i'm david eades, with the headlines: evidence is growing that the official death toll in india's covid crisis is a major underestimate. the number of reported deaths is nearly 200,000 but crematorium figures show that number could be twice as high, at least. some experts suggest the number of infections could be 20 times as high as officially recorded figures. brazil's president, jair bolsonaro, is now under formal investigation for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. the president has attempted to stop state governors from imposing lockdowns and mandating the use of masks. 400,000 brazilians have died from the coronavirus — that's the world's second highest pandemic death toll. and us health authorities say americans fully vaccinated against coronavirus are no longer obliged to wear face masks outdoors. except at crowded events such as concert. now, here on abc

news, time for tuesday in parliament. —— bbc news. hello there and welcome to tuesday in parliament. on this programme: labour demands a full public inquiry after wrongly convicted post office workers have their names cleared. 900 false prosecutions, each one its own story of persecution, fear, despair, careers ruined, families destroyed, reputation smashed and lives lost. after nazanin zaghari ratcliffe is sentenced to another year injail, her local mp makes an emotional appeal. please minister, please to everyone from the opposite benches, get nazanin the release, stand up to iran, and bring my constituent home.

and peers urge greater help for india's covid crisis stressing its crucial role in global vaccine production. at the time has come for us to reciprocate that goodwill and not forget the invaluable partnership that the uk and india have. but first: a minister has told mps that former subpostmasters wrongly convicted of offences must be "fairly compensated" as quickly as possible. hundreds of subpostmasters were prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting because of the post office's defective horizon accounting system, with 39 having their convictions overturned by the court of appeal last week. the clearing of their names follows the overturning of six other convictions in december. the business minister made a statement to mps. thejudgement last week will require careful consideration by all involved, the government wants to see all postmasters whose convictions have been overturned fairly compensated as quickly as possible and we will work with the post

office towards this goal. in september the government announced an inquiry under ex high courtjudge, sir win williams. the inquiry has made such progress already heard from a number of effective postmasters and a cough or evidence has recently closed. the inquiry is now planning for public hearings. the horizon dispute has been long running and for the benefit of anyone involved it's important that this inquiry reaches its conclusion swiftly. i look forward to receiving the report later this summer. this is the largest legal miscarriage ofjustice in our history. 900 false prosecutions, each one its own story of persecution, fear, despair, careers ruined, families destroyed, reputation smashed and lives lost. innocent people bankrupted and imprisoned. she wanted a statutory public inquiry with the power to compel witnesses to look into the affair. once we have the greatest

respect, his inquiry has no real powers and key questions about competition and criminal prosecutions for postmasters and responsibly for civil servants and government are outside its limits. the inquiry is toothless. statutary inquiry under the inquiries act, the average length of the statutory inquiry has been nearly three and half years and three and a half years, that's a long time, we want to make sure we get the answers now. the minister stated - that the post office has apologised, — but i know there's no direct apology from his government. if this government is acting as if the post office - is absolutely nothing to do with them, can i remind . the minister that the - government is the single shareholder of post office limited and civil servantsl should serve on the board - and therefore it must apologise and the prime minister should apologise. - can i have an assurance

that the government will commit to seeing these former submasters as individuals to treating each case with the importance of these individuals that have faced more than a decade of accusations, had their life burdened with legal difficulties due to the post office's mismanagement and many have lost their homes and been refused insurance, so will they each be treated individually and not simply as one overarching scandal? i see the anger on social media, i see the tears on some of the interviews following the quashing of those convictions, and you cannot fail to realise that these people have suffered so tragically and terribly over so long. so absolutely i, and i know government, will treat everybody as individuals, this has come at human cost.

