npc npc 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. hello. it's adam in the studio. and chris in the studio. and in a few minutes�* time we are going to bejoined around this very set of microphones by the education secretary, gillian keegan. she's quite an interesting character even when she's not being the education secretary, so it'll be interesting to see what she has to say about a whole load of things. one of the things we'll

ask her about is the government's new small boats policy, and that's something you're going to be talking about on friday because you're going to head off to paris to see president macron. yes, there is an anglo—french summit at the elysee palace, the home of the french president, hosted by emmanuel macron. the prime minister is going on friday morning and a whole load of ministers are going as well. there will be more than a dozen ministers if you add up the ministers on each side, gathering for a one—day get—together. it'll be about half an hour chat, i would have thought, bilateral, as they are known diplomatically, between the two leaders. lots on the agenda. ukraine, obviously, central. there's a sense that with the northern ireland brexit deal that the relationship is a bit better than it might otherwise have been. quite a lot in personal terms of similarity between the two leaders. both former finance ministers, both former investment bankers. current nerves. ——

—— nerds. indeed. became political leaders at a young age. i think president macron was 39 when he became french president. rishi sunak, a2. so yes, they are going to get together. they've met before, they met at the cop climate summit in egypt back in the autumn with both as leaders. but small boats, the whole channel crossings thing, i mean certainly as far as uk is concerned, absolutely central in trying to sort of deliver some sort of progress. and this will be a test of that theory that a lot of people have, that the french have maybe been, because they haven't had a great relationship with the british, there are certain things they have maybe not done to deal with the small boats problem and so this will be a great test of the theory because now that relations are supposedly better, do we suddenly see a bit more french action on the other half of that issue? yeah, there's a sense that brexit has been a bit of a stone in the shoe in the relationship between the uk and france. there's sense too that it seems to have improved a little bit in the last 18 months, two years, and then of course there's been this breakthrough that the french president publicly remarked upon as far as brexit and northern ireland is concerned. the sticking point is,

the thing the uk would really want is what is known as a returns agreement where people who arrive in the uk on a small boat are immediately, automatically sent back to france. france says, hang on a minute, we would want an eu—uk returns agreement. the uk would love that too but it's much more complicated to negotiate and it wants to see some progress now. the uk thinks what it has done recently has been good value for money. the problem is, once they can point to successes in stopping lots of attempted crossings, the figures are still shooting up and up and up. so i suspect we won't get some massive breakthrough at the summit in paris, but something that allows them to say they are carrying on making progress and they are going to carry on talking. right, let's make some progress now and chat to gillian keegan, the education secretary, who is here. hello! hello adam, hello chris. and i think you used to listen to this podcast before you were too busy for podcasts? i always listen to it. still now? i record it and i watch it as well. wow. 0k. what do you have to drink while you're watching us? a glass of white wine, it's required. big, large, small? just a little one. 0k, loads of things we could ask you about. so bridget phillipson,

your opposite number in labour, did a speech today and she said, oh, rishi sunak�*s five pledges, which we have all got to know, don't include any on education or children. what do you say to that? well, he said education is the silver bullet. obviously we got £2 billion in the autumn statement. i think underneath all of the five pledges, obviously grow the economy, education is hugely important to growing the economy. and the skills agenda, which we are very firmly focused on, technical education, apprenticeships, introducing new t—levels, new skills boot camps, now we've got the lifelong loan entitlement, really massive reforms to that, which is really trying to bring the business world and the education world much closer together. so it is absolutely the silver bullet, as he calls it. we started off the podcast talking about the small boats policy, which is number five on the list of five priorities. how do you think the debate around that issue has gone this

week, because it has got very, very heated? do you think it has got a bit out of hand? the situation that we are trying to face is out of hand. so we have a massive scale problem. i remember a couple of years... it was about a year ago, and i said last year it was 400 and now it is 2600 or something. now we are talking about tens and tens of thousands. i think it was 45,000 last year. it's a colossal government failure. no, it'sjust a massive demand. global migration, which has been predicted for a while, there is a lot of uncertainty in many parts of the world. and climate change is often thrown into that as well, as war and other economic factors as well. but it is a big issue. and it is something that isjust scaling massively. so the scalability of the problem is almost infinite to some degree. it's not infinite but it really is going up fast and it will continue, so it needs something really big,

