05/02/2013 BBC News at Ten

$:/STARTFEED. Tonight, plans to allow gay couples to marry have

been approved by MPs. But the debate reveals deep divisions among

Conservative MPs, most of whom refuse to back the Bill. Marriage

is by its nature a heterosexual union. It's a bringing together of

one man and one woman. It is not just a romantic attachment. Above

all, I think of two people, faithful and loving, who simply

want their commitment to be recognised as it is for straight

couples and that, in the end, is what this Bill is about. Supporters

say it's a natural development from civil partnerships. The Prime

Minister agrees. I think it's right that gay people should be able to

get married. This is about equality, but it's also about making our

society fair. We'll be asking how dangerous the Tory divisions are

for David Cameron. Also, the court hears that Chris Huhne's former

wife was looking for revenge when she revealed she had taken his

speeding points. The Irish Government apologises to thousands

of women who were locked up in work houses run by Catholic nuns.

hurts me so much. I'll never get over it. I'll bring it to the my

grave. A dark day for the NHS say experts, ahead of tomorrow's report

on the mistreatment of patients in Stafford. The little-known British

film in serious contention for an Oscar this year.

Coming up in Sportsday, Ashley Cole gets ready to earn his 100th

England cap as Roy Hodgson confirms he'll start tomorrow at Wembley

Good evening. David Cameron's plans to legalise gay marriage in England

and Wales have been approved by MPs. But the debate revealed deep

divisions among the Conservatives, most of whom refused to back the

Bill. David Cameron said the same- sex marriage will make society

stronger, but many of his colleagues insist the plans will

alienate voters. Nick Robinson has the latest for us.

At 7pm tonight the bells of Big Ben told, but for what -- tolled, but

for what? The passion outside the Commons matched at times today, by

the passion inside. The vote, when it came, was clear and decisive.

The ayes to the right, 400. The noes to the left, 175. A massive

majority for gay marriage, but more Tories voted against than in favour.

How it must hurt David Cameron to be applauded by his opponents but

snubbed by so many of his own supporters. It hasn't won the

majority of MPs in the major governing party and needs to be a

wake-up call that he has to be more sensitive to some of the concerns

as the Bill goes through Parliament. In a pub in Whitby the result was

watched by Andrew and Colin who believe this could change their

lives together. It means we would move on from a civil partnership to

a marriage and have the full wedding and have everything that we

wanted to and celebrate that with family and friends like we wanted

initially six years ago. Like everybody else. If you're wondering

what the fuss is all about, given that civil partnerships have been

law the past eight years, listen to this clash between two Tory MPs.

Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. It has been

historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory,

Orwellian almost for any government of my political persuasion to seek

to come along and try to rewrite the lexicon. Are the marriages of

millions of straight people about to be threatened because a few

thousand gay people are permitted to join? What will they say,

darling, our marriage is over, Sir Elton John has just got engaged to

David Furnish. David Cameron was too busy to come to the Commons or

to witness the trauma the proposals have caused. He left it to his

minister to sound reassuring. Bill, I believe, is about one thing.

