this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour straight after this programme. what are we going to ask keir starmer? i have been thinking about this for ages, because we have wanted to get him on the pod for ages, haven't we? there is so much we could ask. five—a—side football? i've always wanted to ask him about that. what's it like finally doing a conference speech? in front of actual people. reacting to the budget. in front of actual... hang on, he's got covid. he's at home. 0h. what are we going to do? we have got his stand in! it's the shadow chancellor rachel reeves, who did this very thing in the budget response in parliament this week. hello, rachel.

i got a whole 45 minutes' notice for that. ooh! i want you to talk us to the moment when, i don't know what happened, where were you, did the phone ring? when did it suddenly dawn on you, that oh, my goodness, i'm going to have to stand in for the boss? well, i was just walking back to my office past keir's office and... ..i walked into the sort of room where the staff are and i said, shall i pop in and see keir? and there was like this deathly silence in the office. and i said, shall i pop in now? theyjust said, no... ..keir's got covid! and there was a sort of paralysis in the room of no—one quite knowing what to do. but we knew we had to quickly swing into action. we had 45 minutes to sort it out. my background, before i was an mp, was an as economist, so i sort of... ..i had to channel all that training in those 45 minutes. and then that time in the chamber listening

to the chancellor's statement and trying, you know in real time, to unpick some of the statements that he was making and some of the claims that he was making. did the penny drop for you straight away when you heard that keir had covid that that would mean it was you doing it? yes, and of course, look... ..i say i only had 45 minutes, obviously keir and i had been working on this speech and it drew on some of the things that i spoke about in my conference speech just a few weeks ago. so it wasn't unfamiliar terrain. and actually in a way, having 45 minutes means you haven't got time to get nervous or anxious. so, i don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but ijust had to get on with it and do myjob. and i noticed, having watched you in parliament for a few years, your performances at the despatch box, you're getting much more kind of punchier over the years. is that like a deliberate thing you have done?

i like the house of commons and i always have since i first got elected 11 years ago. i like the debate, i like the fact that you know you have got people behind you, usually cheer, hopefully cheering, and then you have got those on the other side. now, it was an extreme level yesterday that i hadn't experienced before, the chamber was obviously absolutely packed and the tories, i really want to undermine you, to put... ..to put you off, as you're delivering your response. so that was a different degree of intensity to what i've experienced before. but i do thrive on the debate and the chamber atmosphere. and i think it brings me to life maybe a bit more. well, hopefully there won't be too much shouting on this edition of newscast. hello, it's adam in the studio.

and chris also in the studio. and rachel reeves, the shadow chancellor is sitting in the cupboard that chris is normally sitting in this week. thank you for “oining us, rachel. �*, ., , picking up on the chat that we were just having, people say don't they that being leader of the opposition is the hardestjob in politics and the hardest gig in the year for the leader of the opposition is responding to the budget, because it's happening and you've just got to get straight up after it and respond and suddenly with next to no notice, that was you doing that and trying to find the key strands to pull out of it to instantly rebut what you have heard from the government and they have spent months preparing, i mean, blimey, what a gig! yeah, and the line that i had right at the beginning of the speech had to be written while the chancellor's speech was being given, because it was based on what he said. so i started off by saying, if you're a banker, on a short—haul flight, sipping champagne, then you will be cheering this budget. that couldn't have been written

in advance, because we didn't know that the chancellor was going to cut taxes for banks, cut air passenger duty on domestic flights and cut the taxes on champagne. so some of it, you have to make up as you go along. that is quite daunting. you've also got a speech that you've written in advance and some of it is going to reflect what the chancellor's said and some of it will be redundant, because he hasn't said it, or he has said it and you thought he wasn't going to. so you've got to think on your feet. and be ready to change your speech, based on what the chancellor has to say. that's what makes it difficult. but i mean lucky for us the chancellor had leaked most of it in the days preceding it. but there was still quite a lot of new material that you had to sort of galvanise and use. the reference to the champagne is to the big shake—up of how booze is taxed, that will see sparkling wines in general, notjust champagne,

