hello. welcome back, emma from belfast. and the foreign affairs spokesperson from the lib dem. the last nato summit in madrid is where we find adam. he spoke to borisjohnson on thursday morning. this is the end of the nato summit. emblems and podiums and speeches. we also have spots like this, which is absolutely colossal. for those

of you listening, as opposed to watching under the television. a couple of final thoughts as we wrap up this third summit in a row. he went to the bavarian alps and then came here to nato. certainly the last two conferences have all been about ukraine. what is the strategy? what is the potential endgame? and, you know what, here at nato, a real sense of an organisation revitalised because of necessity, because of what's happened, and trying to work out how to face up to an aggressive russia and a dangerous decade. let me show you a couple of little extracts from the prime minister's news conference, which hasjust finished, as i record this at 2pm spanish time, and the couple of questions that i got to put to borisjohnson. thank you. chris mason, bbc news.

prime minister, what is the overall objective of the uk's help and strategy for ukraine? is it unequivocally getting the russians out, restoring ukraine's borders to how they were before the war and, if i may, you have been out of the country for eight days. are you actually looking forward to returning home, given the ongoing speculation about your own future? on the second point, yes, i can't tell you how much i am looking forward to getting home, not that... it's been wonderful being here in madrid, and i enjoyed being in kigali and germany, but, you know, there's no place like home, so i'm keen to get back. on your point about where we are trying to, what the goal is, we can't be more ukrainian than ukrainians. everybody understands that. it's for volodymyr zelensky and his people to decide what they want to do, whether they want to cut a deal with russia to make some kind of peace. of course, that's entirely a matter for them.

so that's that, in terms of the prime minister's answer. not a commitment from him to ukraine returning to its prewar borders. that decision lying with the ukrainian government. so, you know, on this challenge goes, with colossal expenditure, as far as the british taxpayer is concerned. i'm going to dash because we're going tojump on a bus, go to the airport and get home, so i will catch up with you guys in the studio next week. goodbye! now, layla, not to sort of do a lib dem cliche, but we always think of you as a sort of like peace—loving party, how are you about this idea about ramping up the military presence in europe to counter russia? yeah, well, we are absolutelyi peace—loving, but we are also a party that believes _ in the international rule—based order and in working _ with our allies, and putin is most certainly not peace—loving, so actually we welcome it. | it's the right thingi to do at this time. do you think this build—up on what nato calls its eastern flank will actually ever happen? lots of countries have

to stump up lots of troops, lots of money and lots of kit to actually make it a reality. i well, that's a really good pointl and, given that we are intending to reduce the number of troops in this country at the moment, | from 82,000 to 72,000, it doesn't quite add up. l |also, the promise is going to takei a very long time to come through. i think we are looking at ten years, land thinking of the here and now, | there is a thing called the parliamentary- armed forces scheme. i don't know if anyone has ever heard of it. i i did it for a year. oh, the mps go and get drunk. i did not get drunk! i was not on that flight. that was not my year group. people might remember— there was a story about some of them getting drunk on a plane, but that was not me. - but you get to go and interact, - and we went to the forward presence in estonia and chatted to the troops out there who, at the time, - were complaining that theyjust didn't have what they needed . to maintain what they had there . at the time, so you are absolutely right to point out it's _ going to take quite a lot and even ia reversal of current mod policyl to get the troop numbers to train them up to get them out there in the first place. i when you are in estonia,

could you sort of feel like the russian bear breathing down your neck? yeah, big time. they took your phone off you. |they were really, really clear, | like, you don't even turn it on, because the cyberattacks... we met with the government there. estonia itself is i really interesting. it's got several liberal parties, . which i love, because you know, if you are a liberal, - you know that there's not just one liberal party. you put 11 lib dems in a room and there's 12 opinions. - and so we were chatting i with their foreign ministry about the outlook, even then, . and this was perhaps three, four years ago now, they were saying, we need to watch out. _ it's building up, we are worried, there are exercises. _ post—crimea then? yeah, well post—crimea, but three years ago, - so this will be no surprise to any of them. _ so the fact that, you know, off the back of nato, - we are seeing a bit more care taken on those countries... _ they would be the first - in the firing line if putin ever did decide to roll his tanks over the borderand, having- been to that border, - it's a very easy border to do that, very flat.

