joe biden has unveiled the team that will shape us foreign policy under his presidency, saying "america is back, ready to lead the world." the biden team's global worldview differs shaply from president trump's america—first approach. mr trump still hasn't conceded the election, but the transition is gathering pace. us airports are filling up for the thanksgiving holiday, as travellers ignore public health warning to stay home to stop the spread of covid—19. since the start of the pandemic in march, holidays have triggered outbreaks of the virus, including after the 4th ofjuly and halloween. christmas has been given the go—ahead across the uk, with families being told they can celebrate together. ministers from england, scotland, wales and northern ireland have agreed on broad nationwide rules, which struck a balance between allowing people to meet loved ones and the risks involved.

now on bbc news, tuesday in parliament. hello again, and welcome to tuesday in parliament. back to normal next year? the health secretary looks forward to the end of social distancing rules. i should hope that we can lift those after easter if these two vaccines are approved by the regulator. three years after the grenfell towerfire, mps demand action on flats with dangerous cladding. this is one of the biggest consumer and safety failures in a generation. and is music streaming killing music? the earnings from my streaming are not significant enough. but first, the health secretary has told mps that the roll—out of coronavirus vaccines

and mass testing will see life get back to normal over easter. matt hancock said that once the elderly and most vulnerable are protected from the virus, there would no longer be the need for strict social distancing. before then, at christmas, the uk's four governments have agreed that restrictions will be relaxed, with up to three households able to mix for five days over the festive period. matt hancock was speaking to the health and science committees, who have joined forces to look at the lessons to be learned from the pandemic. before grilling the health secretary, they took evidence from a public health expert. it's clear to see that we have taken in the uk on much higher level of deaths as well as disability through the pandemic, and i think this comes down to an early on decision to treat this like a flu—like event that would pass through the population.

an uncontrollable spread that you would mitigate through hospital and medical care so everyone can get the care they need, rather than treating this like a sars like event, which is what countries have done. australia, new zealand as well as norway, finland, denmark, which are a bit interesting. they are diverting from that model and trying to keep their numbers as low as possible. plenty of ammunition there for the committee, including matt hancock's predecessor. people watching at home really want to get a sense, is it possible that we could be back to normal after easter? after easter, we think we will be getting back to normal. there are some things that are no regrets. washing your hands more than some parts of social distancing are no regrets things that i think will become commonplace. but those damaging social distancing interventions that have big downsides, whether economic or social in terms of our well—being, i should hope that we can lift those after easter if these two vaccines are approved by the regulator, which of

course is an independent decision for the hra. matt hancock said he'd been guided by the science rather than followed it. i'm asking in hindsight, should we have locked down earlier? there will be of course a debate about this question you ask about, what the advice should have been at the time. what i say in defence of the advice that we were given, which we followed, is that there is a... we put our lockdown measures in earlier within the pandemic curve than other countries, other comparable countries in europe, and what's more, the four nations of the united kingdom

moved at the same time. he was asked why he'd rejected calls in septemberfor a short circuit—breaker lockdown, like the one in wales. at that time, a so—called circuit breaker wouldn't have been as fortunate. the idea of a two—week break is what happens afterwards, and that's the debate we're currently engaging in england what happens after a lockdown. a lockdown is a lockdown is a lockdown. you can call it a circuit breaker if you like. that isjust a two—week lockdown. here, we went for a four—week lockdown, and then returned to a tiered system which

is better calibrated, having learned to the impact of the tiered system in september and october, where the third tier wasn't strong enough to get the r below one. therefore, we need a slightly tougher third tier so that we can have confidence that we can bring cases down under the tiered system. from my constituents' point of view, from the end ofjuly, a lot of them felt a few weeks ago... a lot of my hindu community felt like diwali was cancelled for them. are we considering receptions on fairness? christmas is the biggest national holiday we have. of course it has importance for christians, but it is an important national holiday for everyone in this country. i know we're very hopeful by the spring time, things will be back to relative normality, but until then, do you expect another national lockdown to happen?

no, i very much hope not to buy having a tiered system which is calibrated to be able to bring the fire is under control with us necessary. matt hancock was asked what ministers had learned from the pandemic. he pointed to schools being shut during the first wave, but kept open during the second. and he looked to the future and the expansion of testing capacity. i want a change in the british way of doing things. if in doubt, get a test doesn't just refer to coronavirus, but any illness that you might have. why in britain do we think it's acceptable to soldier on and go into work if you have a flu symptom or a runny nose, thus making your colleagues ill? i think that's something that's going have to change. if you have in the future, i hope, flu—like symptoms, you should get a test and find

out what's wrong with you, and if you need to stay at home to protect others, then you should stay at home. we are particularly unusual outliers of soldiering on still going to work, kind of being the culture. "as long as you can go out of bed, you should get into work. " that should change. matt hancock. and if you're wondering, easter sunday next year is on april the 4th. tensions over the lockdown rules continue. a conservative mp has angrily condemned the arrest of an elderly woman for protesting outside the palace of westminster against the current restrictions. sir charles walker said the woman had been carried into a police van. this is a disgrace.

