30/01/2018 Victoria Derbyshire

Hello.

It's Tuesday, it's 9 o'clock,

I'm Victoria Derbyshire,

welcome to the programme.

Our top story today -

Leaked government assessments

suggest economic growth

is going to be lower than it

would have been, had Brits voted

to stay inside the EU.

I don't believe a word of it. Every

forecast from the government to do

with Brexit, or even to do with the

economy, has been wrong.

Also today -

this programme has been told

the universal credit system

could leave up to 1 million working

people exposed to benefit sanctions

once fully rolled out.

I even had a phone call from the

Jobcentre on the day of the funeral.

They were saying, are you sure

you're not lying?

Really keen to hear from you today -

especially if your benefits

have been sanctioned.

And the BBC is proposing to cap

the pay of its news presenters

at £320,000 a year.

It follows mounting criticism

of differences between male

and female pay at the corporation.

Licence-fee payers -

get in touch and tell

us your reaction -

is it enough?

And wherever you work, let us know

your equal pay stories this morning.

Hello.

Welcome to the programme,

we're live until 11.

Throughout the morning, we'll bring

you the latest breaking news

and developing stories -

a little later in the programme

we'll hear from Conservative MP

Johnny Mercer, who tells us that

Theresa May has three months

to sort her position out.

Do get in touch on all the stories

we're talking about this morning -

use the hashtag #Victorialive

and if you text, you will be charged

at the standard network rate.

Our top story today...

The impact of Brexit could leave

Britain substantially worse off

over the next 15 years,

according to a leaked

government document.

The analysis of three

different scenarios has been

carried out by the office

of the Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, and has been seen

by the Buzzfeed News website.

But Government sources say

the document hasn't looked

at the impact of Number 10's

preferred option -

a bespoke trade deal with the EU.

Let's talk to Norman at Westminster.

Thomas about this report and what

the government say about it.

The

response from the government has

been to say that this is just a

draft report, not a definitive

document and by the way, it doesn't

really look at what we are trying to

achieve, which is a so-called

bespoke trade deal, a special deal

for the UK. But it does go through

three fairly fundamental

possibilities. One is that we don't

get any deal, in which case they say

the economy will take a hit of 8% in

the next 15 years. The second option

is that we get a sort of

conventional free-trade agreement

which other countries have with the

EU. That will mean a hit 5%. Or we

stay in the Norway-style option

inside the single market, which is

the least bad scenario and will only

mean a 2% hit. How does this feed

into the sort of bubbling

uncertainty over Brexit? It will

certainly be seized on by those like

Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, who

will argue that we want to stay

close to the EU. We want to hug onto

the single market and not go too far

away. It will strengthen their

arguments. Interestingly, this

morning the Brexiteers have been up

in arms again because they are

suspicious about why this document

has been leaked. Although they don't

name names, it is clear that they

believe this has been leaked by

those who are sympathetic to Mr

Hammond who are trying to pressurise

Theresa May to go for a so-called

softer Brexit rather than going for

a deal that would see us moving

further away from the EU. So this

feeds into what is becoming one of

the themes of Brexit, the growing

sense of the Brexiteers that Mrs May

might be paving the way for some

sort of great betrayal to end up

with a Brexit where we are not

really that different from where we

are now. Thank you, Norman.

More on

that come later.

Ben Brown is in the BBC

Newsroom with a summary

of the rest of the day's news.

Women at the BBC have told MPs

they faced "veiled threats"

when they raised the subject

of equal pay.

The claims, which were made

to the Digital, Culture,

Media and Sport Select Committee,

come as the BBC announces

plans for a pay cap

on its news presenters.

Here's our Media Correspondent,

David Sillito.

Some of the BBC's top news

presenters have already agreed

to have their pay cut,

but this goes a step further -

a ceiling of £320,000.

It is still more than twice

what the Prime Minister makes,

and will only affect

a handful of people.

But it is part of a wider audit

and report into star salaries.

One key issue was highlighted

by the recent resignation

of Carrie Gracie as the BBC's

China editor.

She says a comparable male

colleague was making more

than 50% more than her.

This and other pay issues are now

being investigated by MPs.

What we want from the BBC is,

you know, a clear explanation

of the steps they will take to bring

about an open and transparent

policy on equal pay,

and how they account for some

of the pay decisions that

were made in the past,

that saw some people being paid many

times more than their

colleagues for doing

what was essentially the same job.

All of this follows the publication

last summer of the pay deals

of the BBC's top stars.

The women campaigning for equal pay

say they have not been consulted,

and so have no confidence

in today's report.

But the BBC says it is committed

to equal pay, and says today's

proposals will make significant

changes to the way it

pays its on-air stars.

David Sillito, BBC News.

Detectives believe a serving soldier

may have carried out a series

of armed robberies at homes

of wealthy people across

south-east England, stealing

valuables worth £1 million.

Detectives say the intruder has

struck seven times in three years

at properties in Berkshire,

Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

Frankie McCamley reports.

Caught on CCTV, the burglar police

believe to have military training

or involved in law enforcement.

Detectives say in each of the seven

raids, he has shown signs

of specialist knowledge and skills,

staking out his targets for weeks,

studying their movements

and where they keep their valuables

before he makes his vicious move.

He was huge.

People say he was one man,

but he was enormous.

Susan Morris feared she'd be

sexually assaulted and killed

when her house was targeted.

He hit me three times on my face.

It was very, very painful.

I could not believe

the blows kept coming.

And so I took him to the jewellery.

I gave him the jewellery.

It was very frightening.

The intruder has stolen jewellery,

valuables and heirlooms worth

in total £1 million.

