15/01/2018 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at ten, thousands of jobs

at risk following the collapse

of the big construction

and services firm Carillion.

The business is involved in major

public building projects,

as well as cleaning and maintenance

for schools, prisons and hospitals

and employs 20,000 people.

Workers are now facing great

uncertainty.

I am due wages that I

would pick up this week in work, and

I don't know if I'm going to get

them. That's my rant, that's my

food. -- rent.

Tonight ministers held an emergency

meeting to discuss plans

for maintaining essential services

in the public sector.

The Government is working very hard

indeed across all Whitehall

departments to ensure

that the liquidation of Carillion

takes place in an orderly

manner that does not

disrupt public services.

We'll be asking how a company

in financial trouble

was nonetheless able to secure major

Government contracts.

Also tonight...

A coroner in Cumbria concludes that

13-month-old Poppi Worthington had

been sexually assaulted before

she died of asphyxia.

In Bangladesh, fears for the safety

of thousands of Rohingya Muslims

facing a return to possible

violence in Myanmar.

They are living in what is now the

world's largest refugee camp, amid

what the United Nations is calling a

children's crisis.

What a great

shot!

And many tributes to Cyrille Regis,

the man who led the way for black

footballers in Britain.

He's died at the age of 59.

And coming up on Sportsday on BBC

News, Manchester United go in search

of a win against Stoke tonight,

while the Potters begin

a new era under Paul Lambert.

Good evening.

Ministers have held

an emergency meeting tonight

following the collapse of Carillion,

the major construction

and services company involved

in some of the biggest

public building projects in the UK.

Carillion employs 20,000 people

in the UK and it sub-contracts work

to thousands of small firms.

The company has 450 Government

contracts, from work on the HS2 rail

link to cleaning and maintenance

contracts for schools,

prisons and hospitals.

But Carillion has now gone

into liquidation with debts

of £900 million and a pension

deficit of more than £500 million.

Our business editor Simon Jack

reports now on the collapse

of Carillion and its impact.

This bypass near Aberdeen

is Scotland's biggest construction

project, with a price

tag of £750 million.

Here's another one, around

Lincoln, cost, 100 million.

Just two of 450 contracts Carillion

has been awarded throughout the UK,

but it did a lot more

than build things.

Through contracts to manage schools,

prisons and hospitals,

it touched the lives of millions.

Today, the Government said

it would not support

the company with public money.

This is, however, the failure

of a private sector company

and it is the company's shareholders

and its lenders who will bear

the brunt of the losses.

Taxpayers should not, and will not,

bail out a private sector company

for private sector losses.

This was the scene the Midlands that

are put in hospital in Sandwell. The

cranes came to a standstill over the

£600 million project. Philip Ellis

was one of 500 workers told to

leave.

IMG wages I was due to pick

up this week and white, so I don't

know if I'm going to get them. That

is my rent and food, Christmas, I

found out my girlfriend was

pregnant. I am stuck for money,

ringing around and trying to find

jobs. Everybody is in the same boat,

ringing the same people for the same

jobs.

It is more than the second

biggest construction firm, it

delivers 32,000 school meals a day.

It maintains NHS buildings,

containing 11,500 hospital beds. It

provides services to 50 prisons and

as recently as November was awarded

a contract to help build the

high-speed rail network.

high-speed rail network. Big

contracts were added after it was

known it was on the ropes, leading

to angry exchanges in the Commons.

Went to the Otman Bakkal realise it

was in trouble? They have three

CEOs, three separate profit warnings

and were already short selling stock

exchange.

Where did it go wrong? Big

contracts like this went sour,

profits had to be written off,

blowing a hole in finances. With

banks unwilling to lend any more

money without government support,

its fate was sealed. Company matter

there was a company that until

recently paid big salaries to

bosses, and big dividends to

shareholders, despite owing banks

and its own pension scheme £1.5

billion. The wisdom of awarding

public service contracts to a

company like that will continue.

Today, the urgent concern is for the

thousands of small businesses that

rely on the big businesses like

Carillion for payments to pay their

own bills.

These are bills to them

for goods and services we supplied.

