after the president — has finally broken ranks with donald trump and congratulated joe biden on winning the presidential election. mr mcconnell also urged fellow republicans not to object to the result when congress meets to ratify it. a second coronavirus vaccine looks about to be approved for emergency use in the us. the food and drug administration says the moderna jab is safe and 94% effective, and can be stored at higher temperatures than the vaccine developed by pfizer and biontech. if approved shipments could begin within 2a hours. pressure is increasing on the uk government to revise its relaxation of covid restrictions in england over christmas. days before the changes are due to take effect, two leading medicaljournals are saying they would be a mistake and could cost countless lives. now on bbc news, it's

tuesday in parliament. hello and welcome to tuesday in parliament. coming up on this programme: the government sets out new plans to protect children from online harms. a 13—year—old should no longer be able to access pornographic images on twitter. mps hear from the senior midwife who led an inquiry into britain's worst maternity scandal. there was also a culture of well, this is your fault to the mother, if you had not done x, then your baby may have lived. and there's a call for the uk to take action against china over claims it's using forced labour to produce cotton. the national legislation to ensure that uk companies

are not profiting from uighur forced labour. but first, new laws to protect children and clamp down on fake news, harmful content and abusive behaviour online will be brought in next year. the government says its aim is to keep youngsters away from harmful content while allowing free speech. under the plans social media companies will face massive fines and potentially criminal charges against senior managers if they fail to take action. when drafting our proposals, i sought to strike a very important balance between shielding people from harm, particularly children, but also ensuring a proportionate regime and one that holds the course of our democracy, freedom of expression. and i am confident that our response strike this balance. under our proposals, online companies will face a new and binding duty of care to their users overseen by ofcom.

and if those platforms fail in that duty of care, they will face a steep fines of up to £18 million or 10% of annual global turnover. he said the companies would no longer be able to as he put it mark their own homework. and the government would bring in legislation allowing criminal sanctions for senior managers. we hope not to introduce and use these powers. and for tech companies to engineer the harm out of their platforms from the very outset. but have no doubt they remain an option and we will use them if we need to. together, those measures make this the toughest and most comprehensive online sector regime in the world. and they will have a clear and immediate effect. a 13—year—old should no longer be able to access pornographic images on twitter. youtube will not be allowed to recommend videos promoting terrorist ideologies. and anti—semitic hate crime will need to be removed without delay. and he announced a specific measure. too many members here today

will be aware of cases where children are drawn in to watching videos that can encourage self harm. some find themselves bombarded with that content and ultimately sometimes ending in tragedy. it is unforgivable that this sort of content should be in sector leading unchecked on social media. and given the severity of its consequences, i believe there's a strong case for making it illegal. i can today announce the government has asked the law commission to examine how the criminal law will address the encouragement or assistance of self harm. let me start by saying we welcome any moves to protect children and the vulnerable online. there are plenty of questions about the gaps in the government's response relating to protecting children online, but the emphasis on children in this statement is very welcome. but she argued action was long overdue. the secretary of state has said the uk will lead the way with this legislation but i'm afraid the response today is lacking in ambition.

it does feel like a missed opportunity. this is a once in a generation chance to legislate for the kind of internet we want to see that keeps both children and adults citizens safe, and allows people to control what kind of content they see online. instead the government has been timid. these are some of the largest fines ever imposed, up to 10% of the global revenue of a company like facebook. you think about how enormous the maximum fine can be. i want tech firms to comply with this and if they don't comply with this, they face a steep fines and if they still don't comply no doubt their senior managers will face criminal sanctions. whilst balancing the right to free expression the bill could enjoy maximum support in the house, must have a legal content as well as content that is potentially harmful but not illegal.

he said there'd been a surge in homophobia and transphobia online during the pandemic. in that context, surely there is a case for looking again at social media anonymity. whilst nom de plumes are fine, we believe that a user's identity should be known to the social media publishers. they should not be completely anonymous under all circumstances. in the last two months, community security trust have identified 90,000 posts mentioning me — most are hostile, anti—semitic, misogynistic and ageist. anonymity on social media can no longer be universally protected whilst it should be protected for groups like whistle—blowers and victims of domestic domestic violence. can he not agree that where users post illegal content or harmful abuse, social media companies should be required to collect and pass information on the identity

of the user to regulatory bodies and the police. the reluctance i have had to introduce this across the board is how you lift the veil of anonymity whilst at the same time protecting some very vulnerable people who rely upon it. a former culture secretrary asked about age restrictions. i'm very pleased to hear him looking at different types of technology to protect children but can he please not let perfect be the enemy of the good and do something around age verification as soon as possible. 0liver dowden said the technology was available and the regulator 0fcom would be holding tech companies to account to make sure they took advantage of it. the senior midwife who led an inquiry into britain's worst maternity scandal has told a group of mps that there was a culture of blaming parents. donna 0ckenden investigated deaths and injuries at the shrewsbury and telford hospital nhs trust. her initial report, published last week, was damning.