taxed more like still wines. you must have been cock—a—hoop when you heard that, because that's a great dividing line, because that's posh people being helped by the government at a time when other people are feeling the squeeze. well, red wine is my favourite drink, i'm not sure what's happening to that. i think if you're a port drinker, it's bad news for you. but if you're a champagne drinker, it is good news. although champagne is already quite expensive in the first place. so whether that will have a material impact on the cost of living crisis that people are experiencing at the moment, i'm not entirely sure. you talk about the cost of living crisis and that's become the big theme in the days after the budget. so the government is putting what, more than £2 billion into universal credit, changing that thing called the taper rate, which is the rate at which universal credit is withdrawn and as you earn more from work. is that not a good way of helping people? helping them through the benefit system, encouraging people into work, supporting people who are working with the cost of living? we have been calling for a reduction in that taper rate as it's called for a while.

but we are still in the absurd situation that the effective marginal tax rates on the lowest—paid is higher than the tax rates on the prime minister, or someone who is very highly paid. so the universal credit taper is still out of whack when it comes to tax rates in other parts of the tax system. but you say that the chancellor announced £2 billion extra spending on universal credit. over the course ofjust this month, of course the chancellor has taken £4 billion out of universal credit in the round, because he took out 6 billion at the beginning of the month and put in 2 billion at the end of the month. so at the end of this month, people who are on universal credit, i think two thirds of the people on universal credit are worse off than they were at the beginning of the month and given that these are people who are already on some of the lowest, most modest incomes in the country, that is a very concerning time. i'm intrigued at something you said a couple of minutes ago about the mechanics

of the response that you had to give yesterday. and the lines that you had preprepared, some of which you delivered, but others you had the draw a line through, because either the chancellor didn't mention it or, it was overtaken by events. i'm intrigued as to what you were, you have may have said in different circumstances, stuff you may have anticipated the chancellor may say that he didn't. i thought the chancellor would do something about gas and electricity prices. i suggested last weekend that vat on gas and electricity bills, domestic bills, could be cut from 5% to 0%. it is actually something that the prime minister called for five years ago during the european referendum, because he said it was one of the benefits of leaving that you could cut this tax. but i thought given what was happening to gas and electricity bills right now, that the chancellor would announce some support. either with vat, or increasing the warm homes discounts. i had a whole section

welcoming that. and comparing it to what we had announced. but he didn't do anything. i was surprised, because i think if you... well in my patch in leeds, where i'm the mp and probably in the chancellor's constituency in north yorkshire and around the country, the thing that people are most concerned about right now is the rising cost—of—living and the fact that their wages are not keeping pace with that. that is even more so when you factor in the tax increases that are coming down the line for ordinary working people. the national insurance hike. the council tax increases. the chancellor didn't announce yesterday, but are buried in the small print of the documents from the office of budget responsibility. so there was things that i was surprised about yesterday that weren't in the speech, but i thought would be.

i just wonder where all of this leaves labour in the big picture, when you've got a big spending, high taxing conservative government that is proud to be doing both of these things. i wonder how you as shadow chancellorjudge the broader mood of the electorate — is this a big spending, big taxing era? could labour go into an election promising to tax more and spend more? is there political territory, fertile political territory there, or not? my principles are that you should tax fairly, spend wisely and grow the economy. anyone would say that, i just wonder if you would do more of it? well, i would tax differently. i would ask those with the broadest shoulder to pay more. there were two taxes that announced at conference. one is private equity managers, their bonuses should be taxed as income, not as capital gains. that'd raise several hundred million pounds every year. but also private schools that enjoy tax privileges, because they are counted as charities, those tax privileges, whereby they don't pay vat or business rates, those privileges should be

ended and that would bring in {1.7 billion. so there are tax increases that i would support that the government aren't doing, but there are tax increases that the government are doing, like the increase in national insurance contribution that ijust think is wrong. and we would not do doing. if you say you wanted to spend and tax wisely, cutting the vat on domestic fuel, means a millionaire in a 25—bedroom mansion would get a massive tax break from the government, as a by product of you trying to help people on lower incomes. is that, that is not very wise is it? well, the thing about domestic gas and electricity bills is the poorest households spend something like seven times as much of their household income on gas and electricity bills than the richest households. so it disproportionately benefits those people lower down on the income distribution. but of course it is not the only thing that we would be doing. i take your point that you say you would tax differently, but i'm not sure i got an answer to that idea of whether the state