this is un—british. it is unconstitutional, and this government, our prime minister needs to in these injustices now. will you bring the prime minister and all of the home secretary here today to sort this out? she was an old lady robbed of her dignity for having the courage to protest about having her fundamental rights and those of my constituents and others removed. the deputy speaker, dame rosie winterton, said she was sure his comments would be fed back by ministers. a housing minister has come under pressure to speed up the removal of flammable cladding from buildings and prevent leaseholders having to foot the bill. after the 2017 grenfell fire, the government pledged safe alternatives would be provided on all buildings in england taller than 18 metres by last june. but mps say delays to the process and uncertainty over who will pay are causing "unimaginable anxiety". answering an urgent question in the commons, christopher pincher said the government couldn't write an open cheque.

costs are being funded through a number of sources, including warranties, building owners and developers. we have also provided £600 million to fund a removal of acm where funding has been key. the chancellor of the exchequer has allocated a further £1 million to be spent on removing other types of unsafe cladding over the present financial year. public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility. we expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to cover remediation cost themselves without passing on costs to leaseholders.

the mp who'd asked the question reckoned the money on offer wasn't enough. if developers have gone out of business or are refusing to pay, does he accept that the government is going to have to step in and fund all the costs? if he accepts that, does he accept that the {1.6 billion made available so far would be totally inadequate? book select committee heard heard all high—rise buildings are totally safe, the total bill could be as high as £15 million and leaseholders should not have to pay that. does the minister accept many people are going to have a very miserable christmas? trapped in properties they can't sell, they have to ensure, trapped in properties where they're having to pay and wondering how on earth they're going to pay the bills that could arrive on their doormat at any time. we cannot write an open cheque on behalf of the taxpayer. that would send the wrong signal for developers that they do not have to pay

because the taxpayer will. by my count, the government has promised 11 times in the chamber and beyond that leaseholders should be protected from the cost of remediation. and now, we witness minister after minister shifting sand. referring to affordable costs put on the shoulder of leaseholders enshrined in the draft building safety bill. it is not true of him to say leaseholders are being left to the bill. the house knows full well a taxpayer is paying {1.6 billion to remediate those buildings which are most at risk where the owners are unable to pay.

one mp quoted from an e—mail she'd received from affected constituents. manufacturers are responsible for defective cars. why is it different for the most expensive purchase anyone will ever make in theirlives? it is inexcusable now that there are still many building owners who have failed to remove dangerous cladding and are still trying to pass the buck to leaseholders have suffered enough. i welcome the government's support and approach. 1.6 billion is huge, but the taxes of working families up and down the country should not be used to absolve developers, insurers and owners from their proper responsibilities. from december, i can tell the house those responsible for buildings where remediation is not forecast to start by the end of 2020 will be publicly named as an incentive

for them to get going. this is one of the biggest consumer and safety failures in a generation. we've published a report on this issue and i watched taxpayers‘s money very closely. surely the government needs to step up. we need ten times the amount that's been pledged. surely the minister must recognise this. too many stakeholders are trapped and will not be able to move. the minister told her the government had stepped up and that was why it had put money in to remove dangerous cladding. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, david cornock. still to come, first minister's questions in the welsh parliament. the report into the conduct of the home secretary, priti patel, has provoked heated exchanges in the house of lords. last week, the prime minister overruled his own adviser

on ministerial standards, who'd found ms patel‘s behaviour towards colleagues could be construed as bullying, although unintentional, and so she had breached the ministerial code. the adviser, sir alex allan, resigned. the home secretary apologised. downing street said the matter was "closed", but peers weren't leaving it there. a conservative went on the offensive, attacking sir philip rutnam, the former permanent secretary at the home office who very publicly resigned earlier this year. sir philip rutnam behaved disgracefully badly when he crossed that boundary by rubbishing a secretary of state. he brought even further disgrace on our superb civil service by appearing on television. would the noble lord, the minister, agree that in future, snowflakes should be barred from being permanent secretaries or indeed any other senior position in the civil service?

look, i won't comment on any individual case, but it is certainly true that being at the top of a major department is a challenging role for ministers and for senior civil servants alike. and frankly, i haven't known many snowflakes in either of those capacities. a former head of the civil service was enraged. it would have been good if the noble lord, the minister, had condemned the terms of lord howard's question. my lords, under this prime minister, the conduct of the government and its ministers has been criticised by the supreme court, by the national audit office in relation to its conduct of procurement, the commissioner for public appointments, the chair of the committee on the standards in public life and the prime minister's independent adviser on ministerial conduct. does the government take these criticisms seriously? and if so, what proposals does it have to restore confidence in the probity of public life?