really bold and really ambitious. and it's hard to deal with. every country is struggling with it. how do you deal with this? and what you really have to do is you have to basically remove the incentive for people to want to pay £6,000 to go on these treacherous journeys. and that is really what this legislation is trying to get at. the thing is, when we look at the timelines, because this sort of stuff takes time, the new legislation, the government wants to see it in law ideally by the summer or perhaps the early autumn. the expectation is that there will then be a legal challenge. legal challenges can trundle on for a long time. and we are going to have a general election in all likelihood next year. you could just run out of time, couldn't you? even if you manage to win the argument in court, which isn't guaranteed, as the home secretary acknowledges, you could kind of run out of time to do anything that is kind of noticeable before the election. and yet you've got this promise about stop the boats. well, we have got tonnes of things that we have already done.

so obviously we have put more investigators in, we have put more border controls in. the numbers are still going up steadily. the demand is massive. and don't forget, there is people going around, basically selling the dream and delivering a complete nightmare to people, at best. you could even lose your life. can i tell you both about a moment yesterday? i was sitting in the house of commons press gallery, looking down on the chamber, you guys, and it was prime minister's questions. i know where this is going. and there had been a passionate discussion for ten, 12 minutes between keir starmer and rishi sunak about small boats, as we have just been discussing. and then oral sex was the next topic on the agenda. that is because the tory backbencher miriam cates asked this question to the prime minister — let's have a listen... graphic lessons in oral sex, how to choke your partner. safely, and 72 genders. this is what passes - for relationships and sex education in british schools. across the country children - are being subjected to lessons that

ape inappropriate. — extreme, sexualising and inaccurate. often using resources _ from unregulated organisations that are actively campaigning to undermine parents. . this is not a victory for equality. it is a catastrophe for childhood. so, have you seen the evidence that that is what is happening in some schools, or does that evidence not exist? well, there is evidence that there are some materials. and it's shocking. none of those materials, the things that miriam was pointing out in her question, should be taught in the classrooms. a lot of the things that are in that dossier are completely unacceptable. we have guidance that is out there and it says it has to be age appropriate, transparent and parents have to be able to see it, et cetera. there has been some cases where we have been hearing that that has not been happening. so what we're doing is having a review to find out what is actually going to schools. that would suggest you don't know.

well, i don't go into every classroom. we've got 23,500 schools, so for me to know everything that is going on in every classroom at every moment of the day, that would be too much. the implication from miriam was that this is pretty widespread. well, yes. what we will need to do is review the evidence. in the dossier, i don't know that it has named particular schools. it is looking at the material, et cetera. so what we have to do... i'm sure the vast majority of our schools are doing this well, by the way. i'm sure they are. but we need to make sure that any cases like this, they are dealt with. and some of this is shocking and i know there have been a number of concerns that have been raised on twitter as well. people have been tagging me saying four—year—olds and six—year—olds and eight—year—olds are getting taught inappropriate things. that should not be happening in our classrooms. i am absolutely clear about that. and if we find it, we will make sure it stops. but if there is violent porn out there, and i can't believe we are discussing this, but if there is violent porn out there, what is the right stage

for a child to be educated about the rights and wrongs of that, and who does that? is that for the school? or when you're in that sort of gradation of discussion, is that for parents? this is what has made the whole conversation more difficult. when we were younger we didn't have the internet with all of this material. kids are digital natives, even if you try to put the parental controls on they sometimes can find their way around it, or they share materials between each other or even share pictures of themselves. so all of that has changed massively, the landscape has changed, it has become more complex and tricky. and that is why when we do this review, we will also have a wide consultation because there are very broad views as well about what should be shared and what is age appropriate, so we will have to go through that consultation. it isn't easy to do this and it has changed, the landscape has changed as the internet... we have got the online harms bill as well, which is trying from a different angle to try

and address it. let's talk about another difficult issue you have had to deal with — the relationship with teachers. how are you getting on with solving the strikes? well, i've tried my hardest. i've offered them exactly the same as the nurses. i think on the same day, actually, we said, look, pause your strikes. they had some regional strikes that they had planned. pause your strikes, come in, we can have serious discussions about pay and conditions. we had quite a few meetings beforehand about future pay and about workload and things like that, but we can now get down and have serious discussions. why did it take so long to start talking about pay? well, we were talking about future pay and we were talking about some of the conditions. but one of the reasons... obviously we had to work out where we were going and what we were going to do with future pay. it's really been quite difficult with inflation, where the inflation is and where the inflation is going,

