded compliment to russia in all of this. if russia believes that the west as a hostile force, this is the west and its ease russia, too, is a major player as it seeks to re—emerge on the political stage. it appears to bea the political stage. it appears to be a very powerful force in us for good or bad, as is portrayed this report. baroness neville—jones is the former chairman of the joint intelligence committee. shejoins me now.

good afternoon. a while ago i was the chair of thejoint good afternoon. a while ago i was the chair of the joint intelligence committee, not recently. the chair of the joint intelligence committee, not recentlylj the chair of the joint intelligence committee, not recently. iwas the chair of the joint intelligence committee, not recently. i was no investigation once? is it because they were afraid they might find it? —— why was there no investigation launched? it was more to do with eyes elsewhere. you have to think to the climate in which people are operating in and i‘m not saying this isa operating in and i‘m not saying this is a good reason but i think it is pa rt is a good reason but i think it is part of the context. the preoccupation is very much still a terrorism and the resources of the agencies were very much directed in that area. with relatively little resource then devoted to conversion and the kind of activities the russians were devoted do. those had

increased. i didn‘t detect, i must say, the government was response, any real inclination to one of the things i take most seriously which is the way in which social media is manipulated. they say dc is uniquely placed and is in charge of that area. “— placed and is in charge of that area. —— they say dcms is uniquely placed. it requires a cross government strategy. it also requires us to look at the foreign policy strategy and look towards how thatis policy strategy and look towards how that is toward russia. the government said it as a 30 year strategy and that it ends in engagement. the truth of the matter is that this kind of policy framework then determines how much other resource, including intelligence resource and, indeed, resource looking at problems, but the country then devoted to russia andi the country then devoted to russia and i suspect the balance is wrong.

we need more to the hostile side it seems. might make that argument that the government had its eye off the ball, i want to come back to that. what on earth where the intelligence agency is doing. that is theirjob, surely, to keep up with that sort of thing. now, they are tasked by the government. the intelligence agencies are not free to do whatever they like. —— no, they are tasked. it is now by the national security advisor, it was by the secretary but they are given a job, they do the job and the resources are tight doing thatjob, so you cannot actually say, why didn‘t the intelligence agencies do more? i think i have, since the climate changed, they have been given more resource, the threat from russia has been taken more seriously and it weighs about the analysis and action have increased. but there are still areas, in my view, where the effort is inadequate. that is pretty

damning, isn‘t it? given all the resources available to the government, if there was one government, if there was one government in the world that it could probably try and find out about any allegation of involvement in elections, it was this one and yet, successive governments just ignored the problem. yet, successive governments just ignored the problemlj yet, successive governments just ignored the problem. i would not say the government ignored it but it was certainly the case that the amount of effort devoted to it was less. the other thing that you have to understand is that the intelligence agencies will gather information. what the report brings out is how very uneasy they were about being given any task in relation to taking action but it isn‘t for them to take action, it is for the government to ta ke action, it is for the government to take action and that is where i remain critical. i don‘t think enough is being done particularly through cooperation with the social media giants in dealing with the whole question of misinformation, disinformation and manipulation. and

don‘t forget there are other sources. the question is whether we should have a foreign registration act. i think that is probably about time we had one. there are a number of things that can be done but they do require government actually being willing to have a strategy across the board and i still don‘t detect in their reply a change of mindset which i would like to see. it's pretty eye watering that, with all the suspicions of the russians are trying to get involved in these referendum, and indeed, you‘ve got russian agents travelling to the uk to murder a former russian agent, it seems a bit strange that no one seemed to think at the time, we better see what‘s going on year. well, you could say that. better see what‘s going on year. well, you could say thatlj better see what‘s going on year. well, you could say that. i do say that and i think a lot of people will. by the time we got to skripal,

i think will. by the time we got to skripal, ithinka will. by the time we got to skripal, i think a lot of people would be saying that. i share your dismay. the reaction to all of this has been too slow. the government should have been onto this sooner than they have been. while i don‘t detect in their reply is that they... they don‘t have the necessary energy and momentum behind a response which makes you believe they will be effectively active next time we have a democratic process and another election. that‘s what we need to be ready to see. the committee says the russian influence in the uk is now the new normal. happy allow that to happen? well, i think what has happened, of course, is there have been both people who have been... who are genuinely refugees from persecution and others who are agents. there are some who play both sides of the street. they are now quite a big community. i think there area

quite a big community. i think there are a lot of them. whether it is now easy for them to be covertly active, i don‘t... easy for them to be covertly active, i don't. .. how easy for them to be covertly active, i don't... how many? i cannot give you numbers, they are not in the report that the report is... does not give you that kind of information. tens or hundreds? you‘re talking a large community of people, probably several thousand russians living in london, including families. some of them have been living here for quite a long time so there is a settled community. the question is, how many of them you would regard as working for a government other than the united kingdom. that is the kind of thing that the government needs to know more about than i suspect it does. what would your best guess b? i'm not going to try and guess numbers, absolutely not. so, the lesson from this report should be what? the l might be report should be getting

the right balance. they did not get that which we deterrent activities and the protective activities that we need to undertake in relation to russia and need to open the door for a better relationship. i think at the moment the strategy has too much of the optimism that we will somehow be able to engage. i think we need to be able to take the protection of ourselves and our assets. in particular, our democratic way of life, and that is ultimately what they are interested in trying to undermine and destroy, and that is where we need to focus our attention. thank you. we are keeping an eye on downing street because mike pompeo, the us secretary of state and boris johnson have pompeo, the us secretary of state and borisjohnson have been in talks. your hearing that they discussed china‘s actions in hong kong and its treatment of the

muslims in one area. they spoke about foreign policy areas including according to downing street and they outlined a commitment to negotiate a strong uk— us trade agreement, the benefits of the economies of both countries, of course those talks under way following the uk‘s departure from the eu and also the two underscoring the importance of the us led five eyes intelligence aligns with boris johnson the us led five eyes intelligence aligns with borisjohnson also raising the death of 19—year—old briton harry dunne who was killed in aus briton harry dunne who was killed in a us road collision with a diplomat‘s wife and re—entering the knee that when we are treasuring the need for justice to knee that when we are treasuring the need forjustice to be done for harry dunn and his family. a lot on the agenda of that meeting. they are sneaking out to the agencies and that but we hear about those talks a little later.

england‘s chief medical officer has launched a staunch defence of his actions over the covid—i9 pandemic, saying mass testing had to be abandoned due to capacity issues and lockdown came at about the right time. professor chris whitty told mps that widespread community testing earlier on in the pandemic required "an infrastructure we did not have" the chair of the health and social care select committee jeremy hunt has been putting questions to the government‘s advisors — he asked chief medical officer chris whitty about whether he was comfortable with the government‘s decision to delay the nationwide lockdown back in march. i am confident that the ministers at the time, who were put in an incredibly difficult position, in my view followed the advice given by sage, which are clearly signposted through the minutes of sage, with a delay that was no more than you would reasonably expect for what are really very difficult things to operationalise and assign. i think i would make a slightly further comment, which is obviously to be able to do this, there was a bit of signposting that sometimes we may have to go further, and ministers were aware of that

and they said that at the time. so, for example, on the 16th, my memory is that the prime minister did not announce schools closing, but i think he did say at that time "and we might need to consider schools closing". i do not think, and i‘m not saying now and i‘m not going going to say at any point, to be clear, that in my view there was huge delay between the advice that the ministers received, given the enormity of the difficulties we were grasping for people and the practical implications of what was being done. does that give you a clear enough answer to the question you were asking me? it does. it is a much more complicated picture than that, but as a summary, that will do. we can speak to the former conservative health secretary and now chair of the health select committee, jeremy hunt.

