26/11/2015 BBC News at Ten

The Prime Minister urges MPs to back British airstrikes on Islamic

As France and Russia agree to coordinate their strikes against

IS, David Cameron says Britain can't afford to stand aside.

We have to hit these terrorists in their heartlands right now.

And we must not shirk our responsibility

But tonight the Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has told his MPs he

Does the Prime Minister accept that the UK bombing of Syria could risk

more of what President Obama called "unintended consequences?"

We'll be looking at the case for and against British airstrikes

The head of world athletics - Lord Coe -

quits his paid role as an ambassador for Nike, following allegations

After the Chancellor's spending review, independent analysts

warn of significant Government spending cuts still to come.

Millions of tonnes of food thrown into landfills

in Britain - new research on the greenhouse gases it produces.

And the Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne on his latest film

A warning that terrorists could be trying to get guns into the capital.

- a disabled woman is left in a critical condition.

The Prime Minister has told MPs that the UK can't afford to stand aside

from the fight against Islamic State extremists and he's urged them to

David Cameron said so-called IS was a direct threat to the UK and argued

that Britain's right to "self defence" meant air strikes were

But this evening the Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

wrote to his MPs saying he could not support military action, and arguing

wrote to his MPs saying he could not support military action, arguing

that David Cameron had no "coherent strategy" to defeat IS.

Here's our Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg.

And the Prime Minister believes it's now our turn.

Dropping bombs not just over Iraq but on so-called Islamic State

THE SPEAKER: Statement, the Prime Minister.

We can't wait for a political transition.

We have to hit these terrorists in their heartlands right now.

And we must not shirk our responsibility

Mr Speaker, throughout our history, the United Kingdom has stood up to

defend our values, and our way of life.

The shock of Paris has changed the terms of the debate.

130 people died less than 300 miles from the UK capital.

David Cameron believes air strikes thousands of miles

That bomb in Paris, that could have been London.

If they had their way, it would be London.

I can't stand here and say we are safe

I can't stand here either and say we'll remove the threat

But do I stand here with advice behind me that taking action

will degrade and reduce that threat over time, absolutely.

And I have examined my conscience and that's what it is telling me.

But memories of military intervention, what went

In the light of the record of Western military intervention

in recent years, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,

does the Prime Minister accept that UK bombing in Syria could risk more

of what President Obama called "unintended consequences"

and that a lasting defeat of Isil can only be secured by Syrians

British boots won't be on the ground.

So, who are the reliable 70,000 forces there

the Government says could help and can they really be trusted?

I'd ask him to look again at his figure of 70,000 Free Syrian Army.

We have been told very directly, through recent contact that there

are very few moderates remaining on either side of this civil war.

Today the Prime Minister wants us to launch a bombing campaign without

effective ground support in place, or a fully-costed reconstruction

Enemies to the right of us, enemies to the left of it.

But a crucial Conservative opponent has changed his mind in favour.

It is now my personal view that, on balance,

the country would be best-served by this House supporting his judgment

that the United Kingdom should play a full role in the coalition.

The Government's small majority means they need a chunk of Labour

So, after the debate, Labour's top team gathered to try to

But Jeremy Corbyn was set against,

most of his Shadow Cabinet in favour.

So, after a difficult couple of hours, at 3.00pm, they agreed to

disagree and talk again next week but at 6.00pm, Jeremy Corbyn stunned

some of his colleagues, publishing a letter, making claim his opposition.

That puts him in complete opposition to his Shadow Foreign Secretary

I think all of us agree on the threat to the United Kingdom and

The first duty of the Government, but also of the Opposition,

Labour faces a deep and dangerous split.

And unless ministers can be totally confident they'll get

the authority to send British planes to Syria, a vote won't happen.

But tonight there is a political fight on not one, but two fronts.

So big questions tonight about what impact British military action would

have on the ground in Syria and whether it would make Britain

Here's our world editor, John Simpson.