would be bigger or not under a labour government than it is projected to be under a conservative one, whether the tax burden would be higher, whether the proportion of public spending relative to national income would be the same, bigger or smaller? so i think this is about shifting the burden of tax, rather than increasing or reducing the burden of tax. the changes i'm talking about is to shift that burden not increase it further. as i said the tax burden is already at a 70—year high. you could make different choices about where that tax accrues. you could also make different choices about public spending. for example, this government just yesterday, the public accounts committee, the spending watchdog if you will, said that £37 billion had been wasted on this test and trace system that hasn't delivered the outcomes the government promised and treats taxpayers like a cash machine. i don't think that is a good use of government spending. similarly, 3.5 billion has been given to friends and donors of the conservative party

with the outsourcing of contracts over the last year and a half. £250 million on a vanity yacht project that the prime minister wanted. there are different decisions about spending as well as different decisions about taxation that a labour government would make. also the thing that happens the day after the budget is the shadow chancellor going around the tv studios doing the same interview a million times, so i've heard rachel talk about the so—called vanity yacht several times today! i wondered when it was going to come up. have they got a little bingo card, you can cross it off? full house! and then the news presenter goes, but that is just a drop in the ocean, if you pardon the pun. so you get the same gag every time as well. exactly, i love a good pun myself. right at the start, you mentioned that thing about air passenger duty, and that was the opening line of your response to rishi sunak. this is the idea that you don't pay air passenger duty, the tax on plane tickets, for domestic flights. we should probably give the chancellor a chance to answer back at that.

here he is in bury on bbc breakfast this morning, talking about why actually thinks it's an ok thing to do. aviation in general only accounts for about 8% of our overall emissions. and of that 8%, a fraction, just 4% to 5% comes from domestic aviation. so it is a tiny part of our emissions. so, yes, we are doing this to support domestic aviation and regional airports, who will benefit from this. but we are also introducing a brand—new band for ultra long haul travel. so, you're right, those who fly the furthest, will pay the highest rates of apd. that is consistent with our environmental objectives. that was the chancellor responding to that claim, how could you reduce the price of air travel in the uk just a couple of days before the entire world comes to glasgow for the climate change conference? now, rachel, as a good geek, i am sure you will have been looking at what the institute for fiscal studies said today. they said that measure will, in the end, not increase our carbon emissions. well, first of all i'm glad that you know the chancellor

was in bury this morning, because he thought he was in burnley. it was a slip of the tongue, a tiny slip of the tongue. really? so, he was in bury this morning and said that. that tax measure of getting rid of air passenger duty on domestic flights cost £300 million. and the budget documents said that it will mean 410,000 additional domestic flights. ijust don't think that's a good use of taxpayer money, to subsidise people making domestic flights. instead, we should be investing in our rail network, so that people have got a proper alternative. but also, we are not even on target to meet our 2035 carbon reduction targets. and so, every little measure that moves us in the wrong direction means we are even further away from meeting those carbon reduction targets. and i do find it astonishing that the week before the cop26 conference,

that the government chooses to make this a flagship policy in their budget. what message does it send to the rest of the world about how seriously the hosts of cop26 take tackling climate change ? rachel, thanks for coming on newscast, we appreciate it, particularly given it was — what, your 29th interview of the day? it is a pleasure talking to both of you. but it is the pre—red wine interview. - well, they have all been pre—red wine presumably. i don't know. i haven't had any red wine today, but i'm looking forward to a glass this evening. cheers, rachel. cheers. well, actually, we can now glide into our next guest, because they are from the world wildlife fund for nature, the wwf. and it's isabella o'dowd, their head of climate change. hello. good evening. just before we dive into cop26 and the climate change conference, which we are going to talk about, what do you think about the air passenger duty stuff for domestic flights?