Gordon Stone supplies Christmas

lights to a City Council through a

subcontract.

I have a dozen invoices

dated back to November, when we

supplied Christmas lighting to

Birmingham City Council, through

Carillion. These have not been paid.

In total, they value about £17,500.

What is the knock-on effect?

The

consequences immediately are cash

flow. We have to have a serious look

at cash flow and business going

forward, and potentially it might

mean that we have to reduce staffing

levels by one or two. We are not

sure. Furthermore, we are not sure

if we will get paid any of this

money.

Speaking after a meeting of

the Cobra committee, David

Liddington tried to put a positive

spin on the day's events.

The

message today was that they want had

gone pretty well. People were

turning up to work. We had not had

reports of any serious disruption to

service delivery.

It is unlikely

workers going home today will see

things the same way.

In a moment we'll be talking

to our deputy political editor

John Pienaar at Westminster

but first to Simon Jack

who's outside Carillion's

headquarters in Wolverhampton.

Simon, what have we learned today

about the way this company was

actually being run?

Well, the

recriminations here have really

intensified during the day, with

even a leading business group, the

Institute of Directors, joining

Labour and the unions, issuing a

stinging rebuke to the former

managers. The ex-chief executive who

left last year will enjoy his

£665,000 salary until October. Year

after year, dividends were

increased, even as the pension

deficit ballooned. Once again, the

reputational business is taking a

real beating today. This come in a

way, is worse, because it is felt,

rightly or wrongly, the government's

fingerprints were all over this.

They might argue that they tried to

support the company by giving extra

work to reassure its banks. That

didn't work. The banks were not

reassured, and without them on

board, the company's fate was

sealed.

And to John Pienaar at Westminster

What is being said at Westminster

about the reasons why the Government

was still putting business to

Carillion when the financial

problems were known? The Government

anticipated that question from early

on. Ministers are saying if those

contracts had been pulled, it would

have amounted to pulling the plug on

comedy much sooner. We might have

seen ministers taking more of the

kind of heat we have seen today.

Ministers are also keen to get

across that the taxpayer will not be

bailing out a private company or

private shareholders. But that is

about the only thing that they can

agree on. We have seen them opening

up a wider and deeper ideological

chasm that we have seen at any time

since Margaret Thatcher first set

out to roll back the frontiers of

the state in the 1980s. It is now an

enormous argument and a new scale

altogether. Tony Blair, Gordon

Brown, they were happy to see

private involvement in the public

sector. Before Jeremy Corbyn there

was a general acceptance that was

OK. But those days have now gone.

That consensus has pretty much

disappeared. This week, we will see

a Labour spokesman, after Labour

spokesman, attacking private

involvement in public services in

prisons, health, in hospitals,

across the board. It is a glaring

example of the kind of startling

polarisation we are seeing in

British politics.

John Pienaar, many

thanks.

In Cumbria, an inquest

into the death of 13-month-old

Poppi Worthington has concluded

that she was sexually assaulted

before she died of asphyxia.

Cumbria's senior coroner

said her father's account

of what had happened at their home

in December 2012 did not

stand up to scrutiny.

Paul Worthington had declined

to answer more than 250 questions

during the inquest,

and has consistently

denied any wrongdoing.

He's never been charged,

as our correspondent

Danny Savage reports.

For five years, the death

of Poppi Worthington

has been unexplained.

Now it is much clearer how she died

and what happened to her beforehand.

This 13-month-old suffocated

after being left in an unsafe

sleeping position by her father.

She died in this bed where a coroner

believes Paul Worthington also

sexually assaulted her.

He had taken her from her cot before

the assault which the coroner ruled,

on the balance of probabilities,

took place hours before she died.

This statement was made today

on behalf of Poppi's mother.

She is disappointed that Poppi's

father chose to rely on his right

not to answer questions

which might incriminate him.

While she understands

he is entitled to do this,

she considers he should have given

the coroner the crucial evidence

of Poppi's last few hours.

The coroner said that

Paul Worthington's accounts

of what happened the night Poppi

died were not complete or truthful

and his evidence did not

stand up to scrutiny.

Mr Worthington was bundled

in and out of the inquest by police

because of concern over his safety.