my lords, i don't agree that confidence in the probity of public life, as my noble friend puts it, is destroyed. the government takes all criticism and all comment seriously and reflects on all comment positive and negative. the ministerial code would outlaw bullying and harassment, but he's made the process a sham and the outcome shambolic. this is what obama calls truth decay. why should civil servants, my lords, or indeed anyone else now trust the prime minister's promises? but not everyone agreed with that. it is a strength of the ministerial code that it does not require removal from office of a minister who breaches the code, but it emphasises that

the prime minister is the final arbiter on whether a breach has occurred and if so what the consequences are, which then allows him to make considered judgements in cases which are not black and white. away from the lords, mps wondered what the chair of the committee on standards in public life thought about the behaviour of priti patel. what's the difference between intentional bullying and unintentional bullying? do i think you could have unintentional bullying? i guess you could, although i'd have thought it'd be quite a rare thing because it's to be persistent because it's got to be of a certain severity. you would normally expect people to be able to recognise if their behaviour is bullying. and so, you know, i don't think it's impossible to conceive of it, but i think it would be a rare occurrence. and lord evans was concerned about the independence of the system. but the triggering of an investigation rests in the sole discretion of the prime minister, so the danger is that issues of public concern are left unresolved because an investigation hasn't been triggered. and then the decision on what action to take about that also rests entirely with the prime minister,

which at one level makes sense, given that it's the prime minister's government, it's the queen's government, but it's the prime minister who's the leader of the government. but on the other hand, in the same way that adjudicating those issues in the commons or in the lords looks as though you're marking your own homework. there is the same problem with the same sort of concern expressed in the way that the ministerial code works. lord evans. the announcement of a uk—wide approach to the christmas period followed a meeting of the uk government's emergency cobra committee attended virtually by all four nations. earlier, wales‘s first minister had warned people not to take risks during any relaxation of the rules. mark drakeford was answering questions from members of the senedd in cardiff. in what has been the toughest year in living memory for so many of us, i'm sure we all look forward to a happier new year and before then to spending time with friends and

family over christmas. a compassionate, but responsible approach to a limited relaxation of restrictions over the holiday period seems sensible. however it's also crucial that we don't lose the hard gotten gains of the last few months for the sake of four orfive days, and people must therefore know that any relaxation also comes with the risks. whatever additional freedom we are able to offer over the christmas period will have to be used responsibly by people. the fact that a relaxation is possible is not an instruction to go and spend the whole of that period doing risky things. and the leader of plaid cymru asked what the impact of any relaxation over christmas would be, and while i don't have a quantifiable answer to that at the moment, the general answer is very clear. it will lead to more spreading of coronavirus because coronavirus thrives when people get together and the more people get together, the more coronavirus

there will be. first minister, yesterday, the health minister confirmed that the welsh government is considering tighter covid restrictions in the run—up to christmas. can you confirm what restrictions you are now considering given that you have already introduced local authority—based restrictions, hyper—local lockdown restrictions and now national restrictions? i have been making the case in the meetings we've had with the other nations in the united kingdom for a broadly aligned approach not just for the narrow period of christmas, but in the run—up to christmas and in the post—christmas period. so, we have followed carefully what the uk government has said so far this week about a return to a recalibrated tier system in england. we wait to have further information on that possibly this afternoon and again on thursday. and then this week, the cabinet will meet pretty regularly.

we met yesterday, we met this morning, we will meet again before the end of the week to see whether there are further measures that we need to introduce in wales. mark drakeford. now, it was a line—up more typical of glastonbury than westminster. the mercury—nominated singer and musician nadine shahjoined members of elbow and radiohead to tell mps on the culture committee about the impact of streaming services like spotify and apple music on their income. there've been complaints that streaming royalties are inadequate, with artists seeing little of the money that was being made. the system as it is is threatening the future of music. and that sounds very dramatic, but if musicians can't afford to pay the rent, if they can't afford to live, then we haven't got tomorrow's music in place. i'm here because of what... i've been looking to live as a musician for 20 years. and that required the record

companies that nurtured us and developed us and that produced us that were in the cathedrals of recording studios that we used, and all this assistance and nurturing came from record labels, from management, from publishers. and i want that we had for the next generation of musicians, but it's become so skewed. imean, streaming in itself actually... streaming is a bit of a miracle. i was listening to betty smith this morning because i was awake at 5am because i've been really nervous about appearing here. and i realised that i was listening to a recording that she made for me 100 years ago. now, the fact that you have access to every recording ever made, every piece of music ever recorded in your back pocket for £10 a month is a miracle. almost. it's almost a miracle. if musicians are equitably paid, then it's a miracle because then it's sustainable and then it's something for everybody to be proud of. the era that i was signed