This report contains flash photography. Islamic State,

so-called, is the most extreme and merciless enemy the outside world

has faced in a long time. And it has an almost global reach. So, is

Britain right to attack it in Syria? The case in favour, as put forward

by the Government, has a lot to do with showing the Americans and the

French that we are fully committed to the fight. Britain's contribution

won't in fact be all that great. But the RAF's Tornados are highly

effective. Their Brimstone missiles can hit moving targets at short

notice, something even the Americans can't always do. And since we're

deeply involved in Iraq anyway, the argument goes that it's illogical

not to stage attacks across in Syria, given that IS operates on

both sides of the border. If we are going to be involved in finding a

solution in Syria, unless we are actually there, taking part in these

things, we are not going to be able to influence it and therefore our

credibility is diminished. The case against bombing in Syria is more

varied. One big argument is that IS is now highly sophisticated. As

these pictures of the elaborate tunnels it's dug under the

newly-recaptured Iraqi town of Sinjar show. IS often embeds its

fighters in highly-populated areas. So the dangers of British pilots

killing civilians is a real one. That would recruit more Jihadis for

IS, and could mean attacks within Britain itself Many things could go

wrong. There are so many steps that have to follow in sequence. And as

we have seen with the Downing of the Russian war plane, that is the kind

of thing that can occur and throw everything off plan. The fight

against IS in Syria is already highly complex. You can see that

when you look at the map of where the various factions are operating.

A nationwide patchwork of conflict. IS, of course, is fighting across

the border in Iraq as well. And, the problem isn't just on the ground.

The skies overhead are criss-crossed by the military aircraft of a

variety of countries. What will happen in the long term to the

anti-IS campaign? The there have been real problems, of course. On

Tuesday, Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft and President Putin has now

imposed sanctions on the Turks. But President Hollande of France was in

Moscow today, trying to persuade President Putin to cooperate with

the anti--IS coalition, which includes Turkey. Perhaps it worked.

TRANSLATION: We have agreed to improve the flow of information in

the fight against terrorism and improve the cooperation between our

military specialists, so as to avoid duplication and incidents. But there

are still big question marks over the anti-IS operation. What, for

instance, is supposed to happen to Syria's President Assad? Two years

ago, David Cameron wanted to bomb him. Now Mr Cameron wants to bomb Mr

Assad's enemies instead. Do we still want regime change in Syria? Or have

we forgotten about all that now? Belgium has lowered

its security threat level. It had been on the highest state

of alert after warnings about the Today a friend of one

of the main suspects still being hunted by police, has been telling

the BBC how Salah Abdeslam phoned people in Brussels the night

following the attacks and asked them The friend has been speaking to

our Europe correspondent, He is the Paris attacker still on

the run, Salah Abdeslam. In Brussles we met a friend of his. He agreed to

speak anonymously because of fear of reprisals.

He said that on the night of the attack, Salah Abdeslam telephoned

one of his friends and asked for help.

I saw Mohammed and Hamza at the corner near my place,

I said hello. I had a cigarette with them.

Hamza left and came back and said, "Poor Salah he is in trouble, his

car broke down in Paris, he needs someone to go and pick him up."

It was a favour for a friend, like you help me,

And while Mohammed and Hamza went to par toys pick up Salah, he stayed in

Brussels. He had to work the next day. In the Belgium police raids

that followed, Mohammed and Hamza were among those arrested. They have

now been charged with terrorism-related offences.

This is Salah's brothers. One of the Paris suicide bombers. Our source

was a close friend for years. He said he watched online video, shared

wildly among Facebook friends w graphic images of casualties in

Syria. He watched those videos regularly,

it is true. Was it those videos that

pushed him to do what he did? I don't think so

but maybe it played a role but maybe The Abdeslam brothers lived here in

Brussels. The question remains - how were these young Belgium men

radicalised. The clue could be 100 yards away around the corner, is a

shop owned by the man French police described as the ringleader Paris

attacks, who died in the police raid in the days afterwards.