she wanted a statutory public inquiry, with the power to compel witnesses, to look into the affair. 0ne mp asked about compensation for the first half dozen postmasters who took their case to court and won. the group litigation of 2019 probe enormous public service by bringing this miscarriage ofjustice to light. but whilst successful, they paid an enormous price for this public service because most of their competition was diverted away into legal fees leaving just £15,000 per victim. this is grossly unfair. the minister referred a couple of times to full and final settlement that has been reached with them and that is true to be the contractual position but it is open to the government to look behind the contractual position and actively compensate these people fully, is this something that the honourable minister will consider? this is something that happened over a 20 year period and we need to unwind that 20 years but we need to do it in his quickest time

as possible. buta labour mp was unimpressed. hejoined calls for a public inquiry. the guilty people need to be exposed. now, the minister said that he is trying but alas having dealt with numerous ministers of the last ten years, i think his name is going to be added to the board of useless ministers which we have seen over the last few years dealing with this thing. action now, minister, not more words. paul scully said kevan jones was talking about something that had happened over 20 years and expecting it to be dealt with in three days. mps have called into question the way ministers have handled the situation facing nazanin zaghari ratcliffe following news that the iranian authorities have sentenced the dual british iranian national to a further year injail. but the foreign office minister james cleverly was clear about where the blame lay.

it is indefensible that iran has decided to continue this wholly arbitrary court case against nazanin zaghari ratcliffe, the iranian government has repeatedly put her through coral and inhumane or dale. the safety and treatment of dual british national detainees in iran remains a top priority for the uk government. iran is the one responsible for putting her through this cruel and inhumane ordeal over the last five years and it remains on them to release her to be reunited with herfamily and release the others. nazanin zaghari ratcliffe has been in prison for five years. her local mp didn't think borisjohnson was working hard enough to secure her release. if the prime minister is watching now i would like to ask him what efforts has he put into trying to release nazanin in the first place? because where i'm standing i see no evidence on the part of the prime minister so far. at the heart of this tragic case is the prime minister's dismal failure to release my constituent and to stand up for her, and his devastating blundering in 2017 when he was foreign secretary when he exposed his complete ignorance of this tragic case and put

more harm in nazanin's way. please, minister, please to everyone from the opposite benches, get nazanin released, stand up to iran and bring my constituent home. hear, hear! mr speaker, i completely understand the passion with which the honourable lady speaks, and i can hear the anger and frustration in her voice. however, herangerand frustration is misdirected because nazanin zaghari ratcliffe and the other british dual nationals held in arbitrary detention are being held by iran, it is on them. the snp said the prime minister had made the situation "much worse" he cannot continue to wash his hands of this case. will the prime minister

therefore be making an apology on record to nazanin and her family i will the foreign development office now do all it can with the utmost urgency to undo the damage the prime minister has done to secure nazanin's release? campaigners say the failure of a uk government defence agency international military services to pay a £400 million debt to iran has led to the detention of dual nationals. an issue raised by a former foreign secretary. what are the consequences going to be for iran hostage diplomacy, other than words, because we know they don't fundamentally care what we think or what we say, and they have to know that there will be consequences. we have to do our part by settling this issue which, however unjustified, is being linked to nazanin�*s incarceration, and that's taking a very long time. we will investigate the full range of options but as i said before it would be inappropriate for me to speculate at the dispatch box as to what they might be. liberal democrats drawing l colleagues across the house in the condemnation -

of the actions of the iranian regime, but of course her heart has to go to richard, _ gabriela and the whole family. this must feel like one step forward in two steps back, i and i sincerely hope this. government is considering sanctions because surely| that's the next step now. last year, nazanin�*s husband said he feared her she was not home for christmas this was every chance this could run for years. was he right, minister? i sincerely hope that he is not right, and we will continue to work to bring nazanin home and for the release of all british dual nationals. their incarceration is unacceptable and arbitrary and must stop. james cleverly. the chancellor, rishi sunak, has defended the government's links with the failed finance company greensill capital. the firm employed the former prime minister david cameron, who lobbied rishi sunak on its behalf.