because i'm confused, because some people say actually it might not be that bad for the environment after all, even though, intuitively, you think it would be? yeah, ithink, overall, we were quite disappointed to see that, running up to the glasgow climate talks next week. i think the main point being we really need to be investing in trains, and kind of moving away from domestic flights. and in terms of the sort of long haul flights, for us it is very much about a frequent flyer. so, penalising those that fly frequently, rather than penalising those that maybe have to take a long haul flight once a year to go back to see their family. overall, i think for us it is a negative announcement, i think earlier this year france committed to ban short—haul flights where you could take a train as an alternative. and that's the sort of policies we need to see to take the climate change

crisis really seriously. and that's why we are trying to get the treasury to put in place a net zero test of spending, so that these things can be assessed before spending, a budget or compress a spending review. isabella, we have lots to talk about with cop just around the corner. but i have to tell you something about adam. adam doesn't half love a good quiz. it's been something of a staple on newscast, and its other named cousins down the years, whether it has been brexit or elements of the pandemic, or whatever. the quiz, we are never more than a few weeks away from a quiz. and, right now, we are just moments away. seconds away! because we wanted to do a cop26 quiz, so we could learn more about this climate change conference, which i will be going to on sunday, by train. and we have roped in, as the quiz masters, some big fans of newscast. they are pupils from vyners school in west london, regular listeners might remember them because their teacher, mr beale, makes them listen to every edition of newscast.

every single one? is an educational tool. deary me. which means they are probably listening to this, which is super meta. anyway, they've got a whole load of questions about cop26. take it away. hello. i'm rhian. and my question is, what exactly is cop26? that is the question, isn't it? we can't really go anywhere until we have answered this one. isabella? that's a great question. so, cop26 is a climate summit that is happening up in glasgow, and the uk are the hosts for this year. and what is so special about this climate conference, they happen every year, this was meant to be five years on from the paris agreement that happened. but because of covid it's been delayed by a year. so, cop26, this milestone, is when countries all around the world need to come together and put forward their plans on how they are going to meet the paris agreement, which is to keep warming,

global warming, to 1.5 degrees. so, they need to put forward their action plans to 2030, which is their national determined contributions. but also their plans for 2050, the long—term strategy. so, it is a really critical moment for international countries to come together and make those commitments. hang on a minute, isabella. what actually is cop? what does it stand for? i was going to show off with that one. were you? i don't care who enlightens me, just enlighten me. it is the conference of the parties, and the parties are the people who are party to the unfccc. that's as clear as... the what? the united nations framework convention on climate change, which is the whole kind of foundation of which this battle against climate change is based on. i feel the need to fact check this. was that right, isabella? yes, that is right. damn! i was hoping you are going to say, well, actually, there is just a little detail that you've got not

quite right. i think we've got that square in our heads. so, enter question number two, or questioner number two from the vyners school. hi, i'm levi and i'd like to know how we know cop26 is successful. levi, you are not the only one asking that. yes, isabella, what is your yardstick for a good cop26? yes, for us at the wwf, we have two key tests. it's really important that we keep 1.5 degrees on the table. so, every government must use cop26 leadership to pull every lever at their disposal, to make sure the world gets on track and closes that gap, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. so, we are currently on a trajectory to 2.7 degrees. and we need to see countries put forward stronger plans to get on track. and the other main priority for us is to make sure nature is a climate hero. so it's really vital for us at the wwf, at cop, we see nature being recognised

in an ally to fight against climate change. and failure to do so, we think, will undermine the ability to limit that global warming to 1.5 degrees. i hear that keep 1.5 alive is a phrase we might hear quite a bit. and that is actually quite a clever slogan by alok sharma's team, because it means you could get to the end of cop, tot up all the commitments made by the countries to reduce their carbon emissions, not be at limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees, but still have the potential to eventually get there. so, basically, you can't lose. because as long as it's not impossible, it's still alive. right, let's have another question. hi, jason. what pressures will be put - on countries not doing enough to combat climate change? thanks, jason. that's another great question. i think the main thing for me is we need to make sure people realise it's not too late. the scientists have issued this code red for humanity, and it is the uk government's role, as the leaders of this

summit, to make sure they are bringing countries around the country to close that gap. that will be really important in terms of the success of this summit, the role of the uk government as leaders of cop26, to make sure people close the gap, they come forward with strong commitments and we see sector announcements as well, such as commitments to end coal and fossil fuels. and that the momentum is continued past cop because we need to keep going in this really critical decade. and talking of energy and sources of energy, that's the next question. hi, i'm alistair. and my question is, _ boris johnson recently pledged that the uk would become the saudi arabia of wind. i is it realistic. orjust bluster? and alistair with wordplay. with puns like that, you're welcome on newscast any day, any day of the of the week. isabella, alistair�*s question, how do you take that on?