It's about fairness. It's about giving those who want to get

married the opportunity to do so. Whilst protecting the rights of

those who don't agree with same-sex marriage. No church, no mosque, no

temple will be forced to marry anyone gay. The Government insisted

that, but that has not satisfied many religious groups. Those

opponents, many hundreds of my constituents are not bigots and are

not barking. This legislation was not in our manifesto, it was not in

the coalition agreement and it was not in the Queen's speech. It is

now more than 45 years since the law was changed to stop homosexual

acts being an imprisonable offence. For many this is revolting, men

dancing with men. Attitudes few would dare articulate now. Most,

though, not all, Labour and Lib Dem MPs see gay marriage as the next

vital step towards equality. I hope opponents will look back in ten

years and won't be able to remember what the fuss was about. So, today,

let's vote for people to be able to marry for the sake of those couples

who really want to wed. Proposals meant to find new ways to bring

people together have also created divisions, which the Prime Minister

must now live with. I think it's right that gay people should be

able to get married too. This is, yes, about equality, but it's also

about making our society stronger. I know there are strong views on

both sides of the argument. I respect that, but I think it's an

important step forward for oust country. Sometimes people say that

Parliament is irrelevant. Not today. When it agonised about the meaning

of love and faith and tolerance. Nick, this is clearly a momentous

Parliamentary event, but the impact surely to be felt much further

afield? That's right. It's one of the nights on which it's very

different outside Westminster inside. Outside, this will be seen

as the first step towards either equal marriage, or the disspoiling

of marriage, depending on your view. Inside, it's only the first of many

Parliamentary steps, in which both in the House of Commons and in the

House of Lords, there are likely to be demands from those people who

oppose gay marriage, not to stop it altogether. I suspect they know

they've lost that argument, but to reinforce guarantees to the Church

of England to others and registrars and others who don't accept this

and see it as a piece of ideology, imposed on them by a Government

they fundamentally disagree with. There's something else going on as

well, which is a great, open wound in the Conservative Party. Remember,

that David Cameron announced this idea of gay marriage to applause at

his party conference. Yet, tonight, 139 Conservative MPs refuse to

support him. 18 members of his own Government and many others

abstained. Compare those numbers with and there were opponents in

others, 22 for Labour and four for the Liberal Democrats. What I

picked up here was real anger after the vote. Anger that you might

predict from those who oppose this. One Tory MP said to me, "We are

politically self-harming. What would you do with a dog that bites

its own back legs off?" hyperbole, until you hear the views of one of

the people who voted with done, to stopped me to say, "This is not

leaderboard. I have taken an awful lot of flak for this and the Prime

Minister didn't even turn up for the debate." What happened tonight

is just the beginning. Thank you very much. Southwark Crown Court

has heard that Vicky Pryce colluded with her former husband, Chris

Huhne to, say she had been driving when his car was caught speeding a

decade ago. She denies attempting to pervert the course of justice.

He pleaded guilty yesterday. The prosecution says she went to a

newspaper with the story to try to destroy Mr Huhne's political career,

after he had left her for another woman. Yesterday, her former

husband finally admitted his ten- year guilty secret. But Vicky Pryce

still insists she's innocent. This morning, she listened from the dock

as the prosecution set out the case Vicky Pryce admits she wasn't

driving Chris Huhne's car when it was caught by the fateful flash,

but she said she didn't play ball, she was forced to take the points

by the former minister. The jury was told it will have to decide if

the senior economist is the sort of woman to suffer what is caused

marital coercion. In 2011 when Chris Huhne revealed he was having

an affair, she's alleged to have taken his secret to the newspapers

to get revenge. He emailed Isabel Oakeshott at the Sunday Times. She

They tried to gather proof. We have just heard a series of phone calls

between Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce, secretly recorded by her, in which

she tries to get Chris Huhne to admit forcing her to take the

speeding points. Chris Huhne is calm. He says the idea is

ridiculous. He denies what yesterday he admitted in court.

Vicky Pryce's trial continues on Thursday and is expected to last at

least a week. An official report has concluded that the Irish state

was directly involved in the country's notorious Magdalene

Laundries, the work houses run by nuns where thousands of women and

girls were locked up. Successive Irish governments were argued the

laundries were private and the apology by the taoiseach does not

go far enough, according to the victims. These buildings were known

as laundries and work houses, but to those locked inside they were

prisons. For seven decades they were places where sew-called fallen

women and troubled girls were held. Supposedly they had been taken into

Christian care. But in reality, they were simply used. Forced to

work, having lost their freedom. you were talking they gave you a

slap to get on with your work and nobody knew we existed. Does it

still hurt? It hurts me so much. It really does. I'll never get over it.