you can almost imagine them coming. in the old days, the lib dems at an election would say, put up taxes to pay for more education spending. would you now be saying, put up taxes to pay for more education spending and more defence spending? well, listen, at the next election, i think that the whole piece - of where the economy is going to be is a big issue — we haven't even - started that process. i do think there was, _ back in the day, certainly a move i for the party to want to step away| from conversations about defence, and you started by saying we are peace—loving. - i love that that's how you see us. thank you, adam, that's lovely. but we are not pushovers either. we are actually pragmatic. we recognise that having the defence i capability that we have does give usl a place on the world stage. it gives us that in at the un. it gives us that - credibility at nato. we regretted what happened with brexit, because we feltl it was the country pulling away from that international rules i —based order, that wanting to be on the inside. - but, if you want to be fiscally credible and afford to spend this extra stuff,

you have to raise the money as well, don't you, which means taxes going up. we have always wanted progressive taxation. . we have always said that we would have a costed manifesto, - and we are very proud that, every time i've ever- stood for the lib dems, _ we've had the one that the ifs goes, yeah, all right, they've - actually thought about this. so are you happy with the overall tax burden at the moment, the highest it's been for four decades, and lots of conservatives complain about that, but do you like it? no one is happy. i mean, just as people, we are feeling it. - i remember meeting, - during the local elections, a chap in kidlington in my area, lwhich is a bit north of oxford, i who had voted conservative l all of his life, and we had this lovely conversation where he was considering not. doing that any more. of course, when i am - a lib dem and i am the mp, i am like, oh, tell me why, and it was because he wasl a former police officer. he now lectures - and does for himself. he's got a two bed semi in kidlington, all right. i and he was down to his last fiver - when he was filling up at the pumps. and he thought to himself, i not about himself, actually, he thought, well, if i'm struggling, what about all those people -

who aren't doing as well as me? and it woke his eyes up to the factl not that he wanted the government to give him necessarily more money, but what about those people - on universal credit who need more? so i think everyone is feeling it. what we have suggested... this is a whole load of differentl things that have come together. i think the government tries to avoid saying the b word, | brexit is part of it, _ but we have to say undoubtedly the war in ukraine, the rise in prices, inflation - is hitting all countries. we are growing slower- than others but, nevertheless, we have to admit that this is a time the government needs to step in, l and what we are suggesting is a cut to vat, because actually _ the treasury is taking in more money. - inflation means that they are taking in more money every single day. i i want to ask you a question about the idea of parties working together, possibly secretly, or publicly, because, following those recent by—election results, there has been some renewed discussion, hasn't there, about the possibility of a lib—lab pact between labour and the lib dems.

are you having any of those conversations with labour? could it ever happen? no. look, i mean, in oxford, i fight labour. _ there is no love . lost at local level. some voters like the idea, though, don't they, of you teaming up to get rid of the tories, even may be behind—the—scenes. look, if i was going to be labour, i'd have been labour. _ my dad was a labour man through and through. - i looked at the policies i of all the different parties when i decided to become an mp and i decided that the liberal- democrats and their approach, internationalist but also caring | about localism and that sort of devolved type of power, i that was for me, and we aren't about to do a pact with them, i because we want to positively put |forward the liberal democrat wayj to deal with taxation, - to deal with the big problems. so not any cooperation behind—the—scenes with seats perhaps at by—elections and things? we have a long history. back in the day, you know, - we were the party of government. it was us and the conservative party that were the main two parties. - we have this extraordinary liberal history. _ we are not about to go i and do that and just throw that away for the sake i of a short—term election.

no, there are no pacts, i there is not to be a pact. can we move on to trans rights, layla, if that's all right? you said that trans rights are human rights. you said that before, and trans women are women, trans men are men. and fina, swimming's world governing body, has voted to stop transgender athletes from competing in women's elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty. what's your view on this? the view of me and the party- on the trans rights in sports issue specifically is that it is for those bodies to decide how— they manage that. i think it was interesting i that tom daley came out and said that he disagreed. to be honest, i aml not an elite athlete. i know that this is going i to shock people, but i am not an elite athlete. but i also think that in a sense, it is going to have _ to be sport by sport. what i would urge everyone to do, though, around this debate, -

and i thought it was really interesting, did you see, i there was a bit of polling i done by more in common, about how the public view trans rights in general, i land it is far more centre ground, l compassionate, much more take it on a case—by—case basis, . there is no one size fits all. i think the discourse around it has become very us and them. - it's become quite polarising. and i think that's. really regrettable. there was this beautiful moment - in parliament whenjamie wallis came out and said that they wanted to express theirjourney- and what they were going through, where i thought to myself, - actually, that's amazing, - because we realise it's our friends, it's our colleagues. these are real people who have feelings, who are actually- incredibly vulnerable, and i think, all of it, i i would really encourage everyone tojust take a breath and, - when it comes to sport, - let's leave it to those experts, but even those experts, when they talk about it, j please remember it is so, -

