president trump has returned to the campaign trial for the first time since his coronavirus diagnosis less than two weeks ago. he told the crowd in florida that he wanted the experimental medicine he received during his treatement president trump's nominee for the supreme court, amy coney barrett, has told a senate confirmation hearing that she'll approach cases based on the law, not her personal values. she is a staunch conservative and roman catholic. her nomination is highly controversial so close to a presidential election, and if approved, as looks likely, she would cement a conservative majority on the nation's highest court. with more virus cases now in hospital in the uk, than there were before the full lockdown in march, the uk's prime minister has outlined a three tier system which will impose stronger restrictions on areas with the highest rates of infection. liverpool city region will be under the strictest measures.

now on bbc news, monday in parliament. hello there, and welcome to monday in parliament. coming up in the next half hour, the prime minister confirms a new three—tier system for coronavirus restrictions in england. areas under the toughest rules will see pubs, bars and betting shops close. this is the narrow path we have to tread between the social and economic trauma of a full lockdown and the massive human and indeed economic cost of an uncontained epidemic. the labour leader backs the moves, but wonders if they'll be enough. i'm now deeply sceptical that the government has actually got a plan to get control of this virus, to protectjobs or regain public trust. also on this programme,

questions in the lords about the effect of covid on black and minority ethnic workers. there has been a petition of 140,000 people calling for a proper covid race equality strategy. but first, boris johnson has announced new restrictions to curb the rapidly rising number of coronavirus cases. the prime minister told mps that every area of england would be placed into "medium", "high" or "very high" alert levels. places listed as medium would be subject to the current rules. in the high alert category, household mixing would be banned indoors, and in the very high alert areas, social mixing would be banned indoors and in private gardens, and pubs and bars would be closed. the liverpool city region is the first to be placed in the highest category. and the prime minister set out exactly what that would mean. the very high alert level will apply where transmission rates are rising most rapidly and where the nhs could soon be under unbearable pressure

without further restrictions. in these areas, the government will set a baseline of prohibiting social mixing indoors and in private gardens and, i'm sorry to say, closing pubs and bars. we want to create the maximum possible local consensus behind this more severe local action. so, in each area, we will work with local government leaders on the additional measures which should be taken. this could lead to further restrictions on the hospitality, leisure, entertainment or personal care sectors. but retail, schools and universities will remain open. as my right honourable friend, the chancellor, has set out, the government will expand its unprecedented economic support to assist those affected by these decisions, extending ourjob support

scheme to cover two thirds of the wages of those in any business that is required to close and providing those businesses with a cash grant of up to £3000 a month instead of £1500 every three weeks. it is no answer to say that we could let the virus take hold among the young and fit while shielding the elderly and vulnerable. because the virus would then spread with such velocity in the general population that there would be no way of stopping it from spreading among the elderly. and even if the virus is less lethal for the under—60s, there will still be many younger people for whom, alas, it remains lethal. and so he was announcing the new three—tier approach for england. mr speaker, this is not how we want to live our lives, but this is the narrow path we have to tread between the social and economic

trauma of a full lockdown and the massive human and indeed economic cost of an uncontained epidemic. the labour leader said deaths were rising and decisive action was needed. the question today is whether the restrictions announced by the prime minister can bring the country back from the brink, whether they can regain control of the virus and provide the support and confidence that local businesses and communities need. that's how high the stakes now are. but i have to say to the prime minister, i'm now deeply sceptical that the government has actually got a plan to get control of this virus, to protectjobs or regain public trust. we've tried to give the prime minister the benefit of the doubt, but it increasingly feels like the prime minister is several steps behind the curve and running to catch up with the virus that he has lost control of long ago. so, can the prime minister tell us, what reassurance can

he give us that these measures today will be sufficient to get the virus under control? would he finally accept that trace and isolate should be handed over to local authorities as we've been saying for months? will he accept that the support packages announced by the chancellor simply won't work for many thousands of people, particularly those on the minimum wage? mr speaker, there's huge anger about this in areas under lockdown, and there's a huge gap in the government's plan. the snp wanted continued support for workers. will he finally instruct his chancellor to extend the full furlough scheme beyond october? businesses and workers must not pay the price for managing the lockdown with closures and unemployment when their businesses would be viable post these special measures? the government has asked a lot of people during this pandemic. stay at home, close your business, don't be there for the death of a loved one. the british people have

born such sacrifice borne such sacrifice with grace and resilience. all they ask in return from government is clear communication and basic competence. and it seems their sacrifices have been squandered by the government's failure to build a robust test, trace and isolate system or even communicate competently. people from conway with 122 cases per 100,000 are not permitted by welsh law to make nonessential journeys into next door to cases stand at 18.18 per 100,000. ——where casts stand at 18 per100,000. but people in liverpool, with almost 1600 cases per 100,000, can still go on holiday in wales. the people in wales are asking the prime minister — how is this fair? well, mr speaker, the guidance