et cetera, and not wanting to bake in the other number one objective, halve inflation. that's been the most important thing. we only have one of the four unions that is on strike in teaching, but it is the national education union, it is the biggest one. unfortunately, they don't want to pause the strikes at all. so, we've reiterated the offer. this new set of strikes that most people have paused, or called off, but there are still a few are going ahead, of which the neu unfortunately is one, on the 15th and 16th. and we'll urge them to, you know, if it's good enough for the nurses, it really should be good enough for the teachers. and it's not really a big, unreasonable ask, pause your strikes, come in, have serious discussions. it's really not a difficult... her argument is that you are simply not offering enough, it's not worth it. well, they'll never know if they don't come in. we haven't made an offer. you know, we need to have those discussions, and we need to start... there's room for you to move, though, there is scope for you, if they come in, and they come in, having gone on strike because what they think is the maximum offer they can get from you guys isn't good enough,

there might be room for you to move. we have said we will enter serious pay discussions, and all they need to do is pause the strikes, like the nurses have done, come in and enter those serious discussions. now, of course, we put out our strb, etc. this is the whole thing to the pay review bodies? yes. they come up with a number. we are serious about discussing pay, discussing conditions. i mean, clearly, we've also said very clearly we didn't think inflation busting pay rises are serious, they are the wrong thing to do. but, you know, if they can pause their strikes, they can come in, exactly as the nursing unions have done, and many others, actually, the ambulance, the physiotherapists now, and we can start those discussions. i don't know why they won't, actually. i don't know why they haven't done that. because they are negotiating. let end our discussion... well, you need to get into the room to negotiate, as they keep saying. as we learned from many years of doing podcasts about negotiations, it happens outside as well. let's end where we started, though,

that speech from your opposite number in labour, bridget phillipson. she was talking about childcare today. is there going to be more free childcare, or more support for childcare in the budget this week? in england, yeah. and are you pushing for it? well, just so you know, childcare, obviously labour did their 13 years in government. they introduced in 2004, the 15 hours for 3—4—year—olds and that was it in the whole13 years. that's what they did. since we've been in government, we've doubled that to 30 hours. we've introduced 15 hours for two—year—olds who are disadvantaged. introduced universal credit, where you get 85% of your childcare back, and also tax credits as well. and we've said we will always be looking to see... we want to make childcare affordable and flexible for parents. and we want to make sure it's a really good offer for kids as well, you know, to really help them to be ready when they get to school, to be able to hit the ground running, etc. so, we are always looking to see what more we need to do. but we have done, probably more than any government ever,

actually, in childcare. but we are very serious. the thing we are actually rolling out at the moment is family hubs. so that was really looking at the first thousand days, although it does go up to 19. it was making sure that kids have the best start for life, then we have these hubs that are there to support families. because it's a very difficult time when you become a new parent. and very different from the sure start, we often get the sure start comparison. sure start went up to the age of about four or five. these go up to the age of 19. sure start were for deprived families, or people who met some disadvantage. these are for everybody. it's a universal offer. and i think that is really important. while sheet we want to make childcare affordable and flexible for parents. growing up in knowsley, one of the things i constantly saw about government policy, as soon as you try and say this

is only for disadvantaged parents, nobody wants to be that person. nobody signs up. there is a stigma. about government policy, as soon as you try and say this you mentioned growing up on merseyside, and you waited a whole 12 minutes before you get that. because you're so proud, normally it is the first thing you mention. i'm particularly proud, after last week's football results, just saying. i'm not getting involved in that. i'm like penny mordaunt. i'm not going to add about football and i don't know what i'm talking about. did you get eurovision tickets? no. you're a government minister, you can't sit there for two hours in the middle of the day clicking on a website? did you try? actually, i don't know anyone. my mate did. but i don't know anybody who actually got them. and the great thing about eurovision is even if you don't get the tickets, you can do it at home. i'm sure you have eurovision parties at home. oh, yeah, totally. and i'll be definitely doing that this year, because i didn't get tickets either. i tried very hard. i had my laptop open on my lap on the bus. tethered to my phone. and then walking down the street. go to liverpool, just go to one of the night clubs. you can have the experience, the liverpudlian experience while eurovision is going on. it will be fantastic. it will be amazing. education secretary, thank you very much.