good afternoon. are you happy with the answers you got? well, it seems like they have said they did not ignore advice, they were following the advice of chris whitty and his colleagues, and that is important. what you have in any health... sorry to interrupt. it is important for the politicians because you don‘t like the advice has been that we followed the science and any enquiry is going to be fairly critical of some of the government action. is going to be fairly critical of some of the government actionm is going to be fairly critical of some of the government action. it is important because it shows that the government was doing what the scientists advised. it doesn‘t mean the government and the scientists between them that the right thing at every stage and what i was going to say is that in any health care system, you have sadly preventable deaths. whether or not there is a pandemic. when prevent those deaths happening is by being very open, not by pointing fingers or blaming people, just by learning from what went wrong and i think this morning‘s session, we are trying to understand what are the lessons we need to learn going forward because

you‘re not through this yet. it‘s very clear, talking to some other experts that mass testing is going to be vital going forward. mask flu jabs will be very important because the symptoms of flu can be very similarto the symptoms of flu can be very similar to the symptoms of coronavirus and improving the speed at the structures around decision—making are also going to be very important. mass testing was raised in the very early days of this. the who said three things, test, test and test. why was that ignored? this is something i asked professor whitty and the reason i think was that we were following the flue playbook which, incidentally, when i was health secretary, we did enormous preparations for pandemics but you are always subject to this group think that any pandemic is likely to be a flu pandemic and when

it comes to flu, you do not have mass testing. when it comes to things like sars, you do. we had that good thing when i was health secretary but subsequently why we did not think early enough and are ramping up testing. yesterday, matt hancock told the house of commons that he will be given a task by the prime minister to get capacity up to 500,000 tests per day really is an enormous increase, so i think the government does get that but i would like them to introduce routine testing for nhs staff because some of the other evidence we had this morning was that, at the height of the pandemic, some hospitals see 45% of staff infected and we absolutely cannot allow that to happen. coronavirus, unless there is a vaccine, will be with us for years. that was one message that came out today. good forbid that there is another spike but what would you

expect the next approach to be? what would we now do differently? the first thing is we know that around 40% of transmissions are from people who do not have symptoms at all. you have to have a proactive mass testing programme. you cannotjust testing programme. you cannotjust test people who come forward with symptoms. you will miss the people who do not have symptoms and that is why it is very positive that we are now testing once a week people who work in care homes but we need to test people who work in hospitals once a week and have mass testing are people who arrive at airports, mass testing of taxi drivers, which is another group that is particularly at risk, so a population testing programme is going to be essential going forward because the big difference between these spring that we‘ve just had and in winter we these spring that we‘ve just had and in winterwe are these spring that we‘ve just had and in winter we are about to have is that typically it goes up from

around 100,000 to 360,000. there will be many more people coughing and sputtering. people are still dying. you talk about coughing and sputtering, people are still dying. about coughing and sputtering, people are still dyinglj about coughing and sputtering, people are still dying. i know, that is why if you‘re going to reduce preve nta ble is why if you‘re going to reduce preventable deaths in any health ca re system, preventable deaths in any health care system, you read a great, open culture where you learn from m ista kes culture where you learn from mistakes and don‘t quite think, you just ask if it is something rigorously that needs to be done differently and testing in care homes is one of those things but also making decisions quickly about lockdown is, that is clearly something we can learn from. the while i‘ve got you your question, you will get used to them now that you‘ve been on this programme a lot. asa you‘ve been on this programme a lot. as a former foreign secretary looking at the russian report as we see it today, is the message from it

so that frankly we had a government that did not want to investigate whether that was russian interference and i will be scottish or brexit referendum because there are afraid there might be? simon, apologies, but i was dealing with the select committee this morning so i haven‘t read the report that was published but what i can say is that we we re very published but what i can say is that we were very aware in the year that i was foreign secretary of increased russia... russian aggression in the cyber sphere and a very determined attempt, i made speeches on it, by the russians to destabilise the democratic process is because what they want is people who live in democracies to worry that the results of elections, free and fair elections, have been manipulated and then shake all of our confidence in their aquatic processes so you make big investments in expanding our cyber capability and big investments in trying to make sure we secure the

integrity of our democratic processes . integrity of our democratic processes. did we do everything we need to do? i‘m sure this report will have things we need still to do. i assumed you all had little televisions. we were questioning chris twitty? that needed a lot of concentration. thank you forjoining us, always good to talk to you. thank you very much. the government borrowed a record 127.9 billion pounds between april and june as tackling the coronavirus pandemic took its toll on the public finances. figures from the office for national statistics released today show 35.5 billion pounds was borrowed injune. however that‘s lower than in may. that‘s being put down to the re—opening of more shops, pubs, restaurants and other businesses which saw a drop in furlough scheme spending and a rise in tax coming in. nevertheless, june‘s borrowing figure was still the third highest monthly total since records began in 1993 and about five times more than the same month last year. the figure takes the total government debt to a record 1.98 trillion pounds.

let‘s speak to our business correspondent ben thompson. what do today‘s figures tell us about what the government‘s had to spend during the crisis? you are right and it‘s hard to get our hill around a skill of these figures for the numbers that are unheard of in terms of tackling a problem but we know where the money has gone. it‘s gone on propping up businesses and wages for staff are not able to work during this coronavirus pandemic. we know the chancellor has been spending money to try to ease off some of the worst effects for the economy but the big questions of course are, who will pay for it? and when will we pay for it? you do have to pay it back. let me show you the graph that does

illustrate what is happening as far as finances are concerned and hopefully you can see injune 20... we‘ve lost then who is completely frozen. you can look at the graph and make up your own mind while i see if i can get him back. ben, assume that we missed the... i'm here. my talk is over the graph quickly. yeah, let me show you the graph because the £355 quickly. yeah, let me show you the graph because the £35.5 billion is the latest figure that we have and that suggests that the previous two months were more expensive for government spending and that is because businesses then were not able to work, people needed financial support and businesses we re financial support and businesses were not paying tax. last month, some businesses were able to get back to normal and the government finance has lived in a slightly better position but there are big issues coming down the line and, as

i touched on there, we will have to pay it back at some point. taxes may have to rise in spending will have to fall as a result so let‘s talk about some of those implications. melanie, good to have you with us this afternoon. first of all, give me your reaction to these figures because, yes, £35 billion is a lot of money but less than the previous two months. and scarily, very much as expected by economists so in terms of the numbers themselves, as you've done it, it's right to look at the quarter as a whole. the amount the government is spending and in excess of the revenues is enormous. it is double what it was la st enormous. it is double what it was last year. absolutely big numbers but the big question is to the future. when we look at the future

therefore, what is likely to happen because the chancellor of course very popular when he‘s doling out money but when you have to make difficult decisions about who pays for it, what taxes have to rise and what public spending may have to be cut? i think, to put this in global context, this is notjust the uk, this is happening most governments who are spending more borrowing more, the same pressure as they are, it's not of the uk on the markets are putting a lot of pressure on uk to address this right now, so yes there will have to be a reckoning, there will have to be a reckoning, the chancellor has talked about the importance of strong and sustainable finances. even pre—crisis, the physical crisis will have to push you through and they will have to be

