england's footballers have reached the first major final in 55 years. the team defeated denmark to one in extra time in the euro semis.— the euro semis. harry kane clinched — the euro semis. harry kane clinched it _ the euro semis. harry kane clinched it with _ the euro semis. harry kane clinched it with a _ the euro semis. harry kane clinched it with a rebound l the euro semis. harry kane - clinched it with a rebound from a saved penalty. south africa's former president's handed himself in to police just minutes before a deadline for him to surrender. jacob zuma, who led the country from 2009 to 2018 is to serve a 15—month prison sentence over contempt of court relating to a corruption investigation. gunmen have assassinated the haitian president inside his own home sparking a state of emergency in the country. the wife was also injured in the attack. government ministers says a number of suspects have been arrested. those are the

headlines. now on bbc news — wednesday in parliament. hello again and welcome to wednesday in parliament. a labour mp denied the chance to see his dying relatives due to covid rules challenges the prime minister. we see sycophantic, spineless, hypocritical government ministers lining up to defend the indefensible. we have tried throughout this pandemic to minimise human suffering and to minimise loss of life. also in this programme, universal credit claimants face a £20 a week cut. this was brought in in line with the temporary measures to support people during the covid pandemic. it's being phased out in line with all the other temporary measures.

and the transport minister on why we need more female lorry drivers. it is a very white male sector. and i think there are huge opportunities for the sector to diversify. but first. a summer of chaos with new covid variants, greater pressure on the nhs and millions of people being "pinged" to self—isolate. that prediction came from the labour leader sir keir starmer, who said removing protections "in one go" was "reckless". according to the government's own estimates, infections could rise to 100,000 a day. but the prime minister maintained that his approach was "balanced and reasonable" and challenged labour on what it would do differently. the prime minister let the delta, or we can call it thejohnson variant, into the country. hear, hear! and let's be clear, let's be clear why the number of cases will surge so quickly. because he is taking all protections off in one go.

that is reckless. the sage papers yesterday, mr speaker, make clear that with high infection rates there is a greater chance of new variants emerging, greater pressure on the nhs, more people will get long covid, and test and trace will be less effective. we will continue with a balanced and reasonable approach. i have given the reasons that this country has rolled out the fastest vaccination programme anywhere in europe, the vaccines provide more than 90% protection against hospitalisation, both of them, and mr speaker, by the 19th ofjuly will have vaccinated every adult will have been offered one vaccination. everybody over 40, mr speaker, will have been offered two vaccinations. that is an extraordinary achievement. that is allowing us to go ahead. keir starmer said a high infection rate could mean millions of people being "pinged" to self isolate. the financial times estimates this morning that that could be

around 2 million people per week. the mail says 3.5 million people a week. eitherway, it's a massive number. it means huge disruption to families and businesses just as the summer holidays begin. borisjohnson said the government would be moving away from self isolation towards testing. and he accused keir starmer of "trying to have it both ways". on monday he seems to say he was in favour of opening up onjuly the 19th, now he is saying it's reckless. which is it, mr speaker? maybe i can help a little. just to remind us that it's . prime minister's questions. if we want opposition questions we will need to change - who is standing up. it's clear what this is all about. he has lost a health secretary, he has lost a by—election, and he's getting flack from his own mps. so he's doing what he always does, crashing over

to the other side of the aisle chasing headlines and coming up with a plan that hasn't been thought through. we all want restrictions lifted, we want our economy open, we want to get back to normal but we have been here too many times before. isn't it the case that once again instead of a careful, controlled approach we are heading for a summer of chaos and confusion. prime minister. no, mr speaker, is the answer to that. and these are, these are difficult decisions and they need to be taken in a balanced way. and that's what we are doing, and throughout the pandemic to do all these things, frankly, mr speaker, takes a great deal of drive and a great deal of leadership to get things done. and if we had followed his advice, mr speaker, if we followed his advice we would still be in the european medicines agency and we would never... absolutely. we would never have rolled out the vaccines as fast. if we followed his advice, mr speaker, we would never have