between the year 2000 and 2013, 13 mothers died. more than 1,800 cases are now being investigated. the report was commissioned three years ago by the then health secretary, jeremy hunt, who now chairs the health and social care select committee. clearly even though it's only an interim report, a huge amount of lessons that need to be learned, i wonder if i could just start with one in particular. which is i think the thing that will have shocked a lot of people when you published that report last week. which is why it took so long for these issues to come to light, and they really go back decades. i cannot stress it enough, listening or not listening to families is very key. we know that very many families

have tried for many years to get the trust structure, and that's midwifery, obstetrics, general management and to executive level to listen, and you see lots of examples already in the 250, really dismissive letters and very unkind letters, and what was picked up very accurately in the media, and families themselves saw on thursday onwards, there was also a culture of, well, this is your fault. to the mother. if you had not done x than your baby may have lived. as one key issue, not only not listening but blaming mothers which, again, mothers and fathers will tell you they have carried that guilt for years. what we have found is that when they did investigate, if they did investigate, they often just hung their hats on the wrong hook so to speak.

they pick something that certainly was not the root cause so they got diverted, so they failed to learn. another issue that is coming out, because the trust have now shared with us a vast amount of documentation, they've been really helpful in that, is we noticed that until a complaint came in, the initial trust reviews did not happen. it's not one issue, it's not that they tried to sweep things under the carpet, it's not that theyjust not as defendants, there was multifaceted things going on and i have to say across all professions. one of the things that has come up is the prevalence of ideology over views of how women should give birth and that's had an impact on maternity safety. i noticed as part of your findings that the cesarean section rate in the telford hospital trust was much lower

than the rest of the country. can you give your insights on the impact that that had an overall maternity safety and some of the drivers behind that? it's very clear from our reports that, yes, it cesarean section rates were considerably lower when compared to trusts locally, trusts in the region, and trust across england. that's really clear. that's from nhs statistics. when discussing my mode of birth earlier this year i've given a list of risks when you came to a c—section but i had to push a question of the risks were free natural birth. why do you think there was for non—assistance vaginal births? and how ingrained do you think that ideology is. it was multi professional, not just midwifery led focus on normal birth at pretty much any cost. it's also very clear, i think in our report,

that there were times, indications and cases when had a baby been delivered by a cesarean section, the outcome may well have been better and certainly safer. the education minister in northern ireland has announced that a level students will take fewer exams in the summer. but peter weir insisted they wouldn't be canceled. the content of many gcse courses and the number of gcse exams has already been reduced due to the coronavirus pandemic. now the number of a level exam papers a pupil will have to take in each subject will also be reduced. at the centre of this reduction is choice. 0ur schools and colleges will choose which unit or units of assessment their pupils will take. 0ur young people will be assessed on topics and content in which they feel most confident and well—prepa red. allowing them to determine their skills and knowledge to the highest possible level. i believe this will relieve much of the stress and people

are experiencing. the approach will allow them to focus on topics for a small number of examinations. while enjoying teaching and learning in other areas of the qualifications which will not be examined. this is a flexible and unique solution designed to reflect the different approaches and experiences to teaching and learning across schools and colleges. but the chair of the education committee was not impressed. the education minister's inaction and indecision and u—turn caused chaos in 2020, so i think we are entitled to expect more than a statement that was late in its arrival and vague in its commitments. generous grading, reduced content, support sheets, a covid allowance tariff with a uk—wide approach without great detail for any of those commitments,

mr principal deputy speaker, other jurisdictions have taken decisive action to cancel or significantly modify examinations in 2021 due to the unprecedented disruption to learning. the first minister of wales says he will not lightly put aside an agreement for relaxed coronavirus rules over christmas. pressure has been growing on the four uk governments to reconsider plans to allow three households to meet between the 23rd and 27th december. but at first minister's questions, mark drakeford said, "the choice is a grim one." what do you think the public‘s reaction and perception is of those changes that will happen over christmas, given the circumstances that the welsh government obviously outlined wales is facing at the moment, both in its health service, the national health service here in wales, but also the community transmission rates. the four nation agreement over christmas was hammered out in detail over four different meetings between the four nations. it was a hard—won agreement. i will not likely put it aside. the choice is a grim one, isn't it?