at treasury questions, labour complained about greensill�*s involvement in a government scheme to lend money to businesses hit by the pandemic. allowing greensill access to that scheme put hundreds of millions of pounds of tax raise money and thousands ofjobs at risk, the prime ministers that he would publish every personal exchange related to covid contracts, has the chancellor published his every communication relating to government business on greensill including with david cameron, yes or no? well, mr speaker we have actually responded to all the requested have been asked and gone above and beyond. i would say couple of things to the honourable lady, first of all very happy to co—operate fully and constructively with both the independent review and indeed the treasury select committee inquiry and those processes have begun. secondly on the substance, mr speaker, it's important

to remember what was going on. in the midst of a financial crisis and indeed keen to explore all avenues to support small and medium—size businesses which we have heard in the house today there was still challenges. this was just many strands of work the treasury conducted rightly and appropriately, and in the end it was important to notice that we rejected, in the end, to take forward any proposals on supply chain finance. you're watching tuesday in parliament with me, alicia mccarthy. and don't forget you can find all our programmes on the bbc iplayer. just search for parliament. the government has been urged to do more to help india which is struggling with a huge surge in covid—19 cases. the country has recorded 320,000 daily infections, with the number who have died close to 200,000

with many hospitals overwhelmed. however, it's thought the true figures are far higher, both for deaths and cases. using an urgent question, the conservative, lord popat, said the situation in india was a disaster. it has shown that this global pandemic is relentless and knows no bounds. with population of 1.3 billion, it's a mounting challenge for any health care system in the world to deal with the covid—19 cases that india is currently experiencing. india, he said, produced 60% of the world's vaccines. the time has come for us to reciprocate that goodwill and not forget the invaluable partnership that the uk and india have demonstrated over the last year in tackling this global pandemic together. let me reassure him that we are working very much around the clock in assisting india directly, liaising with the indian government and the authorities as we did over this weekend to ensure we meet the requirements.

india is an important friend, a key partner in the fight against the covid—19 pandemic. my noble friend is also correct that it is known commonly as the pharmacy of the world. india is in need and we will help our friend at this time. we have seen televisionj pictures of funeral pyres and patients clutching. empty oxygen cylinders. the efforts to assist - by the british government and the countries in europe and the united states- are praiseworthy. may i ask the minister- whether it is in discussion with other countries to ensure that help is sent to india - as far as is possible to do so? he's talked about coordination with other governments and with india, with states, but it's also about making sure that help coming from here isn't piecemeal and can be supportive of what the government is doing. we need to ensure that we co—ordinate the impact and really leverage the strength of the british indian diaspora and i assure my noble friend we're doing just that. the noble lady baroness prashar mentioned a meeting which took place yesterday.

there will be similar meetings which are being arranged to ensure that we meet the needs and requirements of india at the appropriate time. many people are seeking to come forward and provide support, but it must be the right kind of support at the right time. but there was criticism of the indian government's handling of the pandemic. a government referring to muslims as "termites" seems to be more focused on creating a hindu india than battling the covid crisis. will the noble lord the minister agree that while we should continue sending welcome medical supplies, we should also urge our commonwealth partner to allow india's scientific and medical talent to take the lead in logistics, safety precautions and treatment to combat the deadly pandemic? the minister said the uk stood shoulder to shoulder with india. you know, someone who is muslim by faith, and indian by heritage, i actually value

and celebrate the rich diversity of india. yes, it has challenges. yes, it has issues as does every country, but it is a strong democracy and every religion, every community has the constitutional protection it deserves. the catastrophe in indiaj could soon spread wider in the region and globally. it's therefore vital thatl vaccination is rolled out globally and at a much, - much faster rate than now. lord ahmad pointed to the world health organization's covax programme aimed at sharing vaccines around the world. we will not beat this virus until the global, the whole world is vaccinated effectively and we are working, the noble lady will be aware of our efforts through the covax facility in particular and my right honourable friend the prime minister has said repeatedly that remains the primary source of ensuring equitable access around the world. more than 85,000 lockdown fines have been handed out in england since the start of the covid pandemic. there have been 8,000 fixed

penalty notices in wales. now a group of mps and peers has called for every one of those fines to be reviewed. thejoint committee on human rights says the system is muddled and unfair. but when ministers appeared before members of the justice committee they defended the system and insisted that most people had followed the rules. the overall number of 90,000 against this huge population and bearing in mind that we issue something over a million fixed penalty speeding notices every year indicates the scale of the success. i think it's worth saying that the fpn system was designed to be relatively light—touch, big discount for early payment. you had to go quite a long way before one was issued. a relatively small number per force were issued. you know, it's, although to quite a lot of our fellow citizens, obviously