I'll bring the pain to my grave, because it devastated me so much

for the simple reason when that door was locked I knew I was never

going to come out again. Some of those held in the laundries were

single mothers. Others were simply girls judged to be at risk of

promiscuity. Run by nuns, they were presented to the public as a place

where they could learn values and the feefpgz of the Church. Today's

report has questioned not just the morality, but made clear that there

was some direct State involvement. I regret the fact very much that

the stigma attached... country's Prime Minister was

challenged to apologise. He chose his words carefully. The stigma

that the branding together of all the residents, all 10,000 in the

Magdalene Laundries, needs to be emoved and should have been removed

long before this -- removed and should have been removed long

before this and I am sorry that never happened. This is relatively

recent history. The laundries operated between the 1920s and

1990s. Campaigners have been fighting for the victims, but what

is most important to them is the prospect of an official apology and

an acknowledgement from the Irish government about what took place

That is not an apology. He is the Taoiseach of our country. He is our

Taoiseach, of the Irish people. And that is not an apology, and we are

calling for a proper apology. women died in the institutions

where they were held, and many never lived to see proper

recognition of their suffering. Although that abuse has now been

acknowledged, campaigners insist that the report has fallen short of

bringing the victims' justice. N Mali, soldiers from France and

ended the town of Kidal, the last rebel stronghold in the north of

the country. As French forces move northwards through the desert and

gradually hand over control to African forces, some are worried

that Islamist militants will be able to return. Andrew Harding

reports now from the villages around the liberated city of

Timbuktu. Beyond remote, isolated villages

outside Timbuktu. Islamist fighters crossed the river here a few days

ago, rushing off into the Sahara to escape the French military

offensive. Now the French are here, and the militants seemingly gone,

people are coming back towards Timbuktu. Maryam hit four months in

the countryside. I'd heard the French had come and now we feel

safe, she says, but I want them to stay. But the small French force

cannot be everywhere in this vast region. The local chief has just

been informed that most of the soldiers here will be gone in the

We know some of the rebels are still nearby, he says, if the

French leave, they could come back here. Yes, we are scared.

The French are pulling out of areas like this in order to focus for

their attention further north in the mountains close to the Algerian

border. That is where the Islamist militants are thought to be hiding

with some seven French hostages, but it leaves areas like Timbuktu

Nearby, we find the Malian army, a less than reassuring presence, ill-

disciplined and out for revenge. Against people like this, the

Malian authorities parading suspected Islamist militants caught

apparently trying to hide within local communities, but there are

fears of reprisals and abuses. In the meantime, the French are still

on the move, and other key northern town taken today, but the focus

will soon shift back to the chaos Coming up on the programme: The

billionaire's paying for the soaring cost of Russia's winter

Olympic Games. -- billionaires. NHS managers have warned that

tomorrow's publication of a report into the mistreatment of hundreds

of patients in Staffordshire is likely to be one of the darkest

days in the history of the service. A public inquiry is expected to

raise serious questions about the working culture within the health

service. One nurse told the BBC that the fear factor amongst staff

led to a reluctance to speak out, as health correspondent Branwen

Jeffreys reports. Hundreds of patients treated with

callous cruelty, how was it allowed to happen in an NHS hospital? Could

it happen again? Questions that tomorrow's report will try to

answer. It was in A&E that some of the worst failings happened, too

few staff under pressure to meet a target to see patients quickly,

some appalled by the indignity inflicted on the frail and elderly.

There was the pressure of the four hour Target, patients were left in

horrific situations and conditions, such as, you know, soiled bed linen,

things like that, because another patient would take priority simply

because they had to be moved out of the department. This woman tried

dozens of times to raise the alarm, using official forms to log

incidents, but no-one listened, she felt resented and intimidated.

There was huge pressure for the hospital to save money and the

targets. She says there was a reluctance to speak out against

that. It is the fear factor. It is the potential repercussions on new,

both professionally but also personally and socially, that if

you are speaking out against your colleagues or your managers, what

effect will it have? What happened here has raised questions about the

culture in the NHS, a culture which at Stafford hospital allowed money

to be put ahead of care, and which allowed the concerns of families

and whistleblowers to go unheard. Families campaigned hard for this

public inquiry. They wanted to know why warning signs were overlooked

by managers and by regulators. Others want the broader culture of

the NHS changed to move away from the focus on targets and finance.

Somewhere, somehow, during the development of this culture, I

think that the NHS has lost its moral compass, and we need to get

it back, and that moral compass needs to be that first and foremost

we are talking about the care of patients. The hospital has

apologised and made many changes, but what happened here has

implications for the NHS across England. And for the campaigners

who hope that no other hospitals will fail as badly.

The Argentine Foreign Minister says the Falkland Islands will be under

his country's control within 20 years. Hector Timerman is visiting

Britain for the first time. In a series of interviews, he ruled out

a military solution to the dispute but said that Britain was

internationally isolated in its claim to the sovereignty of the

islands. Now, events later this week will

mark one year to go before Russia hosts the 2014 winter Olympics,

costing more than any previous games, the current estimate is

around �30 billion, part of which is being met by some of Russia's

richest men. There is growing resentment in the resort of Sochi,

where the games will take place at him out of disruption being caused,

as Daniel Sandford reports. -- the amount.