made effectively were so it is inevitable that, at some point, taxes will have to rise. the government of course a way out of all this could be further investment, further spending particularly on things like infrastructure for the prime minister making it very clear that it is build, build, build. but again, that comes at a price. it‘s also relatively cheap and now could be the time to do it. now is not the time to address, daytime perhaps to signal that this will be coming in a few years but the economy is in a very fragile place in the last thing you want to be doing at the moment of raising taxes and cutting spending. as we look forward, and we have a budget in the autumn, this is one of the things that i would expect the chancellor to come back too, especially if we are still in

something of a recovery path. there area something of a recovery path. there are a lot of areas of taxation where i don‘t think you‘ll be surprised to see changes including, for example, environmental taxation and the near future, as you go forward, things like digital taxation. we know there are are a “— like digital taxation. we know there are are a —— there are reviews going on with things like pension tax relief so something will change but, asi relief so something will change but, as i say, precrisis comedy physical finances looked unsustainable and on an unsustainable path which is related to the ageing of the economy and the more money in the future that the population dot might be more money will need to spend on things like nhs and social care with ageing population. yeah, indeed. good to have your thoughts. melanie baker there at royal london asset management. just to reiterate because you are cut off and are prime at the beginning there but you‘re right, talking about the £35.5 billion in june, you‘re right, talking about the £35.5 billion injune, which is five times more than in the same time

last year given the pressure on the public finances to try to blow on the state of the economy and, as melanie was telling us there, if you look at what we spent over the first quarter of the year, the last three months, it is more than double in that first quarter than had been predicted for the entire year. it sta rts predicted for the entire year. it starts to give you a sense of all of the sums and the juggling that the chancellor is going to have to do to try to make the numbers add up and balance the books, and that, as we had there, potentially mean spending cuts and tax rises further down the line. you know that broadband bill, you‘re supposed to pay it. stop the line going down. it is conspiring to stop speaking. thank you. charlton borisjohnson has been meeting us secretary of state, mike pompeo, in downing street. they‘ve been discussing china‘s actions in hong kong and its treatment of muslims in xinjiang.

china has called for the uk to ‘immediately correct its mistakes‘ after the government suspended its extradition treaty with hong kong. the us secretary of state tweeted after the meeting... and in the next hour we‘re hoping to bring you a briefing being held by both the foreign secretary dominic raab and the us secretary of state mike pompeo. scheduled to get under way later on. another broadband bill we haven‘t paid! now it‘s time for a look at the weather with chris fawkes.

we have more dry weather and a bit of sunshine to come through the rest of today for quite a few of you but over the recent hours we have seen some cloud bubbling up and that will spread over the skies for a time, so turning on the cloudy side for a few hours. wales, south—west england and southern england having the best of the sunshine, and then late in the day into the evening a weather system moves in from the atlantic to threaten some rain in western scotland. looking overnight, the area of rain here will continue to move in to scotland and northern ireland. as well as the rain we will have some low cloud, so mist and fog patches forming around our coasts and hills. further south, dry with clear spells but not as cold as it has been over recent nights. tomorrow, more rain for northern ireland and scotland, slowly trickling south into northern areas of england, may be north wales. to the south some bright or hazy sunny spells and feeling warm where the sunshine comes out. highs up to 23.

hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... the government actively avoided investigating possible russian interference in the scottish independence and eu referendums — that‘s the verdict of the long awaited russia report from mps. the report reveals that no one in government knew if russia interfered in or sought influence in the referendum because they did not want to know. few questions were asked as the uk welcomed russian money with ‘open arms‘ — with cash recycled through what the report called ‘the london laundromat‘. £35 billion — the cost of the uk response to coronavirus injune — the third biggest monthly figure on record. a lot to talk about — the us secretary of state mike pompeo is meeting borisjohnson in downing street — with china high on the agenda. at thejohnny depp libel trial his ex—wife is questioned about the injuries she says

were caused by him. let‘s cross to westminster where mps on the science and technology select committee are hearing evidence on the management of the first wave of covid—19. they are hearing from the health secretary matt hancock and the permanent secretary, sir chris wormald. let‘s listen in. andit and it signed off cross government either their or the covid committee which is signed off by the prime minister. so it is not a decision that is sent by public health england, for example? no. it is said by me. —— it is set by me. it is my responsibility. as part of the government and then it goes to a government clearance programme. you

we re government clearance programme. you were responsible for setting a target to increase the level of testing during the month of april and on the 2nd of april you had a target by the end of the month to get to 100,000 tests per day which was a personal initiative. it was, it was my decision to propose and agreed by the prime minister that we set a numerical target and we had already had a target because the target was to get to 10,000 per day by the end of march, which we achieved. we previously had a target to get to 2000 per day by the end of february which we had achieved. i saw that there was a need for a massive ramp up and i had been trying to drive this ramp up and by setting an explicit external goal and by calling on the wider industry

as well as the organisations that we re as well as the organisations that were currently involved, i wanted to galvanise the system to get up to a mass scale of testing and rapidly accelerate the ramp up, so it is funny, because at the time some people said you have set an arbitrary target but that is not true. the 100,000 target was chosen because that was close to our internal goal, and our internal projection for the end of april when i accept the 100,000 target at the start of april wasjust i accept the 100,000 target at the start of april was just over 100,000 tests per day. i thought a round number target a little bit lower than what was our projection, setting it quite specifically in public, would help to galvanise the system to hit the target and i think thatis system to hit the target and i think that is what happened. there was a clear logic behind the choice of 100,000. absolutely. we had

discussions inside the department in the run—up to the announcement on the run—up to the announcement on the 2nd of april, in which i said to the 2nd of april, in which i said to the team, if i... we took the internal projection and it was just over 100,000. i said then, if i say in public we are going to have 100,000 tests by the end of the month, can we do that? they said, we can‘t guarantee that but we can do it. i took the decision and proposed it. i took the decision and proposed it to the prime minister who signed it to the prime minister who signed it off, and i announced it and the rest ca n it off, and i announced it and the rest can be seen from the figures. it was seen as a personal initiative on your part, were you disappointed that no one whether it was public health england or sage or even professor newton would back the 100,000 figure? no, alli cared about was expanding the testing

capacity of the country, and my whole approach during the pandemic has been to try to do everything i could from the moment i woke up in the morning to the moment i went to bed at night to improve the response of the nation. there has been a load of the nation. there has been a load of public debate and discussion about the things that we‘ve done and there has been criticisms, some of itfair, and there has been criticisms, some of it fair, and what i‘ve tried to do when i‘ve been criticised is work out whether the person has got a point and what i‘ve tried to do in terms of the administration of the health and social care system is to drive it as hard as i can and with the resources it needs in order to deliver. people have often asked me in this crisis, do you sleep at night? the answer is yes because i know i‘m doing everything i possibly can, with the humility of all of us

being human and knowing that everybody makes mistakes and of course, especially with the science having developed as we go along, having developed as we go along, having learned a lot more, nevertheless i know that i took all the decisions i did with the best of intentions and in the best of heart and when there is a sniping from the sidelines, that is a second—order matter. the committee has taken evidence throughout the pandemic and during the month of april no one was prepared to endorse that 100,000 target. that is not quite true. lord bethel was loyal all the way through. laughter not least because i gave him responsibility for helping me hit the target. professor newton said when we asked him what was the basis for the 100,000 target which was on the 8th of april, shortly after you set the target, he said i'm afraid