is very clear that people from very high areas such as merseyside should not be making those journeys. for ten long years, my city has been under the boot of tory austerity, and now the prime minister intends to shut down our economy whilst keeping furlough support at 67%, which has all the hallmarks of once again placing our city into a state of managed decline. will he listen to our metro mayor, our city mayor and localmps, stump of the cash for a follow scheme ——stump up the cash for a furlough scheme based on 80% of wages without the reliance, as he keeps saying in that chamber today, on universal credit. if it was the right thing to do in march, it is the right thing to do now. by when does my right honourable friend expect to have vaccinated the vulnerable population? what is his confidence in that date, and why does he have that confidence? i'm grateful to my right honourable friend. alas i cannot give him a date by which i can promise confidently that we will have a vaccine. there's some very hopeful

signs, not least from the oxford trials that are being conducted, but as he knows, as sars was discovered 18 years ago, we still don't have a vaccine for sars. i don't wish to depress him but we must be realistic about this. there is a good chance of a vaccine but it cannot be taken for granted. can the prime minister tell me where transmission is occurring in newcastle now rather than getting based on us data? and if he cannot, after six months and hundreds of millions of pounds spent on private contractors to track transmission, will he accept that fundamentally what is not working in this pandemic is the prime minister and the businesses and people of newcastle are paying the price? mr speaker, it's thanks to the great expansion of nhs test and trace that we do know where the virus is being transmitted in this country. we do know where the incidence is rising and we know it with,

contrary to what she says, we know it with increasing granular detail. borisjohnson there. now, mps have overturned changes made to the agriculture bill after the government said they were unnecessary and could have "undesirable" side effects. peers made a number of amendments to the legislation, including one demanding the government agrees rules making it impossible for the united states or other countries to export chlorine—treated chicken or beef fattened with hormones. but a minister rejected those, telling the commons that the government would not compromise on the uk's high animal welfare and food standards. our current import standards are enshrined in existing legislation. these include a ban on importing beef produced using artificial growth hormones and poultry which has been washed with chlorine. the withdrawal act carries across these existing standards on environmental protections, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety.

any changes to this legislation would need to be brought before parliament. what we're concerned about is the production and the impact on the producer that if we undermine animal welfare and environmental standards, we may well have quality food to eat, but we will damage our farmers and the integrity of our farming industry in the process. is there any reason why in any future free—trade agreement this house shouldn't be given proper opportunity to scrutinise those free—trade agreements before they are signed so that we can ensure that those agreements do not enable produce to come into this country that is lower than those standards? the minister remained opposed, saying the change made by the lords could hit existing trade agreements. they could create a long list of new conditions that imports under trade agreements would have to meet. such conditions do not exist under any agreement

the uk or eu has to date and could also apply to trade already taking place today that would hope very much is the subject of rollover deals. labour urged the government to accept the amendment, saying it had pledged to protect food and animal welfare standards in the manifesto at the last election. 0ur farmers risk being undercut by cheap imports from abroad within months. if the government is serious about keeping its manifesto promise to safeguard standards, it should put that guarantee into law. if this promise was good enough for the conservative manifesto, why is it not good enough for the agriculture bill, the flagship piece of legislation around food and farming for this government? i must say to the minister, refusing to put this part of the manifesto into law does beg the question about whether that part of the manifesto was truly meant and whether that promise can be believed. what will farmers benefit from, and what will they not benefit from?

and i worry that leaving a back door to our farmers being undercut in trade deals is neither a good economic strategy for our country, nor is it a good political strategy for those people advocating it. a senior conservative backbencher said he would back the key lords amendment. will it not be right for the secretary of state for trade to have the armour of having the backing of parliament to actually say i can't negotiate away that particular part of the deal with you because it is written down in law? others pointed to past promises by farming ministers. the former defra secretary, now chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, promised us several times that uk food standards wouldn't be undermined by future trade deals. here is the best and very possibly the last opportunity for this defra secretary and his minister to do something about it. but there was support for ministers and opposition to the change made by the lords.