£100 is a lot of money and i acknowledge that, nevertheless, it's not a huge sledgehammer of a penalty designed to encourage compliance. and much of the as i say the notion behind fpns is almost a kind of psychological game, right? this is... we put up dog—fouling notices everywhere that say you'll be issued with an fpn but in fact if you look at boroughs across the uk, hardly any of them issue one of these things, right? theyjust never get issued. it's a psychological game that's being played and while i understand that your committee will naturally be concerned about the integrity of the system, i don't think as yet we are able to point to anything unusual about covid fpns that we don't see with other fpns. now that may well emerge as the data becomes more clear and as we are able to collect the data from individual forces but for the moment, we don't necessarily see that there is some anything different with this fpn

than there is with others. as you probably know in some countries in europe, they have policemen standing on the corner and in europe, policemen have guns, and they will stop you and ask you for your certificate when you're walking along. we never had that in the uk, and that was the situation we wanted of course to avoid. that's not how we roll in this country. so, we were exploring the very fine line between trying to communicate really clear signals, clamping down on excess behaviours, but not criminalising behaviour at which point we feared we might lose the sentiments of the public and that didn't happen, i'm pleased to say. now, with the clock ticking towards the end of the current parliamentary session, expected on thursday,

mps and peers have been trying to agree on the last few contentious issues in three proposed new laws. firstly, the fire safety bill. the last area of disagreement was over a lords amendment to ensure that leaseholders didn't have to meet the costs of fire safety work needed to avoid a repeat of the grenfell tower disaster. the lords had pushed versions of this amendment three times, and each time the government used its commons majority to reject it. back in front of mps again the housing minister warned that if peers didn't relent, the whole bill could now be endangered. without the clarification provided by the fire safety bill, it will mean delaying implementation possibly by a year of a number of measures that will deliver the grenfell inquiry recommendations. he said the changes proposed by the lords would be "unworkable" and inappropriate. the government shares the concerns of leaseholders on remediation costs, and has responded as the house will know with unprecedented levels of financial support

to the tune of over £5 billion with further funds from the developer tax which the treasury will begin to consult upon imminently as well as the tall buildings levy. but his labour opposite number thought more could be done for leaseholders. they don't appear to care that the bank of england thinks we are heading for a financial crisis. they don't appear to care that thousands and thousands are living with anxiety, fear, and debt. they don't seem to care that the vacant undefined loan scheme that they've healed is the answer despite having promised many times that leaseholders won't have to pay will damage people's property prices and won't actually be in place we hear today for at least two years, leaving thousands to pay mounting waking watch bills and stuck in properties they can't sell. and when it came to the vote, a total of 31 tories rebelled, urging the government to compromise over who foots the bill for key fire safety

improvements to protect leaseholders and tenants from multi—billion pound costs. so the ayes have it, the ayes have it. so the bill was sent back to the lords, where peers stuck to their demands sending the bill back to the commons once again. staying in the lords, peers finally gave way on the final sticking point in the domestic abuse bill as the government promised stronger action against peers had wanted abusers to be on a register of offenders. but labour's lady royall, who'd been pressing for tougher measures, seemed satisfied by last minute negotiations. the minister has made many commitments for which i'm grateful. we will of course continue to follow the realisation closely and in one year's time, my noble friends and i will table a debate to enable a progress report and we expect to see the number of murders greatly diminished. finally, the commons urged

peers to think again on the overseas 0perations bill. the government rejected a call from the lords to place a statutory duty of care on ministers for service personnel involved in investigations or litigation arising from overseas operations. the newly installed armed forces minister argued the amendment wasn't needed. the government continues to believe that it would not be practical or desirable to define a legally binding standard of care in relation to the matters referred to in this amendment. as i said previously, the mod takes very seriously its duty of care for service personnel and veterans. over the years, we have established a comprehensive range of legal, parcel, welfare and mental health support for service personnel and veterans. we are aiming for a gold standard and are improving our provision all the time without the requirement for legislation. mps backed the government and so that bill will go back to the house of lords before this session of parliament