so damaging when we try and have this one size fits all. so, yeah, trans rights are human rights. - so, you think it's ok for world swimming to have made that decision? i am not a world—class swimmer. i think it is regrettable. i think it's regrettable. | because you talked about the more in common poll, because i have that on my new radio four show, antisocial, last week, which you can listen to on bbc sounds if you want to hear all the details. their polling did show that people are very compassionate about trans people's experiences in real life. but there is a massive majority of the public that think this is the right decision on sport, that a trans woman should not be allowed to compete in women's categories. so i think the public are... and maybe we are in different places. my view is more inclusive is good. you know, anything that starts to exclude people is generally bad. but also, i am not a biologist, i am not a doctor, i am

certainly not an elite sports expert. so i do have to defer to those bodies who make those decisions. talking about vulnerability... some women would argue, . talking about being inclusive, some women in sport would argue it is actually excluding them, - in some ways, because if you are - competing and you have a significant advantage because you are trans, you went through male puberty, i you are actually excluding other women from actually _ getting on the team. and that is why it needs to be looked at in the context of the latest science that we've got, and why it's going to be different for different sports. the fact that we even had women on horseback, riding in the grand national, it really does depend on different sports. so that's why i think it's important that it is horses for courses, as it were. can ijust ask you, talking about vulnerability, i was reading your story today, really inspiring. i was reading that you were bullied when you were at school for being too white. i was bullied for the opposite reason. well, you were injamaica. injamaica, but nevertheless. it's not nice being bullied at school, is it? and how was that? how has that influenced your

career, has it shaped you in any way whatsoever? think anything anyone goes to you as a kid shapes them. i was also bullied because i was not just different, but i didn't have a jamaican accent. by the way, there are videos of me trying to encourage myself, and i was 11 at the time, as a child, you try and fit in. i did kind of end of developing one. and then i went to an american school, and the american accent is still there. i will occasionally twang into american. it's really embarrassing. but, you know, anything that you grow up with ends of influencing you. and to be honest, it has meant that i see... it's why i am a liberal. because i recognise that everyone has gone through these experiences. i find it easy to put the shoe on the other foot, as it were, and because my mum is palestinian, my dad is british, he was very much a working class made good lad who ended up as an ambassador. there is no one singular

identity that people have. and so, now that we are in this sort of type of politics where people are trying to define very narrowly what does it mean to be british, who am i, they are trying to define that by, like, sort of christian, white, anglo—saxon background, i find that really uncomfortable. so it has definitely influenced how i see politics. and i think it's made me always think... i may not know them yet, but i wonder what the stories are. everybody has a story. quick, final question. i like a good journalist, i've beenl looking at my wikipedia recently. i know that you used to be a maths and physics teacher. _ that is true. i don't know about the rest of my colleagues on this i distinguished panel here, - i used to give my maths teacher a lot of grief at school. now being a politician is difficult, right, but teaching maths - on a friday afternoon must be a tough crowd~ _ what is harder, politics - or teaching kids about maths? i have said this before in the chamber, teaching is harder than being an mp, full stop. i thought you would say that.

definitely. it sounds like especially if i had you in my class. i'm joking. i'm saying nothing. actually, i used to love taking the bottom set. they were my favourite. because i believe that anyone can love maths. you just have to find the in. my favourite... anybody? seriously? my favourite kid was the one who would come into my classroom at the beginning of the year, especially when they were sort of 12, 13, the ones who are coming in. and they say to me, miss, i need to tell you i am no good at maths. and immediately i would be, like, you. it soundsjust like me. seriously. i can hear a metaphorical bell ringing, which means it is class dismissed. thank you very much. now, the good thing about having the newscast extended family here today as you can find out what the extended family have been up to. emma, yeah, you've been looking at abortion in northern ireland. we had the big news last week from the states that, in some states now, it's illegal to have an abortion. you've be looking at the correlation between what has happened in northern ireland in the past,