got schools open again with all the damage to a kid's education. and frankly, mr speaker, if we listened to him we would not now be proceeding cautiously, pragmatically, sensibly to reopen our society and our economy, and get people back the chance to enjoy the freedoms they love. question time ended with a powerful, personal contribution from a labour mp. mr speaker, my grandmother, whom i love dearly, was lying on her hospital deathbed and none of us were allowed to be there to comfort her in herfinal moments. i couldn't even carry her coffin on my shoulders, i also had to endure the agony of watching alone online, the funeral, of my uncle, my fun—loving uncle, and we were not even there to comfort my brother—in—law�*s father who somehow contracted covid in the slough care home during his final moments. all of this because we followed government guidance. having experienced such painful personal sacrifices, like many others, imagine

our collective disgust when in order to curry favour with the prime minister's chief adviser we see sycophantic, spineless, hypocritical government ministers lining up to defend the indefensible. saying it's time to move on. with some even having the gall to tell us that they too go for a long drive when the need to get their eyesight tested. what an absolute disgrace, and they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. so when is the prime minister finally going to apologise to the nation for not mustering up some courage and integrity, for doing the honourable thing and sacking his chief adviser who so shamelessly flouted his own government guidance so that he could regain the lost public trust and confidence and he could have demonstrated that it's not one rule for him and his elite chums and another for the rest of us plebs. the prime minister replied that he deeply sympathised with everyone who had suffered. i take his criticisms and most sincerely of the government, and everything that we have done and all i can say is that we have tried throughout this pandemic

to minimise human suffering and to minimise loss of life. and as i have said before, when he asked me to apologise, i do. i apologise for the suffering of the people of this country have endured. all i can say is that nothing i can say or do can take back the lost lives, the lost time spent with loved ones that he describes. and i am deeply, deeply sorry for that. two hours after prime minister's questions, boris johnson faced mps at the liaison committee, which is made up of the chairs of select committees. he was asked about the increasing numbers of covid cases ahead of the lifting of restrictions in england the week after next. we are already seeing businesses unable to function, hospitality businesses having to close. if i take nurseries for example, they have to maintain legal ratios of staff to children in order to stay open, and the early

years sector has a young workforce, many of whom are not double vaccinated. so cases are skyrocketing and nurseries are being put in the position of having to turn families away in order to maintain legal ratios. which families do you think they should be prioritising? we have to make sure that we use the tools we have to, in the form of isolation, to get through this particular phase. it won't last long. you talk about businesses, or the hospitality sector businesses closing and actually thanks to the vaccine roll—out we are able to get through to step three, and now it looks as though, we will take the final decision onjuly 12, but it looks as though we will get to step four which will allow them to open up fully without the need for the one metre rule. there were questions too about changes to the isolation rules. the 16th of august,

when contacts of people with covid no longer have to isolate, is the 16th of august, is that the date that you expect us to reach herd immunity in this country? that's not the consideration... so what is the significance of the 16th of august? the... it's... it's the... it's the time by which we feel that there will have been much more progress made in vaccination... more than the 19th ofjuly? even more than the 19th ofjuly. and all these decisions are a balance of risk. and by the 16th of august we will have got many more jabs into people's arms. many more young and healthy people... yeah, which is a good thing. because it means... but they are the most robust against covid. sure. and i'm sorry that they have had to wait, and i know how frustrating... are you concerned about the consequences of that rather

than the wait, is that the case that until we get to that point on the 16th of august people who have been jabbed twice will have to isolate even if they have had a negative covid test? we are asking people to isolate. i know how frustrating it is, but... why? because we have to... i'm afraid this is a highly contagious disease and we have to do what we can to stop its spread. 0ne labour mp wondered why the prime minister didn't always correct the record when he got things wrong. boris johnson's reply focused on the brexit referendum campaign. it's commonly asserted, for instance, that when we put the figure of £350 million a week on the side of a bus that went around this country causing a great deal of hoo—ha that that was erroneous. and that it did not reflect