you would have to ask the secretary of state himself when he got his advice from. i got my advice from the department. you have got to remember, and john newton has done an amazingjob, remember, and john newton has done an amazing job, throughout the crisis, and he is one of many people who have really stepped up to the plate at public health england, and he did a brilliantjob during that phase. not only because he understood the importance of testing and helping to drive it internally but also because he communicated that very effectively and communication is a really important pa rt communication is a really important part of the pandemic response. it is not fair to askjohn newton at that point whether it was a public health england target because it wasn‘t, and we took the responsibility for testing strategy away from them in the middle of march. it was very

much, it was my decision based on advice from my officials. we are interested in the structure of decision—making. interested in the structure of decision-making. i don't think you should read too much into what the scientists do and don't say about the target because as the secretary of state has explained the basis of setting the target was a very strict version of what was achievable, and the scientists were not saying that 100,000 was the right number whereas 95,000 is, and the consistent advice from science was that we needed to mmp from science was that we needed to ramp up testing. the decision to go for 100,000 as the secretary of state has described was done on the basis of how fast could we do it, not that there was a scientific right answer, so it is not surprise me that the scientists would not say, yes, i suggested 100,000, because it was not an aspiration

derived in that way, but i would not say there was any disagreement between our scientists and the more operational side, that there was a clear need to ramp it up and that setting a public target was a good way of doing so. i've been accused of overpromising and sometimes delivering, and the point is when you are handling a pandemic response and the response you need is to scale up at a speed which is almost unprecedented within government. at a national scale. the tools that i found worked work to set demanding goals, and in fact the chancellor told me afterwards that i set a big hairy audacious goal, apparently this is a classic business core doctrine, that i did not know i was following. the point of a big hairy

audacious goal is to say to the whole system, this is where we are going, you do your bit, lets get there, we did that on a series of areas because we did that when we we re areas because we did that when we were building up contact tracing as well. the committee wrote to the prime minister to record that that announcement was a pivotal one in moving us from a position where we did not have enough capacity to one where we did. it is noteworthy that it was a personal initiative and it took a personal initiative from you took a personal initiative from you to move from under capacity to a greater level of capacity. some people have been too unfair on public health england over this, because they are a brilliant scientific organisation and they we re scientific organisation and they were set up to be a scientific organisation. we needed to move from science to scale and so phd developed the first test in the world, and part of the... in

january, they were one of the first is not the first to sequence the genome of the virus in february, and they then scaled up during february as the number of cases was very very low, just a handful, but phe was never set up to be a scaled up organisation. did you know that in advance? no, i learned it, so the policy shifted over to us on the 17th of march, and they then had full direct control and i could then put my foot on the accelerator and we expanded the scale. knowing that, you adopted the initiative on the 2nd of april, and if you had known that actually public health england was either not capable or not organised to take initiative like that, you could have done it on the

1st of march? biologic that is possible —— by logic. that was not evident, it was not evident that that wasn‘t what was needed by then. not seeking to blame, but in terms of the lessons learned. we need a standing capability, we need a public health agency that is not only brilliant at science but also is ready to go to mass scale very very quickly. phe was designed as a scientific organisation and it is really good as a scientific organisation and remain so and have some of the best public health scientists in the world in phe, but the challenge it found, it was not setup to be an organisation ready to go to mass national scale. we did not go into this crisis with that mass of testing capability and in

that we were like almost every other country in the world, germany was the exception in this space rather than the norm, and some of the far eastern countries, and then we built that scale and i‘ve often felt... we built the scale outside phe to make sure we have the high quality science and the scale. having learned that, are you now engaged in reforming phe in anticipation of later uses of it? there will be a time for that, but my priority now is on controlling the virus and preparing for winter. doesn't the structure of phe have a bearing on that? well, that is a question and its time will come but now my focus is on getting the virus down and

controlling the level of the virus and preparing for winter. phe is doing incredibly important work right now in local lockdowns in local action and it has... there are boots on the ground from a phe in leicester and they are working with blackburn and bradford and the other areas where we have a much higher prevalence than elsewhere. and writing the national guidance, another thing they have been very good at, writing the national guidance, for example, how businesses can be covid secure and how we can get a sports started again. if it didn't have the capability to step up during the first wave, is there any reason to suppose, well, you said you have organised outside it, so now it isn't is the time to make those preparations dotted are a number of

witnesses said the months of the summer were crucial to make the preparations for the winter, and if the structure of the public health was found not to be fit for purpose for the early part of the pandemic, is not now be time that you should be making those changes? what i would say, what matters right now is the capability and i want the capability to be doing what it needs to do. and the capability on test and trace is there because we have built up nhs test and trace which works hand in glove with phe. following on on these phe point, what lessons have we learned from that experience that you have just described about the testing in terms of how we might roll out a vaccine or vaccines? that is a really important question. one of the things we are working on is how to roll out and how to deliver a vaccine, and that is being done with public health advice including from

phe, but is being led inside the department because phe have a bearing on it but a massive part of thejob of bearing on it but a massive part of the job of actually getting the vaccines into peoples arms will be delivered by the nhs because that is where our army of people qualified to inject vaccines into people works. phe will set the structure for that but it will be delivered elsewhere? phe are supporting the vaccines task force at the scientific end and then we have a group of organisations headed by the department including phe for public health advice but also including nhs england to deliver the actual boots on the ground who are going to get people into doctors surgeries and pharmacies across the country, hopefully, and who deliver, they are the same people that deliver the flu jab each year so we have a protocol for how this works. because there is

a series of different parts of government needed to make this work, the department holds the ring. let's assume the oxford vaccine is viable, how quickly can we get those doses into peoples arms? the rate limiting factor on the delivery of the vaccine is the manufacturing of the vaccine, so there is a series of important and difficult steps from the moment that a regulator signs off vaccine as being both efficacious and safe, there are two critical parts to the next steps but there are many other parts which have got to go right. the first is the manufacturing of the vaccine, which is starting before the vaccine

is approved. and then the next is the distribution and administration of the vaccine, administration as in injecting it into peoples arms, and the distribution is not simple because you need a cold chain because you need a cold chain because it needs to be kept below temperature and the administration needs to be done by people who are qualified and in fact we are proposing to change the law to broaden the range of qualifications that are allowed to do the vaccination. getting both the manufacture and the distribution and administration right is critical. the manufacturing is being developed by astrazeneca and the distribution will be done by the nhs. a lot of these decisions about how you use a vaccine, you cannot take until you have got it. for example, we take a

lot of decisions around the flu vaccine about who gets it and in which order and which priority groups will have most impact and which shouldn't have it, which of course you can't know until you know the exact effect of your vaccine, so there is quite a lot of decision—making in their as well about, do you start with the most vulnerable and health care workers? we won't be able to decide those until late in the process. unlike testing, as the secretary of state has already hinted, this is an area where we are very has already hinted, this is an area where we are very used to doing this at scale every year, with the flu vaccine. and other vaccines. so we don't have the same... it is a very complex system but there is much more president in the uk for how you scale up from the discovery to the implementation —— precedent.“ scale up from the discovery to the implementation -- precedent. if we could go back to sage advice more