thanks, alistair. that we need to triple renewable energy generation in the next ten years. so i think it's possible. and we've already seen a lot of investment in offshore wind in the uk. but in order to unlock that vision, we need to make sure we're doing a lot more in terms of making sure our grid infrastructure is fit for the renewable energy transition. we need to make sure that we're not subsidising or investing in fossil fuels, so that we can make sure we unlock the future for offshore wind. and we also need to make sure we're doing it in harmony with nature. so it's really important that we're putting those offshore wind farms in the best places to have the minimal impact on our nature. ijust wondered, one last question on all of this, doing the job that you do, are you optimistic about our future? ilike... yes, i am an optimistic person, and i do feel optimistic, i think, having worked

in climate change for a long time now, the amount of noise that we're seeing, the amount of understanding from the general public, we've actuallyjust done a poll with this climate calculator, where we've got 20,000 people to pick the policy options to getting to the government's 2030 climate targets. everyone was very joined—up in the solutions that they wanted to see in order to keep this momentum and make sure we turn it around in the next decade. well, isabella, thank you very much forjoining us on newscast and for answering the questions, and thank you to our pupils from vyner school who are maybe possibly listening to this right now. so why don't you pause it and give yourselves a round of applause? absolutely. i feel suitably briefed. yes. you're all genned up now ahead of your return to glasgow. yeah. and i feel very optimistic that the next tv edition of newscast will partially be coming from glasgow and cop 26. and i'm so optimistic because ijust had a meeting about how it's going to happen. and technical things

just always work swimmingly on newscast. so your optimism is always well placed i think? you don't want to know. bye, guys. bye— bye. newscast from the bbc. hello. with a number of weather and flood warnings in force where it's been so very wet, it's certainly worth keeping across those if you've got travel plans going into the weekend. a weekend which will bring more rain at times, but not all the time. there'll be some sunshine, too. saturday, for many, looks like a fine day. quite windy this weekend, and it will turn a little cooler. the low pressure very much in charge, but the frontal system that's brought so much rain does clear away during friday. another one with rain overnight and clearing early on saturday, but then a stronger area of low pressure with more rain and wind for part two of the weekend on sunday. this is how things are starting

off on friday morning, with a lot of cloud around, with outbreaks of rain in many areas, including moving into those parts of eastern england that have spent much of this week dry. but the idea is that all of this will slowly clear eastwards as the day goes on. northern ireland soon getting into the sunshine during friday morning. for many other places, it will turn drier and brighter into the afternoon. but even in the afternoon, still some rain falling in parts of the midlands, northern england and eastern scotland before here, too, things improve into the evening. still mild out there. it'll feel a little fresher, and it does turn cooler over the weekend. more showers running into south west england, wales and northern ireland on friday evening. and that's from the next weather front coming in, that makes further progress north and eastwards going into saturday morning. a touch cooler as saturday starts. so, early on on saturday, this will be moving through with some outbreaks of showery rain. they'll be quite heavy, but a lot of that does clear away into the afternoon. and following on behind, plenty

of sunshine, just the chance of catching a shower. so, for many, saturday afternoon will be dry, temperatures will just come down a degree or so. but the lull before the next weather system doesn't last very long, and it's this area of low pressure and again going into sunday, so another swathe of quite heavy rain along it. that will be gradually pushing its way north and east as the day goes on. may take quite a bit of time before it gets into northernmost parts of scotland. behind it, it will be brightening up, but you may see some heavy showers moving in, and it'll be windiest through southern parts of england and south wales. that's your weekend for you. into next week, showers, some sunshine at times and for all parts, it'll be turning colder as we get into november.

welcome to bbc news. the headlines. in an exclusive interview with the bbc, the indonesian president says wealthier countries need to do more to get the world's poorer countries vaccinated. translation: i see that everyone has helped, - but in my opinion, it's not enough — notjust for indonesia, but for all developing countries, and especially for poorer countries. dozens of former world leaders say hundreds of thousands of lives could be lost in former ? poorer countries if surplus vaccines are allowed to expire. senior oil executives who appear before the us congress to deny deliberately misleading the world about the dangers of climate change. going under

fire