the true figure, probably one of the things that you are thinking of. and i was thinking, did i you sack matt hancock? let me continue with this point. did you sack matt hancock? really give you example of a £350 million a week. there was a figure that related to a gross sum that the uk gave to the eu budget, subject of lively controversy during the referendum campaign five years ago as you remember. actually, it turned out if anything, it was about a slight underestimate. and by this year the gross figure... did you sack matt hancock? on your question about mr hancock, the former health secretary, let me just go back to what i said many, many times. i think i said on the floor of the house of commons, which was that we read about, and you read about and we all read about the story concerning mr hancock and cctv

and so forth. on friday, and we had a new health secretary on saturday. and considering that we are in the middle of a global pandemic it's quite a thing to move your health secretary. i think it was quite fast if i may say so. that's all i have to say on that matter. the prime minister. you're watching wednesday in parliament with me, david cornock. don't forget if our daily highlights happens to clash with a penalty shoot out or something else important in your life, you can catch up via the bbc iplayer. the work and pensions secretary has said that the £20 a week increase to universal credit will be "phased out" in the autumn along with other temporary covid measures. universal credit is claimed by more than 5.5 million households in the uk.

six former work and pensions secretaries have urged ministers not to end the uplift. therese coffey was giving evidence to mps on the work and pensions committee. ahead of october, we will start communicating with the current claimants who receive the £20 to make them aware that that will be being phased out, and they will start to see an adjustment in their payments. i think it really kicks in largely in october, but it will start to kick in, i think towards late september for some people. so the current proposal is that we will be recognising that this was brought in in—line with the temporary measures to support people during the covid pandemic. it's being phased out in line with all the other temporary measures that are also being removed. so you're resigned to the fact that the treasury won't be giving the money to continue this for the rest of

the financial year? at least you're not even asking for that or making submissions? you're just accepting that, is that fair? a collective decision was made within government to make sure that that £20 uplift was extended for the six months, and that is being honoured, but the collective decision was made that as we see the economy open up, we shift the focus strongly into getting people into work and jobs. the mps questioned whether the government had the latest data. so we've decided in earlyjuly — based on data from march — that the temporary uplift we put in place at the start of april isn't needed from october. is that a fair summary of your position? well, i would say, nigel, that the decision was made and was announced by the chancellor in the budget. so there was... if we go back to that time, we were in the middle of a situation where we anticipated huge...or certainly a lot of our

economist friends were almost predicting 12% unemployment, and we did not know quite the situation that people would be facing about getting back into work, you know, the amount of restrictions we were putting into place. you know, some people could just not work any more. that is not going to be the case, or it hasn't been the case in quite a while, it is certainly not going to be the case once we get to road four, and we can genuinely open up and fill those vacancies and help people get back into work. so, there is a lot of effort gone in with the support through the furlough scheme. it's been a significant cushion. and while there is still about 2 million people on the — 2.4 million people — on the furlough, certainly that's been a buffer for a lot of people, to some extent, you saw that with the temporary £20 uplift. therese coffey. the snp has called for the inquiry into covid to start immediately, accusing the uk government of "rampant cronyism" over the awarding

of contracts during the crisis. the party's westminster leader said the uk had seen "the very best in our society" during these tough times. but the pandemic has led to opportunism, for greed and for covid profits above accountability. because this tory government is guilty of funnelling covid cash from the frontline into the pockets of its rich friends. we are talking about endemic cronyism during a global pandemic. i respectfully suggest that before he starts throwing stones at the uk government, he looks at his own government's record in edinburgh. over 160 contracts awarded by the scottish government worth £539 million from nhs scotland, the scottish government and scottish local authorities during the pandemic were awarded to suppliers with no competitive process. it is quite clear that