generally, and we heard from patrick valla nce generally, and we heard from patrick vallance last thursday and he was very clear it is an advisory body and the government has been cleared has been guided by the signs throughout but the science is still conditional on what can be delivered _by conditional on what can be delivered —— by the science throughout. it has been clear in the early stages that we did not have testing capacity and we did not have testing capacity and we did not have testing capacity and we did not have the contact tracing capacity, so where those recommendations coming out of real that we should be doing this but someone was having to push back and say we can't? —— coming out of sage. we were guided by the science, and the various sage conclusions especially on the lockdown measures, the non—pharmaceutical interventions, they were followed and they were followed in a timely manner, and in some cases on the same day, and for instance i know you had an exchange about what happened on the 16th of march, for

example, and if you look at that and my speech in the chamber on the evening of the exchange, we were guided by what they said at sage. you take the scientific evidence and you also take into account everything else. the key feature of how that works is that sage is a body which advises the cmo and the csa and they in turn advise ministers. whether that is through cobra or the structure we have now, the advice from sage comes to us and comes to me as health secretary through the cmo and the csa, and they also take into account wider considerations in that advice, and then i take into account all the considerations in the official policy advice i get from the civil

service. that may sound like a number of layers but it is really important. sage is a group of scientists and they support the cmo and csa to come to their scientific, theirjudgment on what scientific and medical advice they should give to ministers and whether that is the cmo walking into my office as secretary of state or whether it is a more formal advice from the cmo or csa to the cabinet subcommittees. 8th ofjuly, in your report, the joint bio—security council is going to play a much bigger role, is this a recognition that we have moved from a period where it has been about the science to know where we have to balance more factors? no, we have to balance more factors? no, we have tried to balance all these factors all the way along, and remember, real is the scientific

advisory group on emergencies —— sage is the scientific advisory group on emergencies. it is notjust therefore coronavirus or indeed for communicable diseases and epidemics and pandemics, and as we build our capability to deal with epidemics on a grander scale, we are also building the capability together in one place under the jdbc building the capability together in one place under thejdbc as the analyticalfunction. one place under thejdbc as the analytical function. are the scientists going to be up for cross—examination in the way that members of sage have been through the early stages of the pandemic? that is part of nhs test and trace and that is one way to get analytical capability into the system in large numbers. thank you.

on some of those points, when did cobra last may? i have not got that date to hand. -- last meet. these are quite important meetings.” -- last meet. these are quite important meetings. i don't have the date to hand. the decision—making for coronavirus that is in place is that there is a covid o which meets a few times a week and that reports into covid s which takes the strategic decisions and is chaired by the prime minister and that works effectively. sage is the scientific advisory group for emergencies and cobra is the established means of operating the machinery of government during emergencies, and it seems like an emergency, so why has cobra... you have not met for

some time as cobra? the decision—making on coronavirus is taken either at covid oh or covid s. at the start of the crisis, as you will know from being in government, when there is an emergency you call a cobra meeting, and i chaired cobra meetings right from the start on this. when did you stop? i chaired six in january this. when did you stop? i chaired six injanuary and february and the prime minister took the chair from march onwards. and then a permanent coronavirus cabinet subcommittees system was put in place with there was a cobra meeting on the 16th of march? yes. there was a

cobra meeting to decide on the release of some of the lockdown measures? there was a cross government meeting but under which badge i don‘t recall. government meeting but under which badge i don't recall. the machinery of government is important in handling a crisis to make sure that the right people are represented, and sage is a creature of covid, and it can only be instigated by cobra -- is it can only be instigated by cobra --isa it can only be instigated by cobra —— is a creature of cobra. its constitution requires it to... the report reveals no one knew if russia sought influence on the referendum because they did not want to know. few questions were asked

as the uk welcomed russian money with ‘open arms‘ — with cash recycled through what the report called ‘the london laundromat‘ a lot to talk about — the us secretary of state mike pompeo meets boris johnson in downing street — with china high on the agenda 35 billion pounds — the cost of the uk response to coronavirus injune — the third biggest monthly figure on record. at thejohnny depp libel trial his ex—wife is questioned about the injuries she says were caused by him. and thousands of people line the streets of ashington in northumberland to pay tribute to football great jack charlton. the long awaited report into alleged

russian interference in uk democracy and society has said moscow poses an ‘immediate and urgent threat to national security‘. parliament‘s intelligence and security committee accuses the government of not being willing to investigate whether moscow interfered in the 2016 brexit referendum — and of welcoming with ‘open arms‘ russian money. the foreign secretary dominic raab says the government will be resolute in defending the uk from hostile state activity. we‘ll be getting reaction from westminster and moscow shortly. but first with the details of the report here‘s our political correspondent nick eardley. what influence does russia have here? in our politics and wider british society. did russia interfere? it‘s been months since an influential group of mps investigated russian interference. today, after accusations of delay and cover—up, we finally found out their conclusions, that the government hasn‘t done enough.

in our opinion, the uk government took its eye off the ball because of its focus on counterterrorism. the government had badly underestimated the response required to the russian threat and is still playing catch up. russia poses a tough intelligence challenge and the agencies here must have the tools they need to tackle it. the committee noted widespread allegations russia tried to interfere in the brexit referendum through the use of online trolls and russian media. but they say it‘s impossible to tell if that was successful. but what impact it could have had because nobody was trying to find out. the report reveals that no one in government knew if russia interfered in or sought to influence the referendum because they did not want to know. the uk government have actively avoided looking for evidence that russia interfered. it was claimed the government should have learned the lessons

of 2014 in scotland voted to reject independence. the report says there is credible, open source evidence russia did try to influence that campaign. though other parts of its findings having done haven‘t been made public. there are concerns about russian money, members of the house of lords linked to russian companies and russians in the uk linked to president putin. few if any questions have been asked regarding the provenance of considerable wealth. this open door approach has provided an ideal mechanism by which illicit finance can be recycled through the london laundromat. the report doesn‘t have a smoking gun which shows how russia changed the political events in the uk but nevertheless, it is highly critical of recent government decisions, saying, essentially, they weren‘t looking, turning a blind eye, to the possibility of russian interventions.

the government rejected the idea of a retrospective analysis of the brexit vote but said russia did pose a significant threat which it was taking extreme it seriously. i think the report is quite damning, it paints a very bad picture of a government that was far too slow to wake up to the threat posed by russia towards democracy. far too slow to take the action is required to defend us. today‘s report shows how concerned some are about russian interference and influence, it is unlikely to put to bed questions about its impact on politics here. nick eardley, bbc news. the liberal democrats are calling for a wide—ranging and properly funded investigation of potential russian interference in british political affairs. let‘s talk to their brexit and foreign affairs spokesman the mp alistair carmichael. it is not going to happen, is it

because certainly ought not to. they have had months to get their lines right and this is a question of don‘t don‘t tell. when the security of our country and integrity of our democracy is at stake, that is frankly not enough, so we have ask today and we will keep asking because the stakes could not be higher in relation to this and really, frankly, dominic rab and borisjohnson was my response to this is fooling nobody. —— dominic raab and boris johnson‘s this is fooling nobody. —— dominic raab and borisjohnson‘s response is fooling no one because it was badly handled than they were asleep at the wheel. the purpose of an investigation... if i were to look at this as i might have looked at it many years ago when i worked as a prosecutor, i would say he did something that requires investigation and there appears to be case to answer. that then is how you have a fully resourced, fully