and what has happened in the states. the supreme court ruling in america has had a big reaction to it. there's been a big reaction to it in northern ireland. because it still has a really deep and emotional response from people there. abortion is still very much a live issue in northern ireland. it was over 2 years ago now that it was decriminalised in northern ireland. but despite this there are still a lot of women who travel from northern ireland, on planes, over to england and other parts of britain to have abortions, because there still isn't the full services for abortions that are set up in northern ireland. so, why is that? well, yes, they changed the law, but that didn't mean it was easy to get the services set up. because there wasn't agreement between the political parties at stormont. the dup, particularly, has still blocked the commissioning of abortion services in northern ireland — so, a lot of women still need to travel. on top of that, there still very vocal and very well funded campaign groups on both sides of the issue. and one issue at the moment for people is that there are protesters who will go to abortion clinics,

the ones that do exist at hospitals in northern ireland, they will show up there when abortion clinics are on and hold vigils, protests, as women are walking in. i went along to one of these. i'lljust set the scene for you, you drive into the main car park, or walk into the main entrance of one of the hospitals in northern ireland, one side of the road, you have people praying, basically praying, if you like, as part of their demonstration outside the hospital, and on the other side you have men with large, large placards, with very graphic statements on them and images, like abortion is murder. so, i've been speaking to women who have had to seek terminations for all sorts of reasons, sometimes because their baby was not going to survive, they have been through the trauma of that, and i went to put some of their points to the people who demonstrate outside hospitals. what you think this actually achieves? we are informing the public. we are on the public highway. we are entitled to be - here on a legitimate protest.

actually, we call it a witness. do you think about how women feel who walk in through these doors? they may have already been dealing with the fact their baby is not going to survive. a sign like abortion as murder, how does that help them? because it is murder, l it is a living part of life. when god creates a being, it has to start somewhere. | for women, isn't this potentially causing huge amounts of more trauma? women that are coming. here are already in trauma. doesn't this make it worse? no, no. because they havel a decision to make. do they have their baby, - or do they murder their baby. that is the question. is this compassion? it is compassion. it's compassion for the baby. wow, that's a really powerful clip there. is there a religious divide, emma, in terms of those that are for abortion and those that are against? northern ireland is... religion is so deep—rooted in what happens there. yeah, it's a more socially

conservative society that is largely driven by religion, and religious traditions. it is not to say that everyone who is catholic or protestant is going to disagree with abortion. it is more nuanced than that. yes, some of these groups are religious groups who are quite well funded, sometimes getting funding from abortion lobbies in america as well. so, yes, it does tend to be religious beliefs behind it. when you look at the placards, it often talks about god. another question i asked was, doesn't the bible and jesus teach compassion and tolerance, and is this compassionate, that was something else i asked. but they are very deeply entrenched views. and the people who stand outside of those clinics, and respect to them for having the chat with me, they absolutely believe in what they are doing. but i also spent time with women who are forming a voluntary group to chaperone women in through the doors, because they say it can be so intimidating, walking into the hospital with a big decision you have to make. all sorts of news you may have given about maybe your very much wanted daughter or son, you have become pregnant and they are not going to survive.

that is a lot of news to take. you are chaperoning women in through the front doors to get them past the demonstrators that they find sometimes quite intimidating. but people will be there, week after week. they absolutely believe in what they are doing. they are trying to pass new laws now at stormont to basically create safe zone so people can't demonstrate outside a hospital. but that now has to be decided by the supreme court. so, like buffer zones? yeah, like buffer zones. but the question is, does this conflict with your right to protest, your right to free speech. the supreme court will have to decide that. and, sima, what have you been working on? wow, well, to follow from that, what a story. i have been looking for several weeks now, since august, actually, several months, you will remember borisjohnson said during the evacuation in afghanistan that all those who helped the british will be looked after. he said, you know, you will be able to come to the uk and be brought to safety. and we know at newsnight, from all the conversations we've had

with lawyers and people in afghanistan, that there are thousands of people who worked for the british who still remain there. last week i spoke to several who say that they have been tortured by the taliban because of the jobs they had while working for the british. these are security guards who worked at the uk embassy. some were teachers for the british council. they tell us that because of those associations with the uk, with various nato forces, that they have had some severe encounters with the taliban that have involved some very serious assault. i think we have a clip here of some of the people i've been speaking to. i was sitting outside _ when gunmen approached me. one of them attacked me. they said, you were working for the british embassy. - they started beating me - and they threw me on the ground. they attacked me again and again. men came to my house and they beat me to the level that i passed out. they thought that i was dead. god knows what else they did to me,