every government... absolutely right! ..on these islands and around the world were dealing with an unprecedented situation and rushing to save lives! labour said ministers had questions to answer. were those contracts given to the right companies to save lives at the right time? there is no question that we needed speed. there is no question that we needed the best companies to be chosen, but the question is whether when it comes to a pandemic or another crisis that comes up, when it comes to an emergency, does the government throw due transparency out of the window and just start talking to its friends? but the health minister said regulations allowed the government to act fast and no rules were broken. the right honourable member is well aware of the public contract regulations, which existed before the pandemic, which allow the government to procure at speed in times of emergency, and there was no need for suspension or relaxation of the procurement rules in order for them to be used. i would very gently say that these where the same systems that happened

in scotland and in wales. we had an unprecedented global crisis, and quite rightly, people had to use existing regulation which allows them to flex in order to deliver for their populations. jo churchill. the international trade secretary has insisted that her trade deal with australia is an opportunity for british farmers and she defended the environmental implications of doing a deal with a country 9,000 miles away. mps on the international trade committee wanted to know how she would ensure that farmers were not undercut by imports with lower food standards. we've negotiated a very long transition period for beef and lamb, two of the more sensitive, two of the more sensitive areas. and just to put it in perspective, in year one for beef, we have a zero tariff quota of 35,000 tonnes. we are currently importing 320,000 tonnes tariff free

from the eu, and we currently consume 1.1 million tonnes here in the uk. so it's a relatively small quantity. it expands over time. and my view is that, over time, the uk industry, you know, it's already very competitive, its sought around the world, and i think we will see increasingly competitive products coming out of the uk. i'm flabbergasted, really, that you seek to justify buying lamb and beef, or even selling lamb and beef to a country that is 9000 miles away. i mean, at a time for environmental reasons we are all trying to source food more locally, if not from the uk, certainly somewhere nearby because of the impact of food miles. the logic of your argument is that you wouldn't trade with anybody, even across the uk, and we would alljust

eat food from our local village. she introduced the issue of "carcass balance". so in my constituency in norfolk, cranswick produce pork products. they are products which we like to eat in britain, such as pork belly and bacon. we are not so keen on pig's trotters and pigs tails, but there is a huge market for them in china. so we have had huge success in expanding the exports of those products to china, and what does that mean? it means that there are more people employed in norfolk producing that high quality produce, and that is a good thing. over time, we are looking to make the shipping industry carbon neutral. liz truss. last month, when world leaders arrived in cornwall for the g7 summit, newquay airport played a crucial role a point not lost on the local mp, when he opened a westminster hall debate on the future of regional airports.

in my constituency, newquay airport is of vital importance to the prosperity of cornwall and the wider southwest, contributing £50 million to the economy in 2015. we witnessed the importance of newquay airport during the recent g7 leader summit in cornwall. given the distances involved and the aircraft that needed to be accommodated, there is a strong case that it would not have been possible to successfully host the g7 in cornwall without newquay airport. the collaboration between the government, cornwall council and newquay airport to fund and deliver the infrastructure required to host the summit in record time was an example of what can be achieved through effective collaboration between government and regional airports to deliver a short and long—term value across the uk. we're working on the strategy for the future of aviation in the uk to be published later this year. it will explore the sector's return to growth, including work force and skills,

aviation noise, innovation and regulation, consumer issues and critically, of course, regional connectivity, as i have explained. it will also consider climate change and decarbonisation, as well as the critical role that aviation plays in retaining the uk's global reach. and as i've explained, the strategic framework will be published later this year. there is no doubt that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the aviation sector, but regional connectivity and regional airports are a vital part of the uk's aviation sector, and we are committed to making sure that they are both at the forefront of government plans to help the sector recover. the government's always keen to engage with aviation stakeholders to find ways to ensure the swift recovery of the sector, and whilst it remains uncertain of course for the path ahead, we are committed to this world leading aviation sector, both its international and its regional aviation parts. we will be ensuring the sector has the tools it needs to return and grow in a safe and sustainable way.