funded thing that we would see, you can see the suspicion ought to be that for the conservatives and the prime minister and foreign secretary in particular, the only outcomes of that seem to be bad ones and that is what they are so reluctant to do. the report says the russian interference is now the new normal. the russians are here, they are doing what they do, they are part of our society, power that my part of our society, power that my part of our financial system. it is too late, isn‘t it? our financial system. it is too late, isn't it? is that not a good reason for having a proper full enquiry into this? notjust the stating the case but the full story because unless we understand fully the extend of the interference, how on earth can we know that we are not still carrying on and that we will not find yourselves back you again

in the future? what might be difficulty with this narrative as there is the assumption that they we re there is the assumption that they were involved in one way or another with various referendum and that is the damage and all this, isn‘t it? —— met with various referenda. it is clear that this was a systematic effort. white might hang on, doesn‘t say that at all. it says they didn‘t look so there is no evidence of that. what it says is there has been evidence of this but that it has not been pursued. that really is why you need now to have the properly funded and fully resourced government enquiry. the government are eminently well placed to do this and really if we are to have confidence in the conduct of future relations and referendum, then any government, any demographic that democratic government with their name should be offering that up. —— any democratic

government. white rightly bound to be struck here is, do you the intelligence services to go back, go through everything when, if you like, if there has been damage, the damage has been done, we have to be pragmatic and move on. if this were perhaps some piece of minor industrial espionage, perhaps intellectual property, seriously that would be, yes, i would take your point that this is the point where perhaps we do have to put it to bed but this is not what that is about at all. i do need to clarify... this is about the constitutional intake and democratic process. i happen to think that is something worth pursuing and investigating. if there is any ground at all for leaving, —— believing that it has been interfered with. the assumption is the problem because that is something that will be spending a lot of money on an assumption. there

is no factual evidence for whatever reason and the reason is nobody bothered looking, that there is not evidence at this stage. if you look at what was uncovered in the enquiry with regards to the conduct and scottish independence, it is open source. it is there for everybody to see. i do not think it is plausible to believe that they tried that in 2014 and have not similarly try that in 2016, 17 and 2014 and have not similarly try that in 2016,17 and 19. 2014 and have not similarly try that in 2016, 17 and 19. they are determined not to look for it. they said no evidence. they said no evidence from security services to suggest that. i'm sorry but if you go back to the findings with regards to the 2014 referendum, it is pretty clear there was something here. there is no snoopy —— smoking gun

but a lot of smoke still coming out. because people do not have the result they were hoping for, they wa nt result they were hoping for, they want the enquiry to be relaunched if you like. the point you've got here is something rather more than that. you‘ve got what in legal terms would bea you‘ve got what in legal terms would be a reasonable cause for suspicion. if this were housebreaking, you would expect police to be investigating people who said they did not know who would be in your house. we can speak to olga ivshina from the bbc‘s russian service. there was a lot of anger out there from various people but there does not seem to be evidence. what reaction are you picking up from moscow? moscow's reaction was quite

predictable. putin‘s spokesman said russia never interfered to electoral processes of either country, neither united kingdom or the united states. more and more, russia would not tolerate any interference into its electoral processes. this is similar to the words of the russian ambassador in the united kingdom who spoke to bbc on monday and he mentioned that on the 1st ofjuly, during the voter in russia on the constitutional amendments, they registered hardcore attacks from the territory of the united kingdom. —— hacker attacks. you see allegations without any evidence making it really easy for russia to answer because it is just word against word. the idea that the russian oligarchs and others are now so part of uk society, business that this is new normal, is that a picture you recognise? absolutely. i think the problem here is there are a lot of

state m e nts problem here is there are a lot of statements by british officials at and not enough detail. that not only makes it easy for russian officials to answer, moreover it makes it easy for to answer, moreover it makes it easy foer to answer, moreover it makes it easy for mr putin to keep doing what he is doing because part of it is that he has a huge approval inside the country and no such allegations with any allegations or evidence make him able to broadcast the thought that russia is surrounded by enemies and thatis russia is surrounded by enemies and that is why he has to act in a way he acts. white make good to see you, thank you. -- good to see you. thank you. thank you for your time. the accusation is that the government was just asleep at the wheel here. they were. i was pleased for the

report to come out with such hard—hitting report to come out with such ha rd—hitting words, not report to come out with such hard—hitting words, not pulling their punches and there is a real problem that the russians view the uk is one of the most important places. they‘ve used their money and malign ways against our interests in the uk and now, all of a sudden, this report comes out and lays it out pretty clear detail of a lot of the ways in which they do that. the london laundromat. that is a very apt description. that description is consistent with my own experience. russia, i would say,... london i would say is most popular with russian money—laundering because there is no prosecution, nothing happens. i‘ve seen that first hand. in contrast, other countries do. how does that benefit vladimir putin? what are these oligarchs and people

who have got themselves to part of the uk society, what are they doing to help him? the way it works is you cannot be an oligarch unless you are a criminal partner with vladimir putin. you make your money illegally, he gets on that, you get some of it. you are asked to do tasks. foreign policy tasks. putin hates it. oligarchs spend money and there are other high—level people, they work for the russians and they are going to... the previous guests as there is no

evidence but i surprised that provided absolute evidence. the cases mounted of who paying you. there are enablers and people using your money to submit national interest. what do you believe is the reason for the success of uk governments? why did this go so far —— did this go so far as interfering in the referendum? i think many who are benefiting from this flow of funds. if you start asking difficult questions and there is a very strong possibility that the golden goose stop playing those eggs, and that is

a very hard thing to untangle. it's all a bit wheeled because what you‘re saying of the uk government did not actually want particularly to know the results of an enquiry so they did not want one. interesting because they say they ask questions of the intelligence agencies and got back a six sentence reply about the brexit referendum. i‘m sure the intelligence agency... they say that is not their fault. intelligence agency... they say that is not theirfault. if intelligence agency... they say that is not their fault. if they are not asked to look at these things, they don‘t. is that true? asked to look at these things, they don't. is that true? that strikes me as implausible. if the intelligence ag agency, whosejob it is is to figure out what kind of intrusions are on our way of life, then they surely would have done this. i think they did not want to tip the scales

one way or another in this brexit referendum. somebody watching you now who lives in north london, gets on thejob, why now who lives in north london, gets on the job, why should they care haveif on the job, why should they care have if there are these russian oligarchs in london and around the uk doing what they are doing? people in salisbury might have asked that question until the never talk poisoning took place —— novichok poisoning took place —— novichok poisoning took place —— novichok poisoning took place. three people got sick one died. what is your belief? where will this lead to? can you still yummy, bill? i can still hear you, yes. finally, we are in your view and the fear, where does this lead if nothing is done about it? it leads to more of this type of stuff in the future. basically we‘ve identified the problem, we now need to fix it and if we don‘t, they will be more of it. what you mean is they need to get out of the country.