with radiohead, we were signed in '91, and i call that the analog era. and we've got this analog model that had huge, huge imbalances, unfairness... and it's interesting to see your reactions to the testimony this morning. you're becoming aware of the unfairness and the opaqueness within the business, and then you're bolting on this digital model. and it's not working. nadine is an extraordinary artist who gets played a lot. she's a really important artist. if you listen to six music, she's one of the pillars of six music, like i do. so she's a successful artist. she's not like on a radiohead level or whatever, but she's really doing amazing work, and she said yesterday i struggle to financially support myself. and that's crazy. i mean, there've always been imbalances in the system and they need to be addressed, but it's more acute now. nadine shah had been looking forward to playing

at glastonbury this summer until the coronavirus pandemic struck. the earnings from my streaming, they're not significant enough to keep the wolf away from the door. that's... i'm in a position as an artist with a substantial profile, a substantial fan base and is critically acclaimed, but i don't make enough money from streaming. i'm in the position now where i'm struggling to pay my rent, and i'm embarrassed to talk about these issues publicly. i'm embarrassed to talk about them for many reasons, because money, you know, it's something to an extent is an indication of success. but here that's not really the case with me because i am a successful musician, but i'm just not being paid fairly for the work that i make. transparency, like i said, like i first said in this

session, often we are encouraged, artists, we are encouraged not to ask these questions here and there. i don't think there is enough transparency, no, but the bottom line for me is that what is transparent is that i'm not being paid. and it's the same for my fellow musicians, and so many other musicians all over the world are in the same position as me where they are struggling. they are struggling. we can't afford to be musicians, and that's a wild concept, to not be able to afford to be a musician. so then we're in this really stark, bitter, awful reality where there is... the reality is that we could lose lots of musicians, lots of great music. nadine shah bringing us to the end of this tuesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i'll be back at the same time tomorrow with details of the chancellor's spending review and prime minister's questions. until then, bye for now.

hello again. we had some big weather contrasts across the uk on tuesday, england and wales, a lot of dry weather with some sunny spells breaking through the cloud, some fine sunsets to end the day particularly for eastern areas, but it was north wales that was the real mildest spot in the country, 15 celsius, mild weather across most areas. contrast that with the rain that just wouldn't stop across scotland and northern ireland, thanks to this weather front, this cold front, and as this pushes east over the next couple of days, colder air will be arriving across all parts of the country. back to what we have at the moment, that weather front is still bringing some splashes of rain across wales and western england. it will very gradually move eastwards, bringing rain into parts of the midlands and central and southern england before long. a few showers for northern ireland and scotland, otherwise with clear spells, cold, might see 1—2 areas

with a touch of frost. our weather front continues to push eastwards, but it gets stretched out between these two areas of low pressure — one in scandinavia and one in spain and portugal. so the front will weaken very quickly as it slowly edges its way eastwards through wednesday, the rain becoming increasingly light and patchy as it dribbles its way across the midlands into east anglia and southeast england. there's no great rainfall amounts for these areas. the mild airjust hanging on across the east. 111—15 celsius in the very warmest spots but further north and west, it's much colder. temperatures down into single figures. following that, wednesday night, we will see patches of frost developing and maybe a few areas of fog to start the day on thursday. thursday looks like being a pretty decent day. yes, it will be cooler than it has been of late, but most areas will be dry and we should see fairly lengthy spells of sunshine developing. it will be cool for the time of the year, temperatures

generally into single figures, just 5 celsius in glasgow, maybe 7 in belfast. then it looks like we will see some more mist and fog patches developing as we head into friday morning along with some frost. so for some of us, friday promises to be quite a slow start to the day and quite murky, some of those mist and fog patches may linger all day. where that happens, temperatures will be in the low single figures, but even in the brighter spots on friday, it looks like being a particularly chilly day for this stage of november. the weekend, mostly dry, but we will continue with the cool weather conditions, with frost and some morning mist and fog.

a very warm welcome to bbc news. my names‘ mike embley. our top stories: ready to lead the world — joe biden unveils the team that will shape us foreign policy under his presidency. it's a team that reflects the fact that america is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it, and once again sit at the head of the table. us airports fill up for the thanksgiving holiday, as travellers ignore public health warning to stay home to stop the spread of covid—19. ending period poverty — scotland becomes the first country in the world to make period products free. and the soldier's best friend — the hero dog awarded the canine version of the victoria cross for saving british service men and women's lives in afghanistan.