thank you very much for having me. good to see you. ok, let's talk to somebody else from the front line of politics now. we are joined by the green mp for brighton pavilion, its caroline lucas. hello, caroline. hello, there, how are you doing? very well, thank you. thanks forjoining us on newscast. i know you're opposed to the government's new policy on how to handle the small boats. but what would your alternative be? and, crucially, how would you make sure that actually achieved public support in the uk? well, i think the first thing to say is that it is a morally abhorrent policy, and it's also one that is totally unworkable, and it's no surprise that it is being criticised by all quarters, including from the united nations commissioner for human rights. i think in terms of ways you could deal with this massive problem, and nobody wants to see people risking their lives by putting out to sea and literally putting their lives in jeopardy, would be to set up a workable, safe and legal routes.

that would mean that people can apply for asylum without having to make the perilousjourney to get here. so you would probably set of ways they could apply from outside the uk, and that would mean they would not have to put out to sea in the first place. but i think it's also important just to put a little bit of context around this policy, because if you were to listen to the home secretary and believe what she said, the idea that there are 100 million people just lining up waiting to come to the uk is clearly fearmongering of the worst sort. we know that 80% of refugees are in the global south, we know that well over 70% of them are in neighbouring countries to the countries they have fled. we know that the uk takes far fewer refugees and asylum seekers than many, many other european countries. so the idea that this issue is one that is uniquely british,

and therefore we have a uniquely british entitlement to break international law in order to deal with it, i think is a myth that we absolutely need to call out. so how do you create a policy that is sustainable and commands public support? you talked a little bit there about creating more safe and legal routes. does there have to be, perhaps, in the future, some sort of cap? because there will always be an argument, won't there, about how many people every year, for instance, a country can sustainably absorb? there is certainly a question as to how many refugees a country can sustainably absorb. but that has to be calculated in a way that takes into account all of the other countries that are taking refugees. i think it would be an artificial kind of cap to say that we are going to put a cap on those people for whom we have an international responsibility. what we need to be doing is working with other countries to find solutions that are fair, relative to the wealth of the country in question, the number of refugees and asylum seekers already in the country.

it wouldn't be beyond the wit of people to work out a system that was fair. but what it requires is working closely with other countries. the irony here is that by leaving the eu, britain has basicallyjust set fire to the one process that would have been a very logical way in which to address this question. let's not talk about the issue any more, but let's talk about how we talk about the issue. i'm going to play this clip that was just recorded on thursday afternoon by nick robinson on our sister podcast, political thinking. and he was interviewing suella braverman, the home secretary, and he put to her gary lineker�*s now famous comments where he said that the government, or insinuated the government was acting like the nazis in 1930s germany. and this was what suella braverman said, she brought kind of her own family experience into the equation. it is, from a personal point of view, to hear that kind of characterisation, is offensive. because as you said, my husband isjewish,

my children are therefore directly descendant from people who were murdered in gas chambers during the holocaust. and my husband's family feels very keenly the impact of the holocaust, actually. to kind of throw out those kind of flippant analogies, it diminishes the unspeakable tragedy that millions of people went through, and i don't think anything that is happening in the uk today can come close to what happened in the holocaust. so, caroline, do you find yourself in the unusual position of agreeing with something suella braverman said, which presumably never happens? well, i don't think what suella braverman said was a fair representation of what gary lineker was saying. and i would just draw your attention to an extraordinary thread, actually, that i was reading from a germanjournalist who was talking about the way

in which the gas chambers, the worst of the holocaust, wasn't an end point, not a starting point. and she talks about the number of things that happened which led to that. and one of the things that happened along the way to that utter atrocity was the dehumanisation of a group of people. and that happened through a range of ways, but certainly the way in which we talk about people, the kind of language that is used, the demonisation that happens, is part of that continuum. and so i do think that when suella braverman talks about waves of illegal arrivals, when she talks about criminals breaking into britain, that is actually extremely dangerous. i don't think what gary lineker was saying was flippant. i think he was making a very serious point. and, to that extent, i support him in what he said. just to pick up on the argument the home secretary was making there, is any comparison, however egregious a particular policy may be seen