ye law enforcement needs to prosecute the government needs to sanction. —— make the law needs to prosecute and the government needs to sanction. they need to not do the bidding for them. right make really good to talk to. thank you for your time. we are waiting for a briefing by the foreign secretary dominic raab and the us secretary of state mike pompeo are holding a news conference after talks earlier. our diplomatic correspondent james robbins has been listening in to that. a huge agenda. they have several sessions together so they will touch on everything they need to address. the biggest single agenda item is china and how the united states and united kingdom deal with china. mike pompeo, the secretary of state, is

frankly the most hawkish on the administration about china. he calls what is being done to the weaker minority in china including allegations of mass sterilisation and the known facts of mass incarceration, he calls that the stain of the century and he wants... if anything, britain to do more about china to join united states if anything, britain to do more about china tojoin united states in targeted sanctions against named individuals. as he is also entirely sympathetic to britain‘s population by hong kong of the united states has taken similar actions to ours. trade talks are vital that by the end of this year... what sense will you get from them of that.” end of this year... what sense will you get from them of that. i would have thought, they could be proven wrong instantly when they speak there will be very much caution about saying things publicly about it, apart from expressing optimism

about getting a trade deal but they will steal the audience away from the realities of the big boulders on the realities of the big boulders on the path to a trade agreement which include, of course, infamously the disagreements, deep disagreements about agricultural trade and health and animal welfare, and food hygiene. we know the headlines of that, chlorinated chicken, is that an acceptable way to try to redress what is seen widely as failings in the welfare of chicken management during the chicken pot lifetime only resolved by a wash at the time of slaughter which is not regarded anywhere in europe as being a cce pta ble anywhere in europe as being acceptable but there is a question of hormones in their use in livestock, being prepared from meat. very big questions about how the two systems, the two food hygiene and animal welfare systems might be brought closer together if there is to be an active trade in that

crucial sector, crucial for the united states which ones to export more agricultural product united kingdom. not a lot of detail today but it is a big boulder on the road toa but it is a big boulder on the road to a trade agreement. and we have to think that huawei will come up. huawei will come up. borisjohnson is under considerable pressure... i‘m sorry to interrupt you but for good reason, because here we have dominic raab and mike pompeo about to give that news conference. thank you. good afternoon, everyone. really delighted to welcome secretary pompeo back to london. we have been discussing the full range of issues today. we are going through a whole range of challenges in the world, so to say, but also great opportunities in britain and the united states are absolutely

keen on focused on making sure we grasp them. we‘ve spoken today about our serious concerns about the situation in hong kong, particularly in relation to the national security legislation we talked a bit about the uk offer and what you‘re doing and suspending the extradition treaty, the arms embargo to hong kong and mike gave me have prospective owners as well. you can order that you are coordinating and you have discussed next steps that g7 level. we also spoke about on view —— my ongoing discussions in relation to 5g and how we can diversify our supply chains, and also more broadly learning some lessons of coronavirus, around ppe and other things, the work we can do together in order to facilitate that. that brought us on to talk about the free trade negotiations,

we are looking forward to meeting british and american businesses shortly, given we are each other‘s biggest investors. annual trade relationships worth over $300 billion and we think we can do even better than that. every morning, there are under 1.5 million americans going to work for the british companies, around the same brits going to work for american companies and i think that illustrates the type of win when the free trade deal that we are committed and determined to achieve in ourtwo committed and determined to achieve in our two countries. good forjobs and for consumers as well. the uk‘s really clear that we need to work with our american friends and also with our american friends and also with other partners together in the international system to protect our freedoms and interests, and stand up as we have shown for our values. we are more influential when we work together. we also discussed iran, russia, the middle east process,

brother challenges covid—19 —— broader challenges of covid—19. and working together in relation to nato. financial issues as well and across the full range of international challenges, of which there are many, we recognised that we are always a lot stronger and more effective when we work together and that is what you will continue to do in those months ahead. good afternoon. i want to thank the foreign secretary for the interpretation to be your today, not easy to oust events at these times i wa nt easy to oust events at these times i want to thank you and your staff are putting this together and making it work, it was a very productive conversation and we of course began with the challenge presented by the chinese campus party and the covid—19 virus that originated in wuhan, china. on behalf of the american people, i want to can extend my — — american people, i want to can extend my —— i want to extend my condolences to the british people for your losses from this avoidable

virus. rather than helping the world, over in china, they have shown their true face. there have been militarised teachers in the south china sea and deadly conversation initiated with india. we want to take this opportunity to congratulate the british government for its principal responses to the challenges. you made a sovereign decision to veer away from future 56 networks and joined other nations to condemn china on the side of the british treaty and generally see open your door to hong kong was people from hong kong who wants —— but nothing more than freedom. —— open your door to people from hong kong who want nothing more than freedom. i will meet later with people from hong kong and the last

governor being part of that, i'm sure those will be eye—opening and important discussions. we have completed two, more work left to do with the third one is scheduled for later this month of the primary focus on the united states to see if we can make progress on this and bring it to closure as quickly as possible. spoke with the prime minister this morning about this and i hope we can get finalised too long. when we leave, dominic and i will sit down with the british american business council to work out how we can get to the right place which is producing —— reducing trade barriers and getting more for small businesses, creating a wealth of opportunity and good jobs for working people in the united kingdom and america, to. and finally, i discussed about the priming is that the foreign secretary the importance of extending the un arms embargo on the islamic republic of iran. we welcome the recent statement from the united kingdom, france and germany recognising that allowing the embargo to inspire —— expire

would bring more instability. iwant to thank the uk government for the maritime security construct and in the persian gulf of the man as well, important for a true ally. as dominic andl important for a true ally. as dominic and i were talking about the special relationship, you can see it today, word translates to have the ability to have candid, frank discussions that cut to the heart of how we can secure freedom for people in each of our two countries and both of our country being forces for good around the world so thank you for the chance to be here today. you‘ll take a couple of questions. first of all, the russia report has two central accusations on the successive governments ignoring rush upon posing a threat to our democracy and the government actively avoiding looking for russian interference on the brexit referendum. on both points, why have you turned a blind eye to the

secretary of state, do you want britain to take more robust action against china who have praised the uk government for what it's done so far? do you think you need to go further? maybe targeted sanctions on chinese individuals for example, banning tiktok, are you happy with china's investment? personal, you mention the suggestion that the uk actively avoided russia interfering. i think you‘ll find it was not there. it was the comment of one mp and we categorically reject that. we have a long period of recognising the enduring significant threat posed by russia to the uk including cyber, the top national security priority and we call our russia when necessary , priority and we call our russia when necessary, we‘ve shown that in relation to the cyber attacks on research and development facilities in the us, uk and canada. we‘ve done

together with our partners and we are not for a second complacent about the threat russia poses when it comes to cyber. the question was about whether we would like the united kingdom to do more to confront china. i don't think about it that way, we don't think about it that way. we think that the entire world needs to work together to ensure that every country, including china, behaves in the international syste m china, behaves in the international system in ways that are appropriate, consistent with the international order but you cannot go making claims for maritime regions that you have no lawful claim to. you cannot threaten countries and bully them in the himalayas. you cannot engage in cover—ups and co—opt international institutions like the world health organization. we want to see every nation who understands freedom and democracy and values that knows it is important to their own people, their own sovereign country to be successful, to understand the threat that the chinese communist party is

posing to them and to work for both themselves and collectively to restore what is rightfully ours. we look at president trump on trade, or he simply asked for was a firm reciprocal trade agreement with china, with them not stealing intellectual property and denying people who work out to create something to get a patent or trademark and any chinese communist party directed its state steel that property from americans. we want every nation to work against that kind of activity. it's those actions, not about language or words, it's about we want every nation to work together to push back against the chinese communist party's efforts in every dimension that i describe to you today and that i describe to you today and that certainly includes united kingdom, it includes every country. we hope we can belt out a coalition that understands this and we work collectively to convince the chinese communist party it is not in the best interest to engage in is kind