robert courts. now, where have all the lorry drivers gone? a shortage of drivers has been blamed by, among others, the german confectionery giant haribo for problems delivering its sweets to shops in the uk. the haulage industry has blamed the pandemic and brexit for thousands of unfilled hgv driverjobs. now questions have been asked in the house of lords. brexit and covid combined have in part led to the crisis that we face as well as the closure of test centres during the covid pandemic last year preventing training of new drivers. the industry is stepping up to the plate by agreeing to pay drivers more. will the government look very carefully at encouraging women drivers to take up lorry driving? and also by adding hgv drivers to the uk skills shortage list as well as try to hold even more training test centres and the reissuing of licenses?

if my noble friend doesn't mind, i will focus on the first of those questions, and that is about, well, firstly, i would also welcome any more pay for professional drivers, cos i think they do an outstanding job, but i do recognise what my noble friend says about diversity. it is a very white, male sector, and i think there are huge opportunities for the sector to diversify, and when they come up with plans to do so, for example, the logistics uk, the year of logistics, which i hope we will get under way soon, i will be very happy to support them. labour's new mp kim leadbeater who won the batley and spen by election last week has had her first appearance at prime minister's questions. she represents the seat once held by her sister, jo cox, who was murdered five years ago. the party leader, sir keir starmer, said he wanted to give her a special welcome. will members opposite forgive me if ijust turn around to look at the new member for batley and spen

as she sits there on these benches beneath the plaque to jo cox, her sister. and that is a special and emotional moment for all of us on these benches and i think for everybody across this house. it takes incredible courage and bravery to stand in that constituency and to sit on these benches beneath that plaque. hear, hear! sir keir starmer, remembering jo cox. that was wednesday in parliament. thank you for watching. i do hope you canjoin me at the same time tomorrow for the week in parliament — the programme that does what it says on the tin. until then, from me, david cornock, bye for now. well, quite a lot

of pent—up energy in the atmosphere wednesday afternoon and evening. we had some thunderstorms, some really quite heavy downpours. you can see the showers — that was earlier in the last 10—12 hours or so. and then, towards the end of the day on wednesday, we saw those thunderstorms across some central and eastern areas, and the weather remains quite unsettled over the next few days. i say unsettled for a summer month. a fair bit of cloud out there across the atlantic heading our way, and we'll see further showers developing over the next few days with low pressure in charge of the weather. so, i think a showery day on the way for some of us on thursday, but actually, the showers will be very well—scattered, so that does mean that many of us will miss them altogether. so, the forecast through the early hours shows a lot of dry weather across the uk. temperatures will be around 1a celsius or so across the south of the country, just a tad fresher in the north, around 11—12. now, the morning will become increasingly sunny right across the uk, but then fairweather clouds will start to develop, and as we head into

the afternoon, those fairweather clouds will turn into storms. and some of the downpours really will be very heavy indeed, but as i say, they will be very well—scattered. not too many of them around across much of scotland or northern ireland. maybe across the grampians here, but the showers certainly will be scattered across many areas of england and mostly away from the coasts — so places like western wales should end up having a pretty decent day, for example, in swansea. so, friday's weather forecast shows a very weak area of high pressure over us. that does mean, i think, fewer showers, at least early in the day, but then, come the afternoon, we are expecting 1—2 to develop once again. but particularly across the southwest of the country, there's actually a weak weather front approaching us here, so places like cornwall, maybe the western fringes of wales seeing some showers, and 1—2 eastern areas, as well. now, the outlook into the weekend remains pretty showery, particularly on saturday across some southern areas of the uk. there's a small area of low

pressure heading our way, so that will bring a lot of cloud to places like plymouth or london. sunday, also a chance of some showers, and actually, early next week — my goodness, we've got a low pressure close to us, and that's going to continue to bring further showers.

welcome to bbc news. our top stories: england's footballers are in theirfirst majorfinal in 55 years after beating denmark at wembley. this was the moment fans throughout england saw harry kane score, and book their place in sunday's final versus italy. south africa's former president's jacob zuma's handed himself in to serve a 15 month term for contempt of court. haiti declares a state of emergency after the country's president is assassinated in his own home.