He lives in hiding.

In court, he refused to answer

questions 252 times.

I don't blame him.

He was advised not to.

He's gone through all this process

over the last four years,

five years with all the case

and that and everything that's

been dumped on him...

No.

Go with the solicitor's advice.

His sister, Tracey Worthington,

has stood by him throughout.

How convinced are you that your

brother is innocent?

I'm not convinced - I know.

I don't have to be convinced

he's done nothing.

I know.

You know, I wouldn't protect him,

trust me, I would not protect him

if he'd done anything wrong.

I'd be the one dragging him down

the cop shop and he wouldn't be

a pretty sight by

the time he got there.

The first inquest into Poppi's death

was quashed by the High Court

after lasting just seven minutes.

The Cumbria Police investigation was

botched and vital evidence was lost.

Two senior officers had cases

to answer for gross misconduct.

Both have since retired.

Poppi and her family deserve

a better standard of investigation

than the one that was conducted

five years ago.

But no-one is ever likely to be

charged over Poppi's death

because of a lack of evidence.

Many people will view this

as an unsatisfactory end

to years of investigations

into Poppi Worthington's short life.

Danny Savage, BBC News, Cumbria.

A brief look at some of the day's

other other news stories.

A court has heard how Khalid Masood

- the man who killed five people

in Westminster last March -

took steroids in the days

and hours before the attack.

He was shot dead in the grounds

of the Palace of Westminster

after driving into four people

on Westminster Bridge and fatally

stabbing a police officer.

Two RAF jets have intercepted a pair

of Russian bombers over

the North Sea which were

approaching UK airspace.

The Ministry of Defence says

the planes were not responding

to air traffic control, making them

a hazard to other aviation.

Part of a floor inside the stock

exchange in the Indonesian capital

Jakarta has collapsed injuring more

than 70 people.

A group of some 40 visiting students

were on a balcony section

as the floor gave way.

Remarkably, nobody was killed.

Police say the collapse was due

to an accident, not an explosion.

The leader of Ukip,

Henry Bolton, says he has no

intention of resigning

in the light of racist remarks

made by his girlfriend

about Meghan Markle,

Prince Harry's fiancee.

Henry Bolton said he had now ended

the relationship with Jo Marney -

who was suspended from Ukip

after saying Meghan Markle

would taint the Royal Family.

Our political correspondent

Vicki Young has the story.

Her report contains some

flash photography.

Forced to choose between his job

and his controversial

new girlfriend, today Henry Bolton

announced his romance

with Jo Marney was off

and he wasn't going anywhere.

I am absolutely not standing down.

The reason is because it's crucially

important that Ukip has a loud voice

in the discussions leading up

to exiting the European Union.

Mr Bolton was Ukip's

fourth leader in a year.

He was supposed to get

the party onto the front foot

and the front pages -

but not like this.

He's been forced to act

after reports of racist text

messages from Miss Marney,

in which she called black people

ugly and said Prince Harry's fiance

Meghan Markle would "taint the Royal

Family".

She's apologised for the remarks,

which she claims were

taken out of context.

And today tweeted that...

"We all make mistakes,

it's how you deal with them

and conduct yourself

in the future that matters."

Henry Bolton's come out fighting,

but ditching his girlfriend may not

be enough to save his leadership.

Irrespective of these texts

that Jo Marney sent,

which are absolutely disgraceful,

people were calling for him

to resign before they came to light.

The fact is, I think he's become

a bit of an embarrassment

to the party now and he really

has to go.

Can our party really survive

an ineffectual, useless leader,

whose only public fame

is for having a scandal?

Quite frankly, we don't need another

leadership election,

we shouldn't have had one,

but the situation is untenable.

He has to go.

Henry Bolton's critics say that

since taking over he's

failed to make an impact,

that his lack of political

experience shows.

He's also surrounded

by colleagues who think

they could do a better job.

But that doesn't, apparently,

include Nigel Farage.

He's having a busy day, Henry.

Very busy indeed.

Who insists, really,

he's not planning another comeback.

Since the Brexit vote, Ukip has

struggled to find a purpose.