of behaviour. the washington post now. what is the ultimate goal of us sanctions against huawei? do you want to crush the company or maybe see it make reforms in order to continue to do business with it? and how do you respond to critics who say that the uk has been strong armed into its china position by us officials including mike pompeo who met this morning with mps? i will take your question, too. when i go to washington i meet with folks on the hill, with all parties and all sides, quite rightly, but the reality is, as a result of us sanctions, we have a clear—sighted perspective on what that means and we have taken a decision based on

that but there is no question in strong arming because mike and myself always have constructive discussions and most of the time our views overlap and we work together very well, as we have with our partners on hong kong which you can see in the various measures we have taken. the prime minister's decision was reflective of what he believes is in the best interests of the people of the uk and i have no doubt about that. we had a number of conversations about a broad range of issues, not all of which we agree on and we have an all come to the same conclusion about them, and i think the uk made a good decision but that right decision was made not because the us said it was a good decision but because the leadership in the uk concluded the right thing to do was to make that decision for the people of the uk. regarding huawei, we don't have an end in that receipt —— and state that we seek from huawei, but we want the private data that

belongs to americans, we don't want that to end up in the hands of the chinese communist party. our efforts are not aimed at one particular company, they are aimed at the security of american people. we will do this with any company that threatens american security or that poses threats to our military information or high—end national security information or the average citizen of's private information that should not be in the hands of the chinese national security apparatus. no american should engage in ordinary activity on their cell phone and laptop or talking on their phone, no american should have the risk that the data set is going to be in the hands of the chinese communist party and we are determined to make sure that doesn't happen, so the actions we have taken against multiple companies including huawei are reflective of that. inaudible

we are going to protect american national security. thanks, everyone. studio: a short but eventful news conference. james robbins now. when mike pompeo was talking about the pandemic, he talked about it is a disaster and he said china has been disgraceful on covid, exporting this virus to further their own aims. i‘ve not heard language as strong as that for a while. it is very strong. mike pompeo is deeper in —— the principal hawk in the trump administration against china. president trump himself always cause at the china virus, and although there is a conviction in this administration that the chinese either allowed it out of a lab or however it occurred,

they were negligent in the way they tried to control it in the early days, that they were in denial and that they allowed what developed into a pandemic, epidemic, to spread out of control, before they sought help from outside influences including the ppe —— including the who. it is a strong language but this is not unusualfrom who. it is a strong language but this is not unusual from the who. it is a strong language but this is not unusualfrom the united states, including the broadside against china which we heard from mike pompeo. how comfortable will people be when they are both talking about huawei, and mike pompeo is saying, well done, uk, it is a suspicion of the relationship, and who is wagging the dog, if you like. it was notable that mike pompeo took great efforts to deny that the reason boris johnson great efforts to deny that the reason borisjohnson took great efforts to deny that the reason boris johnson took the decision to cut huawei out of 5g was

because of pressure the white house. that remains the strong suspicion amongst many people, that in the end borisjohnson took amongst many people, that in the end boris johnson took the amongst many people, that in the end borisjohnson took the decision that he had to go along with that american pressure in the interests of the wider relationship and that he did it reluctantly but mike pompeo was at pains to stress throughout these news conference that this was a sovereign and he kept using the word, sovereign decision of the uk in the interests of the uk, but you could sense that he felt so strongly about this issue that it he felt so strongly about this issue thatitis he felt so strongly about this issue that it is no surprise that people feel that a lot of the driving force behind this has been the administration in washington. he is quite a driving force. he certainly is. he has the stature, the size, the shoulders for this, and he is undoubtedly extraordinarily strong in his opinions about china. he kept

referring to the responsibility of the chinese communist party, the one—party state, and for so many what he sees as the world‘s ills, he was unsparing in his appeal, actually, for an international coalition against china because he said it was in everybody‘s interests to resist the destruction and negation of widely held value systems that he accused china of trying to perpetrate. personal relationships are clearly important at this level of diplomacy and if he said dom and myself once he seemed to say it several times, and they seem to get on. yes, they have some views in common from a right of centre political view, and it is interesting that mike pompeo conceded and dominic robert stressed that they had not read about everything, and that they had had

disagreements —— dominic raab. it is a lwa ys disagreements —— dominic raab. it is always important for a british foreign secretary to put down a marker that we are not simply a poodle to the united states, where ever the balance of power lies, and we know it lies in washington, but it is not just we know it lies in washington, but it is notjust a case of britain a lwa ys it is notjust a case of britain always rolling over and saying, whatever you want, we will do. although mike pompeo would not specify was that he wanted britain to do in addition to what they have already done, i think we know that the us would like to see targeted sanctions against named chinese individuals, something that dominic raab has hinted he might be moving towards but for instance over the treatment of the muslim minority in china, he said it is very difficult to gather evidence that is water tight against specific chinese individuals and named them and then ta ke individuals and named them and then take action against them, ditto hong kong, but there is undoubtedly

enormous transatlantic pressure on him to move down that road of personalised specific targeted sanctions against named individuals, something he has done in recent weeks against russian individuals and more surprisingly perhaps against saudi named individuals, as well, so he has set a precedent and he believes he said in upholding human rights very strongly, so expect that american pressure for more sanctions to continue. james, thanks forjoining us. more sanctions to continue. james, thanks for joining us. james more sanctions to continue. james, thanks forjoining us. james robbins their monitoring that news conference between mike pompeo and dominic raab. now we have the sport. aston villa and bournemouth could be relegated tonight. if watford get at least a point against manchester city then bournemouth will go down which leaves aston villa who will need to match what would‘s result

otherwise they will be playing in the championship next season as well. there has been pressure on us since we came back with project restart, ten games and we were in the bottom three, and everyone has had us relegated since march. our job is to prove people wrong. i said before that these players have played under pressure and they seem to thrive on it. at the other end of the table bothjurgen klopp and the chief constable of merseyside police are asking liverpool supporters not to congregate outside anfield tomorrow when liverpool are presented with the league trophy. by hoping to avoid a repeat of the scenes the ground and also outside the albert dock when liverpool were declared winners. —— they are hoping. all games are being played behind closed doors because of the fear of spreading the coronavirus amongst people. jurgen klopp says the virus has not disappeared yet and the chief constable says the

celebrations should come later when it is safe. we understand the desire to celebrate and show the team and our appreciation and to have a massive party but now is not the time for celebration. we have waited 30 years so a few more months is not too much to ask. too many people have lost their lives already so please, let‘s work together to keep ourfamilies, friends please, let‘s work together to keep our families, friends and please, let‘s work together to keep ourfamilies, friends and neighbours say. please, listen to liverpool, listen tojurgen klopp and the players and trust them, and when they say they will come for a celebration, they will come, but that date not tomorrow. —— that day is not tomorrow. some things have changed but we are not through this, and we have to make sure that we don't put anybody at risk, that is what we try constantly and that is what we try constantly and that is what everybody should try. next year‘s rugby league world cup will begin at newcastle‘s st james‘s park with england playing samoa. the match will take place on the 23rd of

october and the reigning champions australia will take on fiji in hull. scotla nd australia will take on fiji in hull. scotland and ireland play the following day with wales in action on the 27th, it is the first time that the men‘s. . , , . on the 27th, it is the first time that the men‘s. . , and