i have read in my own e—mail account over the last couple of days, heart wrenching, heart wrenching pleas from people not to reverse what we have agreed for christmas, people who live entirely alone who have made their arrangements to be with people for the first time in many months. and who say to me that this is the only thing that they have been able to look forward to in recent weeks. and yet, we know that if people do not use the modest amount of additional freedom available to them over the christmas period responsibly, then we will see an impact of that on our already hugely hard—pressed health service. what lessons are there that we can learn from what is happening in the rest of the world at the moment where they're facing almost identical, very similar situations to ourselves? well, the lessons, shall we,

that i draw from the rest of the world is exactly the point that's been made, that governments across europe and more widely are having to take action in the face of the resurgence of this virus during winter conditions with a way that was not predicted in the modelling that was carried out in many parts of the world. and, of course, we watch very carefully what happened yesterday in germany, in holland, in italy, and i will be discussing with michael gove directly later today, whether the four nation agreement that we struck continues to have marginally more advantages than disadvantages or whether there is a different balance that we ought to strike. in either direction, harm is done. well, those talks between the four nations didn't produce a change in policy, but more talks are due on wednesday.

you're watching tuesday in parliament, with me, alicia mccarthy. the uk has been urged to take concrete action against china over allegations that it has used half a million members of the uighur muslim minority as forced labour. the foreign affairs committee has been told that there should sanctions against chinese officials and firms. it was taking evidence after the bbc reported new research on the scale of the forced labour used by china to pick cotton, following earlier allegations that more than a million uighurs have been detained in camps. a leading uighur activist accused china of committing "genocide". the chinese government has committed genocide against uighurs and other muslim people in china. how would you, mr isa, describe the uk's overall response to this crisis?

mr isa praised the uk for its condemnation of china. but the uk has not taken any concrete action, like, the un has not actually done anything to honour its obligation under un's genocide convention. he called for magnitsky style sanctions, named after a murdered russian lawyer, against individual chinese officials and business figures. us already did this, but we haven't seen any such action from the uk side. and the trade measures, particularly on cotton imports from china because 85% of all cotton in china is from forced labourers, and globally, more than 22% of cotton from forced labour in china. international legislation to ensure that uk companies are not profiting from the uighur forced labour. and he said the uk should use its influence at the united nations to press

for an investigation. should the focus be on a more robust public naming and shaming, for example, or a more subtle direct engagement? i think the question is should there be a loud naming and shaming? should there be loud diplomacy as well? and i think the answer to that has to be yes. and what we have is a sort of constant denial saying, "the uighurs people are happy, look at them, they are smiling, "they're wearing their national costumes, they are very happy. "this is all voluntary, these camps are all voluntary." i think that in situations where you have such active denial, a subtle approach just can't work. it has to be called out. you have to call them out, you have to speak up. this is one thing that they really, really ca re. the chinese officials care so much about how they've been portrayed in public, in international media, that's why they've been kicking out, refusing to renew the visas for international journalists. most of the western journalist

presence in china is shrinking. why? because they're reporting, and they don't want to be portrayed in such a negative light. and businesses needed to think carefully about whether they wanted to be associated with cotton from xinjiang. which amounts to 20%, or over 20%, of the world's cotton, and it's very high—quality cotton. and what that means is that the wider fashion industry, the garment industry can no longer be satisfied, but the material that they use, the raw material that they go through is not the product of, it's not tainted by forced labour, and that is a very, very serious escalation of the allegations of forced labour that we have known to date. there was a question too for consumers. i don't think it's a safe assumption that any cotton that has come from there is not

tainted by forced labour. and what that means is that anything that any of us are wearing now, which may contain that cotton, may be tainted in the same way. now, regular viewers will know there's currently a parliamentary standoff between mps and peers over the uk internal market bill — which sets out how goods should be traded within the four nations of the uk after the transition period. the bill originally contained clauses allowing ministers to break international law, but those have now been removed by ministers. however, there's still a big sticking point between mps and peers. ministers want to reverse changes made in the lords about how powers currently exercised from brussels are divided up between westminster and the devolved governments after the transition period ends on the 31st of december. the snp were up in arms. their spokesperson, pete wishart, resented the business minister paul scully‘s references to consensus. this is the opposite of consensus of agreement,

this is imposition and constraint. this was his last chance to get this right from his lord's ammendment. he has failed to do this. will he now impose his will upon the devolved assemblies of the united kingdom and force this bill through this house? minister. i'm glad the honourable gentleman thinks i can force my will through both this house and the other place as well. what we have done throughout is to seek to collaborate, and we will continue to seek to collaborate on both the common frameworks and the internal market, and moving forward as well, and i hope the scottish government will come with us on that journey in the future. labour had little time for the legislation. a poorly drafted bill from the outset, that without these lords amendments we are debating today, poses a very real threat to the future of our united kingdom. i know at normal times, this would be christmas party season. i'm sure we're going to be debating that again at some