Now Salah is the most wanted man in Europe. Do you have any idea where

he could be? I think he just has two options -

either he turns himself in or he He could go to Syria, thinking

he had nothing to lose any more. So the West will intensify its war

on Syria but will that prompt more anger among those watching the

videos? The head of athletics' world

governing body, Lord Coe, has announced he's

stepping down from his role as a paid ambassador with the sportswear

company Nike after 38 years. He'd been facing questions about

a potential conflict of interest in connection with the awarding of the

2021 Athletics' World Championships Our Sports Editor Dan Roan

reports from Monaco. This report contains flash

photography. From an athlete who won Olympic

medals for his country, to an administrator who helped bring

the Games to London, Lord Coe has But his short time as the most

powerful man in his sport has Ever since he was elected IAAF

president, Coe has defied calls to end a lucrative ambassadorial role

with sportswear giant Nike. But today, amid mounting pressure,

came an embarrassing climb-down. It is clear that perception

and reality have become horribly I have stepped down

from my ambassadorial role with The current noise level

around this ambassadorial role is not good for the IAAF

and it is not good for Nike. This week, the BBC obtained

an e-mail that showed Coe had discussed taking athletics' 2021

World Championships here, the city of Eugene in the United

States, the birthplace of Nike, with Coe denied lobbying for the bid

and maintains his long partnership with Nike does not constitute

a conflict of interest. But today, he reluctantly

stepped down from the role. You've been bounced into this

decision, haven't you, by the media? You will remember,

because you interviewed me about this subject shortly after I became

president of the International Athletics Federation, that of course

a review process had started. It actually started the day after I

became president, and that review process would of course involve

my own outside interests. Systemic doping

in Russia has seen it banned from international competition,

while the IAAF has been rocked by a corruption scandal implicating

Lamine Diack, the man Coe replaced. The new president will hope today's

U-turn will allow him to focus I think it's very pleasing,

I think it's a very positive step Maybe a little bit late,

but he's done something that I think will bring a lot of trust

and support him in his role. Coe says he had the IAAF's backing

to stay with Nike but that he had Some will ask tonight, however,

why it took him quite Calls for Lord Coe to quit Nike

mirror the American multinational's slogan, just do it. Tonight, of

course, he did exactly that, and he will hope he can now be allowed to

move on and tackle some of track and field's various crises. The problem

he faces is it took time to get here. As an athlete on track, Coe

was known of course for his speed, his turn of pace. The delay in

reaching today's decision here in Monaco however may have caused yet

more damage both to him and his sport.

Independent experts have been picking through the details of

Yesterday George Osborne announced he wouldn't go through with

But the Institute for Fiscal Studies says families could still lose out

They say that some 2.5 million new claimants would be worse off under

the new system of universal credit than under existing tax credits.

But they say nearly two million would be better off.

Our economics correspondent Andy Verity looks at the figures.

If George is the builder, can he fix it?

The high-visibility headline was a U-turn on tax credits,

but when you lay out the detail that U-turn somehow takes

Britain needs to move to that lower welfare, higher wage economy.

It's the right thing for our country.

We can help families in the transition to that lower

welfare higher wage economy and use the improvement

In fact, the Chancellor is still planning to

take billions from low-paid working families who need their income

topped up, but they're the claimants of tomorrow, not today.

Among today's claimants is Stuart Boardman, whose family did

It means a massive difference to myself and my family.

We're still cautious because we know there's going to be

further cuts further down the line, but we're just happy with

In this building behind me, the Institute for Fiscal Studies

has been explaining what will happen to the incomes of low-paid working

families under benefit changes already coming through.

1.9 million working families will be better off by ?1400 a year each

on average than they would under the current system, but 2.6 million

working families will be worse off to the tune of ?1600 a year each.

Cuts to tax credits have gone from next year.

No one who's currently on a tax credit will see any fall

in their cash benefits next year, or indeed into the future.

But the Chancellor is still making the same long-term savings

and the way he's doing that is because he's making the universal

credit system, which is what's going to replace tax credits,

The tax credit cuts would have reduced the amount you could earn

before your tax credit money was clawed back, but that will still

happen when they're replaced by a new benefit, universal credit.

Take a single parent with one child, working part-time

They'd get ?2800 a year less claiming in 2020 than they get now.

For a couple with three children on the living wage,

it's ?3050 less, but a single worker on the living wage would be over

Universal credit is being rolled out to all job centres next year,

replacing six benefits from tax credits to jobseeker's allowance.

But its introduction has been dogged by delays.

His chances of getting the budget into surplus depend on it.

Net migration to the UK has hit a new all-time high.

The difference between the number of people coming to live in Britain

and those leaving the country was 336,000 in

That's 82,000 higher than the previous year.

But the government wants the total to be much lower -

Why can't the month get the figures going in the direction they want to?

You could say the government is a victim of its own success. The big

increases in people coming to work, 73% up in three years. Why? Because

our economy is doing relatively well. There are jobs. The UK is

attractive. Another big driver is foreign students. The numbers coming

are pretty flat going to UK universities, colleges and schools,

despite the global expansion of that sector. Some people worry we may be

missing out on valuable foreign income. Refugees, we should talk

about, much debate as Europe deals with the exodus from Syria. More

people are seeking a file in the UK but it remains a very small part,

just 5%, of total immigration. The real pull factor is the economy.

It's not just our relative economic success which is encouraging

migrants. Migrants are actually bolstering our economic success.

About two thirds of the new jobs, those fuelled by growth, are filled

by foreigners, and the Chancellor didn't need to cut tax credits and

the police yesterday because an official forecast says its net

migration, growing net migration, that's given as the boost that means

he doesn't have to do that. Mark, thank you.

The Government has outlined plans to regulate Muslim religious

after-school classes - known as madrasas - in England.

David Cameron has expressed concern that some children are

Muslim organisations have said protecting child welfare is

a priority, but they've expressed concern about the government

interfering in the independence of religious institutions.