The popularity it enjoyed under

Nigel Farage has plummeted,

and this latest fiasco

won't have helped.

But activists deny that their party

is finished as a physical force.

Bitter infighting continues

to plague the party.

Its ruling body will hold

an emergency meeting at the weekend,

and could decide Mr Bolton's time

is up, plunging Ukip into yet

another leadership crisis.

Vicki Young, BBC News, Westminster.

#

A parliamentary committee has

expressed grave concern

about plans to begin repatriating

hundreds of thousands

of Rohingya Muslims

from Bangladesh back to Myanmar -

from where they fled

violence last year.

The International Development

Committee has warned that

rape and sexual violence

are still weapons of war

used by the military in Myanmar.

Around 570,000 Rohingyas are now

living in the world's

largest refugee camp,

Kutupalong, near the port city

of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.

My colleague Mishal Husain

is in Kutupalong with the latest.

It was a mass movement of people

unmatched in recent years that

created this camp in the space

of just five months.

Today, the small shelters

dot the landscape here,

stretching right up to the border

with Myanmar a few miles away.

Living conditions

are very difficult.

Nevertheless, the idea of going back

to Myanmar is unthinkable

at the moment for most

of the refugees - many

say their security would need

to be guaranteed first.

In a camp where hundreds of refugees

are still arriving every week,

there is much to be done.

New wells, new shelters,

all part of providing for growing

numbers and preparing the camp

for the monsoon rains.

The more construction and expansion

that takes place at this last camp,

the more permanent it

starts to feel.

But, at the same time,

the talk of repatriating refugees

is causing deep alarm.

After the circumstances

in which they fled Myanmar less

than six months ago,

who really trust that things have

changed enough for them to go home?

That's because the destruction

of their homes and villages

continued even after Myanmar said

military operations

had come to an end.

These pictures were filmed

by the BBC from the Bangladeshi side

of the border on the 10th

of September last year, five days

after the supposed ceasefire.

This was your house?

This is my house.

That was also the day that

Irfan lost everything.

A father of four, he was

the secondary school teacher back

in Myanmar and lived

here with his extended family.

Who is that?

That is my brother.

The authorities told

them they'd be safe,

and then the soldiers came.

TRANSLATION:

The military surrounded

the whole area and they had weapons.

They opened fire as people

were trying to leave.

Some escaped, but

others were killed.

My brother was at home that

day, but he went out

to check on his shop.

He never came back.

We don't know if he

was burned alive.

We still haven't heard anything.

Away from the main camp,

another area is home

to Hindus from Myanmar,

who were caught up in the violence.

They have been identified as among

the first to be repatriated.

But even they are not ready to go

without international protection.

TRANSLATION:

If the United Nations

goes with us, the Hindus,

we hope we will get security

and be happy.

If they are there, and we face

any problems, the whole

world will know about it.

For now, it seems most likely

that the children of these camps

will grow up here without a country

to call their own.

The UN's access to their old

home, Rakhine state,

is severely restricted.

They too call for change

and for the Rohingya

to be doubly recognised.

At this stage, I think

it is premature to talk

about returns in large numbers

until three conditions exist.

Number one, the issue

of citizenship and legal

identity must be addressed.

Number two, there has to be a safe

and secure environment

for refugees to return to.

Number three, reconstruction

and the re-establishment

of services must occur.

Services here are more organised.

But it's a precarious existence.

A community who have been

marginalised and persecuted are now

entirely dependent on aid,

and on what others

decide for their future.

The aid agency Unicef is calling

this 'a children's crisis'

because of the large numbers

of children who live in these camps.

It's also voicing concern

about the 25,000 refugee babies

who will be born here this year

and will lack any legal papers.

Last September, our correspondent

Justin Rowlatt met one

Rohingya woman who crossed

the border heavily pregnant.

He's been back to see how

she and her new baby are.

Mohammed is three and

a half months old now.

Hello Mohammed.

Hello.

But right from birth,

he's faced discrimination.

The Bangladeshi authorities

won't issue birth

certificates to Rohingya

babies, so officially

Mohammed does not exist.

We first met his mother the day

she escaped from Myanmar.