ends on thursday. finally, the government has no plans to force cyclists to put bells on their bicycles. peers argued that silent cyclists were potentially a danger to pedestrians, particularly those with sight problems. but others argued as often as not it was walkers and motorists who weren't paying attention. 0ne peer had personal experience of a near miss. sometime ago i had a near encounter with a cyclist. he didn't have a bell and i didn't see him coming but an accident was avoided because he shouted "ding—ding" as he approached me. and while it's argued cyclists should not rely duly on bells as a means of avoiding hazards, in almost every case, it's the only warning the pedestrian has. surely all cyclists should be required to have bells on their bicycles and should not be allowed on the road without them. my lords, the government is not about to mandate bells on bicycles.

we do feel that would be disproportionate and any enforcement would unlikely to be a police priority because what we do feel though is that cyclists need to take responsibly for their actions and sometimes, little "ding—ding" on a bell on a bridleway is perfectly fine. but my lords if you're travelling in central london, "ding—ding" on a bell will get you nowhere and in those circumstances, a shout with a voice is probably much, much more preferable. so, my lords, i'm afraid the government will not be mandating bells at the moment. lady vere, which brings us to the end of our travels for the day, but dojoin me at the same time tomorrow for a round—up of the day here at westminster, including the highlights from prime minister's questions. but for now from me, alicia mccarthy, goodbye.

hello. april 2021 is now officially the frostiest april on record. that is since records began in 1960 and it is based on the number of frosty nights we've seen. every night so far this april, temperatures have fallen below freezing and we've had an air frost. it may well be the case though that as we make our way into the early hours of wednesday, we escape and there's a lot of cloud sitting across the uk at the moment thanks to an area of low pressure sinking its way south. quite a strong wind across scotland and where skies clear, the chance of frost will be pretty limited. here's the centre of that low as we get wednesday underway to the south of the uk. to the north, the skies are clearer but there will be some chilly air around, those isobars are close together and that means a stiff north easterly wind. the heaviest of the shower on wednesday would be close to the low centre for wales,

the midlands and the southwest of england. certainly for the first part of the day, some of the wind will drift further eastwards later in the afternoon. some isolated showers across the scotland and northern ireland but more in the way of sunny spells here. but generally quite a chilly feel to proceedings across the north across the uk as we pick up the northwesterly, northeasterly, i should say, wind. the low pulls away towards the continent on thursday, as it does so, the northeasterly wind drags arctic air right away across the uk. the isobars open up as well. without the strength of the wind, that leaves us open to seeing quite a wider spread of frost as we move into the early hours on thursday. perhaps the southeast still close enough to the low to escape. through the day,

there will be a lot of sunshine across the uk, but it will feel chilly and particularly on the north sea coast. just light breezes in contrast to wednesday, but with lighter breezes, where we do see some showers developing and we are seeing some that will be quite slow—moving. locally some heavy downpours but disappointing temperatures with ten to 12 as highs. things look very similar for friday and indeed it looks like we will hold on to a cooler air and light winds and like we will hold on to a cooler air and light winds and some decent spells of sunshine, but isolated showers as we move into the bank holiday weekend. but what will be a talking point for us is the overnight frost.

welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: it's india's catastrophic covid crisis — in the capital the crematoriums are working flat out, suggesting that the official death toll is a massive under—estimate. people are dying without access to medical supply and treatment.— to medical supply and treatment. ., ., , treatment. you told me there is a bed. treatment. you told me there is a bed- you _ treatment. you told me there is a bed. you told _ treatment. you told me there is a bed. you told me _ a bed. you told me the phone number. in brazil, president bolsonaro is now under formal investigation for his handling of the pandemic. 400,000 brazilians have died with covid. the damage could be very serious and could recommend impeachment and even criminal charges against the president.

the us changes its advice on masks.