if they knew i wasn't dead. how are they getting through each day with life under the taliban? did you speak to them about that? are they kind of in hiding? exactly, this is the thing. the people that are stuck there are in hiding. so, the taliban don't know where they necessarily are. but they are getting tip offs. and that is how they are finding some of these men. and women. how did the taliban find out that they had done this work? with british embassies? for example, some of the men i have been speaking to were security guards at the embassy. so it was a very visible profession. they are patrolling the streets every day. they are outside the embassy. their families were known. they were very vocal about their jobs at that time, because they felt that they were working for the british, they were in a safe environment. that has metamorphosised since the evacuation. we know that ben wallace and james heappey, the armed forces minister and the defence secretary, have said over and over again that these men will be brought back. in fact, james heappey said in the commons last week

that he thinks there are around 9000 afghans who are eligible for the arap scheme, which is one of the resettlement schemes that are still in afghanistan. the intention for them is that they will be brought back. however, from those that we have been speaking to in afghanistan, there is a lot of bureaucracy, they say. the paperwork, the application process, in some cases, when they have been speaking to the mod, they have been finding that their cases have been misplaced or their reference numbers aren't easy for them to access. so, you put all of that together, for them, it means that the process of them actually getting here has been elongated unnecessarily, they argue. and the government, lastly, says that they have successfully evacuated 15,000 afghans, and that it is working very hard to bring them back here. well, thank you both for your excellent, hard—hitting work. 0n the next episode of newscast, the podcast available on bbc sounds, i have been having a chat about musicals with stephen bartlett, who presents

the diary of a ceo podcast. slightly different. that's the beauty of your work. he is also talking about how his ambition is for his podcast, next year, to be making £10 million in revenue. are we allowed to say anything about your moustache? everyone does. what do you think? i'm thinking it's very distinguished. you looked very dapper. i'll take that. very clark gable. i'll take that. of course, if you're listening on bbc sounds, you'lljust have to imagine how it looks. is it a permanent fixture? just take a picture of me of the internet and use, like, a black marker. or a sort of ginger marker, if available. is it a ginger? i was going to say come again, but... right, that's all. we'll be back with another newscast very soon. bye. newscast. newscast from the bbc.

hello again. well, thursday was a day of sunshine and showers. but the day's showers were a lot bigger, there were loads more thunderstorms around than we've seen over the past few days and whenever you see big cloud tearing upwards through the skies like these, well, you know someone is getting soaked. someone lived in south newington as those heavy downpours came through here. really hefty shower. the showers and thunderstorms that developed through the day have actually kept going for the first part of the night as well and they have tended to migrate towards the pennines, north—east england and will generally begin to fade away over the next few hours by the same time, will probably see some rain to spinning its way across the north sea, grazing northeast scotland over the next few hours. here are your morning temperatures. now, for friday itself, we've got low pressure in charge. it's a day of sunshine and showers, broadly speaking. however, we will see another low bringing some more general rain into northern ireland as we go through the afternoon. here's the forecast for wimbledon — the computer reckons it's dry.

well, you might be lucky, i suppose. but i'd go for a chance of a shower, to be honest. the showers will be quite widespread, they'll get going to the morning and come the afternoon, some of them will turn heavy and thundery. the greatest chance of seeing those heavier showers will be across eastern areas of scotland and down the eastern side of england. down to about norfolk, i suspect. temperatures similar to recent days, high teens across western areas, low 20s in the east. feeling warm in the sunshine with a bit more of a breeze around on friday compared with the last couple of days. the weekend sees further weather fronts diving eastwards across the uk and so on saturday, we start off with this weak weather front. a band of rain pushing eastwards across england and wales and what follows is sunshine and showers again. some of them heavy, particularly across north—western areas this time. it's here where we've got the greatest chance of seeing some thunder. and those temperatures not really changing a great deal. low 20s in the east, but generally for most of us, we're looking at temperatures into the high teens. now, pressure starts to gradually rise from the south—west as we go through sunday. so, probably dry for wales and most parts of western england and probably the midlands, too.

a few showers elsewhere, notably across scotland and northern ireland and temperatures, well, they haven't changed very much, have they? pressure will rise more generally into next week. so, more of us will enjoy drier weather, a bit more sunshine and it will start to get a bit warmer as well.

welcome to bbc news. i'm gareth barlow. our top stories: the us supreme court deals a major blow to efforts to tackle climate change, with a ruling that limits government powers to cut greenhouse gas emissions. this is a set back in ourfight against climate change when we are already far off track in meeting the goals of the paris agreement. president xijinping travels to hong kong, to mark the 25th anniversary of the british handover. prime minister, borisjohnson says china must be held to commitments made about the former colony. 0n the 25th anniversary of the handover, we simply cannot avoid the fact that for some time now, beijing has been failing to comply with its obligations.

as nato leaders wrap up their summit in madrid,