She was nine months pregnant.

She told me how the

Myanmar army and local

Buddhists had attacked her village.

But their troubles

were far from over.

Guards moved her and her family on.

They said there was

land over the hill.

But not enough for everyone.

Rishida's husband tried to stake out

a plot, but he was driven

off my other refugees.

Her family had to sleep

in the open, despite

the rains.

Finally, they found space

to build a rickety shack.

Her baby was born on

the soggy muddy floor.

TRANSLATION: He was born right here.

There was no midwife,

no medicine, no mat,

no wood to light a fire.

It was so painful, but by God's

grace a girl from next door came and

cut the umbilical chord and then

I picked him up from the mud.

That is how my baby

came into this world.

Luckily, Mohammed

hasn't caught cholera

or diphtheria - two

of the

deadly diseases that have

broken out in the camps.

But not having any official identity

will be a real problem.

It will be hard for him to get

into school, to register for

services and may make getting back

into Myanmar even more difficult

for his family.

So, like the rest of the refugees,

he will have to eke

out an existence here

in Bangladesh - stateless,

with just a shack for

a

home, denied even the dignity

of an official identity.

There were talks between Bangladesh

and Myanmar about beginning the

process of people returning, but

those talks are hard to reconcile

with the fact that the refugees are

still crossing the border and

arriving here in Bangladesh and they

say violence against them is

continuing. Some of those I met are

resigned to spending the rest of

their lives here. But others say if

their rights are guaranteed, they

will will go home. Thank you.

The First Minister of Scotland,

Nicola Sturgeon, has warned

that a hard Brexit could take more

than £12 billion a year out

of Scotland's economy.

She's pledged to make

the case for keeping the UK

in the EU single market,

after publishing the analysis

by the Scottish Government.

The UK Government insists

it is seeking a Brexit deal that

will work for the whole of the UK,

as our Scotland Editor

Sarah Smith reports.

Will Brexit leave us

better off or worse?

The Scottish Government today

published figures they say show what

leaving the EU might cost

each and every Scot.

The Scottish Government analysis

suggests that by 2030

staying in the EU single market

will cost the Scottish

economy £4 billion,

or £688 per person.

A free trade agreement

similar to Canada's deal

with the EU would cost the Scottish

economy £9 billion, or

£1,610 per person.

While reverting to

WTO trading rules if

there is a hard Brexit could cost

nearly £13 billion, or over £2,000

per person.

These figures relate

specifically to the Scottish

economy, but they're very much

intended to persuade people and

politicians across the whole of

the UK that the United Kingdom could

stay in the EU single market once

we've left the European

Union itself.

Staying in the single market

is the only option that makes sense.

Theresa May has been incredibly

clear from the beginning that she

believes the UK has

to leave the single market.

Do you really think

you'll change her mind?

I don't want to be facetious,

who knows whether

Theresa May will even be

Prime Minister by the time these

negotiations conclude?

The House of Commons can

if it chooses to decide

not to allow Theresa May to go down

the road that is in her narrow party

political interest to go down

and instead force a path

that is much more in the interests

of the country overall.

The UK Government

dispute the figures.

Anybody can make end of the

world-type predictions, but

rather than focussing on the most

negative scenario, what we should be

doing is working together to get

the best possible deal.

Cathy and Alistair

Cunningham represent the

great Brexit divide.

She voted to leave, he to remain.

What do they make

of today's figures?

The SNP is making the

case for Scotland and

trying to get as good a deal

as possible for Scotland

and the rest of UK,

but particularly for Scotland.

I don't think it would be a good

deal if you're half in and half out.

In five year's time,

we'll all be laughing

about the fact that we all said

we were going to hell in a

hand cart.

Many Leave voters will share Cathy's

scepticism about any

economic predictions over Brexit,

while Alistair of course disagrees.

And so the debate goes

on in the Cunningham

family and far beyond.

Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer

of the Irish rock band

the Cranberries, has died

suddenly at the age of 46.

She'd been involved in a recording

session in London when she died.

The Cranberries dominated the 1990s

album charts - selling

40 million records around the

world, as our entertainment

correspondent

Lizo Mzimba reports.