i believe that taking a total protectionist approach is the wrong approach in the long—term for the success of our agriculture industry. we have a huge opportunity available to us, and i believe that this amendment constrains our agricultural food sector's ability to grow, expand and meet new export opportunities. now, with increasing numbers of schoolchildren in england having to self—isolate at home, the department for education has said it's making half a million laptops available to support remote learning. from the middle of october, schools will be obliged to ensure that self—isolating pupils continue to receive an education. as part of £160 million invested to support remote education, over 220,000 laptops and tablets have already been delivered, with 40,000 routers additional to that. we're now supplementing this support by making available a quarter of a million

additional devices in the event face—to—face schooling is disrupted. this represents an injection of nearly half a million laptops and tablets for those most in need. thank you, mr speaker. from the 22nd of october, schools will be required to provide remote education to those pupils isolating because of coronavirus. ofcom estimate that up to 1.78 million children in the uk have no access to a laptop, desktop or tablet at home, and for whom this policy will fail. with less than two weeks until the changes, how can the education of these children be guaranteed? and is it not time to ensure that every child entitled to a free school meal is provided with internet access and an adequate device at home? the honourable lady will probably be familiar with our policy, the fact that we've set up support for those schools that are in a position

where they'll have to provide remote education for children, making sure that those children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are properly supported by this programme, an investment of half a million laptops. several mps raised the plight of university students, including those having to self—isolate. could the minister and the department help me understand why several universities are not giving face—to—face teaching at all, even in an appropriately socially distanced way, being extremely draconian with the way that certain students are being treated in terms of their social contact, which is a critical part of being at university, and some are even charging £18 a day for food parcels? universities are offering blended learning unless they have moved to a higher covid higher education tier, in conjunction with their local public health england team, but let me be clear. no university should seek to profit from students self—isolating, and reported charges of £18 a day for food parcels are quite simply outrageous.

you're watching monday in parliament, with me, alicia mccarthy. over in the house of lords, peers questioned what action the government is taking to help black and minority ethnic communities in the face of the economic downturn caused by coronavirus. one called for a race equality strategy. in august, the government were made acutely aware that the highest rate of furloughed jobs and redundancies has a disproportionately high number of black, asian and ethnic minority workers. the mainjob retention scheme coming to a close, we can now expect another spike in bame redundancies. can my noble friend the minister tell me if the government has undertaken a bame impact assessment before making these changes? and in spite of repeated calls,

including the 140,000—signed petition, why we still don't have a covid—19 race equality strategy? when designing the coronavirus job retention scheme and its next steps, the government undertook an analysis of how the policies were likely to affect individuals sharing protected characteristics, in line with our public sector equality duties. of course, the coronavirusjob retention scheme comes to an end at the end of october. it is being replaced by the job support scheme that will continue to support jobs during the pandemic. there's overwhelming evidence now that black and ethnic minority communities have borne the brunt of this pandemic, facing disproportionate fatality rates and now being hit harder byjob losses, and don't take my word for it. the analysis is confirmed in research published by the house of commons library, which found that there were an average number of bame workers in areas of the economy that have been shut down — an above—average number.

so, again, i'd like to press the minister on the question put by my noble friend that there has been a petition of 140,000 people calling for a proper covid race equality strategy. in terms of the vulnerability of people from black and minority ethnic communities to the virus itself, there was work done by public health england on that, and there is follow—up work being undertaken, including asking every nhs trust to undertake risk assessments and then take action to mitigate those risks. in terms of an equality impact assessment, there was an assessment done under the government's public sector equality duty of both the cjrs scheme and its successor schemes. my lords, we're using lockdown to fight covid, but lockdown itself costs lives, it costs jobs, it denies futures. and those who are damaged most by lockdown are the poor, which include so many amongst the bame communities. it's the poor who pay

so much of the price, so does my noble friend accept that there is a case, at least — some of us believe it's a case that's increasingly persuasive — that we can't simply carry on with the endless cycle of lockdown after lockdown that effectively does far too much of the disease‘s dirty work for it by putting the poor, in bame and other communities, at greatest risk? well, my lords, of course, the government wants to move forward from that approach, and that's why we've invested so much in the development of vaccines. that's why we're working on test and trace and improving that. the reality is that there are economic costs. . . there are health costs to economic lockdowns as well as economic costs, but at the same time, there are economic costs if we do not get the virus under control, people do not have the confidence to go out and participate in our economy,

and so we are seeking to find the right balance between those at all times in our response. in the minister's replies, i hear no hint of any new action to tackle this great injustice. does the government not accept that this is disappointing, given that covid strikes hardest where inequalities are greatest, that one of the greatest drivers of inequalities is rising unemployment and that the bame community has suffered most of all from this? the noble lord says that the government's not taking any new action in response to this. my lords, new action was announced on friday. i'm updating the house on it today. and as i said, the commission for racial equality is also reporting on employment as one of the themes it's looking at by the end of the year. mps have been told that vaccines against coronavirus could be made available towards the end of the year,

but the senior civil servant at the department of health and social care said they were unlikely to eliminate the disease. sir chris wormald was giving evidence to the public accounts committee, which also questioned him about testing for the virus. the government hopes to be able to process half a million tests a day by the end of this month, but the mps were also keen to track progress towards the prime minister's more ambitious long—term target. really, the original moonshot idea — where millions of people were going to be tested — was more oi’ less an intergalactic dream, was it? no, that's a different thing using different technology, but maybe david will want to... yes. so, there's a specific target to increase pcr— based laboratory capacity to 500,000 a day by the end of october, but beyond that, we are looking both at whether we can increase that capacity further