The Caucasus mountains in southern Russia, until now one of the

world's great and exploited winter playgrounds. -- and exploited. But

that is all changing. This brand- new bobsleigh run is one of 10

venues specially built for the most expensive Olympics in history. It

has cost more than Beijing and three times more than this year's

London Summer Olympics. And, unusually, large chunks of the who

are being paid by the country's wealthiest men, the oligarchs.

Vladimir Potanin is 4th on Russia's rich list, A nickel billionaire,

and here at Rosa Khutor he has built a brand-new Olympic standard

ski resort, his way, he says, of paying something back to the

country. All rich people want to change their image in Russia, they

want to do something which would be considered by people as something

useful, something good for them. Most winter Olympics are staged in

already existing world-class ski resorts, but five years ago this

was nothing but mountains and forests. With the help of the

oligarch billions, the whole thing has been built from scratch. The

Saatchi area has become one of the biggest building sites in the world

with the new roads, new railways and the huge Olympic Park by the

Black Sea have had a human cost. Hello, BBC. This is Lyudmila

Yakovenko's new home, a rented garage that she shares with her

husband and sons. She used to have a house by the beach, but it was

obliterated for the Olympics. TRANSLATION: My oldest son keeps

asking me, why are we living like this? I say, because of the

Olympics, everything has changed in their lives, everything.

athletes, though, or more positive. Last week one of Britain's best

medal hopes, Elise Christie, was in Sochi skating well and eagerly

anticipating next year's winter Olympics. I think it will be one of

the best ones, yeah, because obviously they have built

everything from scratch, but just now it may not look like it is

ready, but that is because they are building up from scratch. As well

as the staggering cost, this will be one of the most controversial

Olympic Games of recent years. Russia's poor human rights record

is under scrutiny, and only 300 miles away in the same Caucasus

mountains there y daily bombings and shootings in the turbulent

The British Rimmat Rebecca Adlington who won two gold medals

at the Beijing Heather Mitts has announced she is retiring. --

swimmer. -- Olympics. Last year she secured a double bronze at the

London Games. She says she feels a little old to compete with the

younger generation of swimmers. do not like the work retiring, but

just ending my competitive career, it is the right time, and I have

achieved everything that I ever could have hoped for, beyond,

definitely. Rebecca Adlington there. The city of York is making a formal

request to the Queen to the allow the remains of King Richard III to

be buried at York Minster. The team who today unveiled their

reconstruction of his features say the remain should stay in Leicester,

where they were discovered. -- remains.

All the talks so far about this year's Oscars has focused on the

big blockbusters, including Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty and Les Miserables,

but a little-known British film created by a group of young film

students in Buckinghamshire is also in with a chance of winning at the

Academy Awards later this month. This year's Oscar nominees gather

in Beverly Hills for a commemorative photo. Among the

Pineros, Spielbergs Anne Hathaways is this woman, 26-year-old Alem. --

Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly. She produced this little-known film,

art for an Oscar in the short film category, a great achievement in

any circumstances, but do have been selected for their end-of-year

student film is remarkable. We did not want to limit ourselves to just

a student film, and we are quite ambitious, and we wanted to push

the film as far as we can, and by sending it to as many festivals as

we could when we finished, that was our aim, to get it as far as the

Oscars was totally unexpected. over heels tells the story of a

married couple who leads increasingly separate lives. Here

is the house in which the action took place, and these are the stars

of the film, who had their feet screwed into the set before being

put into position and photographed. Afterwards, they would be adjusted

slightly and photographed again, and so on, a meticulous, laborious

technique called stop frame animation. It took six months to

make the film, which costs just �4,000 to produce. It is not,

though, the first time an animated movie made at the National Film and

Television School has been up for an Oscar. I will tell you what...

Back in 1991, Nick Park had his student film shortlisted. What is

the secret of the film school's success? We want students who will

go out there and create jobs, not get jobs. We want students who, you

know, think they can win Oscars. We want students, you know, who can go

out there and confidently create shows like Wallace and Gromit, like

Peppa Pig, that can actually entertain. The students' team face

stiff competition on the big boys, including this film from Disney.