# Do you have to let it linger?

# Do you have to let it linger?

Linger was the first

song Dolores O'Riordan

ever wrote with the Cranberries.

It turned her and

the band into stars.

# I just want to be with you.#

Linger was about teenage rejection.

# I'm such a fool for you...

Folks, do me a favour

please welcome and just in

time for thanksgiving -

The Cranberries.

Their rapid success particularly

in America soon saw the

young singer song writer move

on to weightier topics.

# With their tanks and bombs...

Zombie was a powerful

protest song written after

two young children were

killed by an IRA bomb.

# In your head # Zombie #

Zombie

Last year the band were ready

to tour once more, but it was cut

short by health problems.

I have had health

issues a lot in the

last few years, but one

of the worst problems

is I had a disk problem

in

my back and I had

stopped playing guitar.

Today the Irish Prime Minister

said that for anyone who

grew up in Ireland in the nineties,

Dolores O'Riordan was the voice of

a generation.

# You got me wrapped

around your fingers...

A generation tonight

mourning the loss of one of

music's great talents.

# Do you have to let it linger?

#

The singer Dolores O'Riordan - who

passed away suddenly earlier today.

The England cricketer, Ben Stokes,

has been charged with affray,

along with two other men,

after an incident outside a

nightclub in Bristol last September.

The 26-year-old was ruled out

of the Ashes Series in Australia

following his arrest.

He says he's keen to have

an opportunity to clear his name.

The former Manchester United

footballer, Ryan Giggs,

has been unveiled as the new manager

of Wales.

He's signed a four-year deal

and this is his first

permanent job as a manager.

As a player Giggs was capped

64 times by Wales.

Countless tributes have been

paid to Cyrille Regis -

the former West Brom

and England footballer, who's

died at the age of 59.

He was among the first

black players to compete

at the highest level

in England in the late 1970s

and was regularly subjected

to racist abuse from the terraces.

His wife said he'd come

into football the hard way

and never lost his passion

for the game, as our sports

editor, Dan Roan, reports.

COMMENTATOR: Regis taking it well

on the chest and a lovely piece of

control by Regis.

And, oh, what a great shot.

What a goal!

Cyrille Regis didn't just

lead the line, he led

the way.

Known for his pace and power,

he broke through at West Brom

in the 1970s - a time

when there were few black players.

It made the situation

at the Hawthorns all the

more unique, where Regis, Brendan

Batson and Lawrie Cunningham -

together nicknamed the Three Degrees

- were at the heart of

one of the era's

most exciting teams.

At a time of high racial tension,

they were subject to

relentless abuse.

COMMENTATOR: The booing

of the black players...

We were used to 3 or 4,

10,000 people shouting racist

racist abuse at you,

throwing bananas on the pitch and

monkey chants and that stuff.

So I just took it

as if it was somebody

trying to intimidate me.

Just the third black

player to represent

England, not everyone

welcomed his debut.

I got a letter through the post,

which said, you know, "If you

put your feet on that Wembley turf,

you'll get one of those for

you knee."

And it was a bullet.

As a kid, I didn't know what was

going on, but you could hear the

monkey chants... We all knew that...

You just had to get on with it. And

like you know you see the... What

they talk about racist abuse now is

nothing. Compared to... What it was

then.

The tributes laid

here at the Hawthorns

today are testament

to a man who became

a symbol of the fight

against

racism in Britain.

The legacy of Cyrille Regis

felt not just here at

West Brom, but throughout his sport.

A role model for a generation

of black footballers inspired by his

dignity and determination.

He was just a leader.

He was a trail-blazer.

He was - we stood on his shoulders,

that is how strong he was, as black

players.

And it's...

Sad.

Cyrille Regis was far more

than a mere player -

a pioneer who faced up

to the acceptable side of football

and helped it move forward.

His impact on and off the pitch

cannot be overstated.

Today's tributes to one

of the real pioneers

of English football ,

Cyrille Regis.

Newsnight is coming up on BBC two.

Tonight is the war on sugar paying

off and what impact is it having on

companies? And we ask the Government

why they can'ted continued to give

contract Tosca Rhyl yon.