in time for winter — so, potentially up to 800,000 tests a day or beyond. but the government was looking at other technologies for a mass testing programme. the specific figures, as i think i mentioned in the hearing last time, that have been reported in the media of 10 million tests a day and costing £100 billion are wildly inaccurate. nevertheless, we do continue to see how we might be able to develop a reasonable mass testing programme. sir chris wormald was asked about progress developing a vaccine. the expectation is that vaccines may become available towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year, but there will then... there's a significant

piece of work under way, actually led by the nhs, on then how vaccines are deployed... you talked very confidently about "a matter of months. . . " are you confident it will actually be a vaccine that will still work? well, we haven't brought any of our scientists, who would give a much better answer than us, but, yes, we are confident that there will be successful vaccines. we can't think of a vaccine in the way that some vaccines work to basically eliminate an illness. we're much more likely to get the type of vaccine that we get for flu, which is an important contribution to the control of something, but it doesn't end the disease as we all know. and then, we would expect vaccines to improve over time, so we should not be thinking in terms of, "there's a magic bullet that will make all this go away."

the mps moved on to the supply of ventilators, a key part of treating the early pandemic. but an invitation to join a european union scheme to buy ventilators went unanswered after it was sent to old e—mail addresses. why didn't the eu have up—to—date contact details? i couldn't really tell you. we had supplied, as i understand it, new contact details to the eu and... well, it's as set out in the report. they used some really quite old ones which were not only of members of staff who have gone but on our old e—mail systems. it was the dh system, not dhsc, so the messages were never received. did he share my surprise that they sent an e—mail, but given the importance, no—one picked up the phone and said, "hey, uk", find out what was up? well, it's not

a question i can answer. as i say, i don't think, in the real world, this issue particularly affected anything. as i understand it, the eu procurement hasn't been dramatically successful, and even if we had had the chance to participate, i don't think it would have affected the number of ventilators. sir chris wormald there. and that's it from me for today, but dojoin me at the same time tomorrow for another round—up of the day here at westminster, as mps debate the latest coronavirus rules. but for now, from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye.

good morning. it really wasn't the best start to a working week in terms of weather, was it? with the majority of the country seeing outbreaks of rain at times, slowly spreading its way southeast. this weather watcher picture from whitby, north yorkshire, tends to sum up monday afternoon for many. but i can offer a glimmer of good news as we head throughout the week, gradually turning a little bit drier, but staying on the chilly side for the time of year. now, for today, however, we're still under this area of low pressure. it's a bit of a messy weather story to try and tell, but here goes. once this weather front sinks its way steadily south through the day, we will start to see an improving picture gradually through scotland and northern ireland, but a brisk northeasterly wind here will make it feel on the cool side. the low pressure sinks its way south, spiralling around that low, plenty of showers, a little bit like clothes in a washing machine spinning around. you'll probably feel it's going to dry up, and then there will be more showers flying in through the afternoon.

so, it's a messy story across england and wales, and the temperatures, unfortunately, are not going to be particularly great either. top temperatures through the afternoon of around 10—13 celsius. now, as we move out of tuesday, we'll start to see those showers pushing their way a little bit further north and west back into southern, central and eastern scotland overnight. we also run the risk of a few showers just plaguing channel coasts. plaguing channel coasts. sandwiched in between the two, there will be some clearer slots, and we will see temperatures dipping into single figures. so, again, it's going to be a chilly start to our wednesday morning, but wednesday shows signs of the first spot of improvement. a weak weather front will move through, but high—pressure starts to build once again, and that's going to be responsible for quieting things down as we move towards the weekend. so, there is a risk of that northeasterly breeze just driving in some showers through the morning — chiefly on the east coast to start with, but then some of those showers may well just filter a little bit further inland as we go through the day. maybe scotland and northern

ireland — already under that influence of high—pressure — fairing best. top temperatures of around 15 celsius. but as we move out of wednesday into thursday and towards the weekend, you can see the dryer story kicking in. however, as we go towards the weekend, it's going to be bright rather than sunny. but i'll take that. take care.

welcome to bbc news — i'm mike embley. our top stories... less than two weeks after testing positive for coronavirus, president trump is back on the campaign trial — addressing an election rally in florida. i feel so powerful, i will walk into that office. i will walk in there, i will kiss everyone in that office. democratic party senators in the us say the confirmation of amy coney barrett, to the supreme court would be a disaster for the rights of ordinary americans, as she makes a pitch for thejob. i believe americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent supreme court. that interprets our constitution and laws as they are written. i believe i can serve my country by playing that role. we report from the devastated region of nagorno—karabakh