point, madam deputy speaker. but the government's sort of hokey pokey on this now really needs to end. we have part five in, and now we've got part five out. we were told that the bill would create a thriving internal market that would strengthen the union and keep scotland in, yet, the reality is that we could lead to scotland being out — something that i think we can both share on both sides of the house, we don't want to see happen. so, indeed, the government has really been shaking it all about with the legislative games it's been playing on this bill, and i'm not sure that's been good for anybody. so, i really hope we can now see the end to some of these shenanigans. the lords seemed to understand that this bill poses a great threat to the devolution settlement, so i cannot understand why the government does not even accept the damage that this bill has caused in the devolved nations. we are told by the minister it is not a political bill, it's almost laughable. i wish the government would just be honest with us. if it wants to debate about the merits of devolution, than many members —

notjust on this side of house — would be willing to argue in its favour. this bill allows uk ministers to control spending in devolved areas of economic development, infrastructure, county cultural activities, regional development, education, water, power, gas, telecoms, railways, health, housing and justice. the people of scotland didn't vote for the tories to make these decisions at westminster. but when it came to the vote, mps reversed the changes made by peers to the uk internal market bill by 362 votes to 262. sending the bill back to the lords again — where after a government compromise peers finally accepted the bill. the question is that notion a be agreed to. as many who are of that opinion will say "content". to the contrary, "not content". the contents have it. the culture minister, john whittingdale, has said he "would always be interested" in looking at whether means testing could be introduced into the bbc licence fee system. under the current regime every

household, regardless of income, pays the same amount. the minister was speaking to the culture committee, which is investigating the future of public service broadcasting. for the very first time, you have got a kind of means testing introduced to the licence fee system as a result of the bbc‘s decision to restrict the over 75's concession to people on pension credit, and that is the first time that there has been an element whereby people's income is taken into account in deciding how much they should pay. whether or not you could move beyond that is a wider question. i would always be interested in looking into it. i have made clear that i think the regressive nature of the licence fee is one of the drawbacks of it. it's one of the disadvantages of the system. the government is also examining whether failure

to pay the fee should no longer be a criminal offence. 0n decriminalisation, has the government bottled it? has the government...? has the government bottled it? no, i mean, as i was saying, the government is about to publish, and i don't want to pre—empt its conclusions. the government has not decided to drop the idea of decriminalisation, and secondly, i think as, you know, as you come to look at this issue in greater detail, then, you know, it becomes clear that it is not as simple as it was perhaps first suggested. and he hoped the results of the consultation would be published shortly. and that's it from me for today, but dojoin me at the same time tomorrow for another look at life here at westminster. but for now from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye.

hello there. tuesday night started on a dry note, but it's turned increasingly wet and windy during the early hours of wednesday courtesy of this deep area of low pressure moving up from the south, the centre of it moving across the republic of ireland. a swathe of rain and gales spreading across much of wales, western england, northern ireland and into scotland. so, wednesday's going to certainly start very windy, with gales at times. but the winds will slowly ease down through today. and there will be heavy rain for many of us. now, the heaviest of the rain will be across northern and western areas through the morning, pushing northwards across scotland. meanwhile, this band of rain will spread eastwards, exiting wales and western england and arriving towards the eastern side of england late in the day, although not reaching the far south east and east anglia probably until after dark. a windy day for all, though not as windy as how the day will start. we'll see plenty of showers pushing into northern ireland and western scotland. some of these will be heavy. temperature, on the face of it, 9—11 degrees, which is fairly mild for the time of year, but when you factor in the wind, it might not

feel quite as mild. now, that rain eventually reaches the far south east during wednesday night. it clears away and then we're into clear spells and blustery showers. some of these will be heavier across some western areas. but because of the strength of the wind and the showers around, it's going to be a largely frost—free night, with those lows of 5—7 degrees for many of us. so that's wednesday's low to the north of the uk. we're in between weather systems for thursday, so a brief respite before the next system arrives later on thursday and into friday. so, for thursday, we should see quite a bit of sunshine around, some areas staying dry altogether across eastern scotland, eastern england. most of the showers will tend to be across western areas and they could pep up to produce longer spells of rain later in the day, particularly in the far west, as this frontal system arrives. and it will be quite mild here, generally mild, but those values a little bit lower across scotland and eastern england. then as we head on into friday, you can see plenty of isobars and active weather fronts right across the country. it's going to be very wet indeed with some heavy rain in places, and very mild, too, though as we head on into the weekend,

slightly cooler air will push in from the west. so friday is very mild, very wet and windy, the risk of flooding in places. we'll see sunshine and showers as we head on into the weekend. it'll start to turn cooler, particularly on sunday.

welcome to bbc news, my name is mike embley. our top stories: a senior republican finally break ranks with donald trump, mitch mcconnell, the most powerful us republican, after the president, congratulatesjoe biden on his election win. safe, and 94% effective, medical tests open up a path for the approval of a second us vaccine. days before covid restrictions are relaxed in england over christmas, two leading medical journals say that would be a mistake, and could cost countless lives. and a royal deal with spotify, the duke and duchess of sussex agree to produce and host a series of podcasts.