Anywhere providing regular and intensive education to children

will also have to register and could be inspected by Ofsted.

Barclays has been fined ?72 million for failing to carry out proper

The regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority,

said the bank didn't follow standard procedures designed to prevent money

laundering, because it didn't want to upset its rich customers.

There's no suggestion, however, that any crime was actually committed.

2015 is likely to be the warmest year on record -

As world leaders gather in Paris for a climate change summit next week -

our science editor David Shukman has been looking at the effect food

waste in the UK could surprisingly be having on rising temperatures.

On a frozen morning, steam rises from a mountain of waste.

A scene most of us never think about, but at this site near

Manchester and 200 others, rubbish dumped every day starts rotting.

When you get this close, the smell does become pretty intense.

That's because the waste here, including old bits of food,

What's happening is that bacteria are working away on that waste

and giving off a host of different gases - including greenhouse gases -

and this is happening on a massive scale right across the country.

Households throw away staggering amounts of food.

For example, the equivalent of 86 million

So we asked researchers to monitor what happens - under lights that

Our time-lapse camera followed the grim process of decomposition.

Bacteria creating gases that force the chicken to swell up over

No surprise - flies were soon attracted.

So we've injected the sample from the decomposed chicken

and you can see on the mass spectrometer this large

Some food is collected by local councils,

but most of it still isn't, and that means more greenhouse gases

Not only is it costing us a lot of money as householders -

?60 per month for the average family with children - but the 4.2 million

tonnes of food that could have been eaten, a lot of it ends up going to

landfill where it basically just rots and gives

There are ways that food waste can be used.

Here, rubbish is divided automatically.

Some of it diverted into equipment that goes on to produce electricity.

Not on a big scale so far, but more and more waste is being

Any food waste, whether it's leftover food or food

that has gone off, it's important people put that in the right bin.

We can take that material, use it in technology like this

So by recycling their food waste, people are actually helping to keep

Scientists prepare a drone to fly over landfill and

No one knows exactly how big the problem is, but these flights

Many landfill sites are due to close in the coming years,

but even when they do there will be a legacy of gases seeping out

Talks will continue tomorrow between the government and the British

Medical Association in an effort to stop the planned industrial action

by junior doctors in England. The first of three walk-outs over pay

and working hours is due next Tuesday. The government has agreed

to meet junior doctors' representatives at the conciliation

service Acas. BBC Three will be moved online

from February - as part of a series of cost cutting measures being

introduced across the corporation. The television channel will remain

in operation until March to direct viewers to

its new home on the internet. The BBC Trust approved the move,

on the condition that all of the channel's long form

programmes also get shown at some It's the film that nobody would

fund because the topic was not But The Danish Girl - staring Eddie

Redmayne as a transgender pioneer - has made it to the big screen

and will open in the UK next year. Our arts editor Will Gompertz has

been to meet the British Oscar winner to talk

about his latest transformation. She propositioned me. Is that true?

When I said hello to make... A coy looking every -- Eddie Redmayne

adverse happily married Einar Wegener, a successful Danish artist,

who gives up his career with the support of his wife to live the

woman called Lili. My dear, you look exquisite. It was a love story

unlike anything I'd read. It was about love being not bound by

gender, not bound by physical bodies, it's about the soles. No,

never. I met women from the trans-community

and heard their experience and it became absolutely clear that the key

to playing Lili for me was about the emotional journey. I mean, my

husband, do get in? I can't. Has this whole process in any way caused

you to question your own gender? It absolutely makes me look at the

notion of my own gender and the thing that I have learned I think is

that this notion of gender being binary, about being two things,

seems in this day and age, that feels incredibly antiquated and what

I have learned I think is that gender is a spectrum and that where

one falls upon that spectrum is entirely unique to who you are.

Where do you fall on that spectrum? I think... I'm not going to tell you

that. I'll keep that to myself. The film is a melodramatic retelling of

Lili Elbe's true story, which culminates in her decision to

undergo experimental gender reassignment surgery in 1930. The

script, or at least the story, has been knocking around for quite

awhile. Why does it take so long to get made? When I fell in love with

it was considered a hard film to finance because a difficult subject.

Why? I can only imagine the prejudice against trans stories

filters into financial decisions and people say at the prejudice against

trans stories filters into financial decisions and people say it's

subject seven years ago. There's no doubt the film's timing is good. The

issue certainly has currency. But will critics and filmgoers be as

convinced as this young man? You are old-fashioned. By The Danish Girl.

Don't forget a first look at the papers over on the BBC News