by some, is any comparison ever with the holocaust or what happened in the 1930s a good idea of persuading people around you argument, given the magnitude of the horror of the holocaust? it's not language that i would have chosen for that reason, because i think it isjust so emotive and because what happened with the holocaust was just so unspeakably awful. but, having said that, when, each year, we say never again, each year we say that we are going to learn from history, learning from history does mean learning what led up to the holocaust. and, to that extent, as i say, it's not something i would have volunteered myself, but i think of someone else's making that point, do think that is a reasonable point to make? i think it is. i think we have to learn from history. all the parties are gearing up for the general election. you can sort of sense the wheels

starting to turn everywhere. are you starting to think about what you can do to help the labour party get elected? no, i'm not thinking what i can do to help the labour party get elected. because that's the best way of getting your goals, isn't it? not necessarily at all. i mean of course, if you ask me are the greens closer to labour than we are to the conservatives, by and large, yes, we are. but what i'm really intent on doing is making sure we get as many green party mps elected as possible, because that means whoever is going to be the next government, they are more likely, then, to come under pressure from the greens to deliver on genuinely ambitious climate policies, nature policies, economic policies. i would love the labour party to start talking about a wealth tax, for example. i would love them to have a little more muscle when it comes to nature policies. i would love them to rule out nuclear power. there are plenty of ways in which greens can bring pressure to bear on labour to actually deliver genuine social

and environmental ambition. and that's what i'm setting out to do, whoever comes in as the next government. and, in the much shorter term, do you think the uk is going to win eurovision with the song that was released this morning? actually, i quite like that song. yes, i'm going for that. ok, good. well, you've got a vote like everyone else. except we don't get to vote for it, do we? we can only vote for other people. i think it's definitely grown on me. the first time i heard it, i wasn't entirely convinced. but then second and third, fourth and fifth times, it was actually quite good. caroline, thank you very much. thanks a lot. there we go, avowed internationalist caroline lucas, firmly backing britain when it comes to eurovision. that was instant endorsement, wasn't it? it really was. also, that was somebody who definitely listened to it. oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. so she obviously had time today. have you heard any of the other entries? i've heard israel's, which is actually quite similar to the uk's. but i haven't listened to the rest. and there's hundreds of them. because, of course,

with the semifinals, you get even more countries. it's not just the finalists. uk's best so far? out of those two that i've heard? i would say so. well that might help us not being right at the bottom. but what's great is that you've got a big long playlist to listen to on all those very long journeys you got over the next few days. i might sound out the french entry, if that's... is that out there yet, in the ether? i think it probably is. i look forward to speaking to you in france, then in america. indeed. paris and san diego. and a one day weekend in between. well, thank you very much for listening to this episode of newscast. we'll be back with another one, wherever in the world chris mason is, very soon. bye. bye— bye. newscast. newscast, from the bbc. hello there. so as being disruptive across parts of the north of the uk. central and southern scotland, northern england and north wales and northern ireland. warnings

remain in force, certainly for north wales and northern england, even as we head into friday morning. it will tend to be lifted across northern ireland by the end of the night. so that's no clears away slowly across england and wales but strong winds will be blowing that snow around, drifting blizzards for awhile early on friday. eventually that mixture of snow clears away from eastern the winds is out in brightness of the many to the afternoon, widespread sunshine around, a few showers ignored scotland medical data come across the board, temperatures from around 1—5. that much colder as we have through friday night, the winds turned lighter, clearer skies, still some snow showers across northern scotland, ice will be plumb a problem we got lying snow and temperatures sub zero for many errors, up to —10 to the northern england snowfields, lower than that in

scotland. and i think that is really important.

welcome to bbc news. i'm lisa—marie misztak. our top stories: several people are killed in germany in a shooting at a jehovah's witnesses' centre in hamburg. russian shelling temporarily cuts power at ukraine's largest nuclear energy facility — the un demands immediate action to avoid disaster. we are rolling a dice here and there will be a day when our luck will run out. tens of thousands of israelis staged further protests against a planned judicial overhaul — their president says the legislation should be abandoned. and threats to sushi train dining, as three people are arrested injapan during investigations into an unhygienic craze.