Detectives believe the raids

occur every six months,

possibly as the offender

needs more money.

We believe this person

is not an amateur burglar.

We think that this is somebody

who has specialist skills.

He uses firearms and

cable ties to do this.

And he has an immense amount

of planning and prepping before

he goes and commits these offences.

Targeting affluent homes

in Berkshire, Kent, Surrey

and Sussex, police say the burglar

must now be caught to prevent

further harm coming to anybody else.

Frankie McCamley, BBC News.

The Universal Credit system could

leave up to 1 million people exposed

to it is rolled out, this programme

has been told. Sanctions are

penalties imposed on claimants when

they don't meet certain conditions.

They used to only apply to people

who were looking for work, but now

for the first time under Universal

Credit, people who are already

working could be sanctioned.

We'll have an exclusive report

on this story after the bulletin.

The Irish government has agreed on a

referendum on abortion laws. The

Republic of Ireland currently has a

near total ban on abortion.

People who get the main

disability benefit,

Personal Independence Payments,

are to have their cases reviewed.

It follows a court ruling

that the government had

discriminated against claimants

with mental health conditions.

Officials have calculated

that solving the issue

will cost nearly £4 billion,

as our social affairs correspondent

Michael Buchanan reports.

Homework time for Chloe Clark

and her son, Mackenzie.

The mum of three suffers

from severe anxiety,

and cannot leave home

without a family member.

But as her condition was caused

by a psychological disorder rather

than a physical problem,

she was denied Personal

Independence Payments.

I definitely felt

discriminated against.

I can't go out on my own.

My husband had to quit

work to look after me.

I went through a long period

of having no contact

with friends and family.

My children, they suffered.

Last month, the High Court found

mental health claimants for PIP

were being blatantly discriminated

against.

Ministers decided not

to appeal against the

ruling, which will have

major consequences.

Every person on PIP

will have their cases reviewed.

That is 1.6 million people.

At the end of the process,

around 220,000 people

will get extra money.

The changes will cost the Government

£3.7 billion by 2022-23.

It will make a difference to a lot

of people's quality of life,

whether people can travel somewhere,

afford to heat their homes,

have additional food to eat.

Very basic differences it will make

to people's quality of life.

Exactly who will benefit

from the review is not clear yet,

but for people like Chloe,

there is less reason to feel anger

towards a system they felt had

ignored their illnesses.

Michael Buchanan, BBC News.

150 skiers have been rescued

from a broken chairlift

in the Austrian mountains.

Armed forces personnel had to hover

above the cables on the side

of the Kreischberg mountain.

The authorities say no one

was injured after the chairlift

failure, which was blamed

on technical problems.

That's a summary of the latest BBC

News - more at 9.30.

Thank you for your comments. On BBC

pay, this is from Derek. £320,000 is

still too much, twice what the Prime

Minister gets. Overpayment keeps bed

blockers in place, preventing new

talent from coming through. And this

from Jim - please explain why a news

presenter is worth two prime

ministers? I hope to put that to a

representative of BBC management

later in the programme.

Do get in touch with us

throughout the morning -

use the hashtag Victoria LIVE

and if you text, you will be charged

at the standard network rate.

Let's get some sport

with Olly Foster.

Let's talk about what is happening

to Beckham in America.

Indeed,

soccer has been a pet project. When

he joined LA Galaxy all those years

ago with great fanfare from Real

Madrid, one of the best-known, a

global brand and a fantastic

Galactico, David Beckham. He joined

LA Galaxy and the MLS, the Major

soccer league in the States, but he

had it written into his contract

that one day, here is forward

thinking for you, he would be able

to own his own expansion franchise,

as the Americans put it, or an

American club. That has come to

fruition. He has got the rights to

build in Miami. He got the rights

four years ago, but has had trouble

getting this off the ground because

he couldn't get the stadium where he

wanted it. But now they have found a

25,000 seater stadium in a pretty

unfashionable part of the city, it

must be said, but it was launched

tonight. He will not be the manager.

He is going to help pull a few

strings, get a few mates involved to

put a super team together. We will

hear from him in a moment. First,

this was the welcome video that was

cobbled together by a few locals.

Welcome to Miami. If you need

anything, just let me know. That is

my town.

You need a striker, I'm the

guy. You need goals, I'm the guy.

We

can't wait to spend much more time

in Miami as a family.

Congratulations on your new Miami

team.

I have been able to experience

different leagues and different

cultures. So that is where I can add

my expertise into this ownership

group, and that will be my role, to

bring great and talented players,

but also to build this academy that

we keep talking about. We have a

hotbed of talent in young kids here.

If we build the right facilities and

bring the right coaches, we have a

hell of a chance of bringing in

home-grown talent into this team.

But not yet. It is going to take a

couple of years to build that

stadium and get it all together. But

I'm sure he has the money to do it

and there are some very wealthy

backers behind it.

And Beckham's former

Manchester United team-mate

Phil Neville has been setting

the record straight -

saying he isn't sexist, Olly?

David Beckham said his old mate will

be incredibly well. We expected him

to come out wearing a hard hat when

he faced the world's Mediate

yesterday, a massive turnout at St

George's Park to grill the new

England head coach for the first

time. He came across well. He

apologised again for those historic

sexist tweets. He justified his

appointment and his coaching CV, as

limited as it is. The FA are also

under fire because there were some

thoughts that they didn't go through

the due diligence. He didn't even

apply for the job, Phil Neville. He

was bullish about what he hopes to

do for the women's game.

Interestingly, he said he is going

to go to his old club, Manchester

United, because they, despite being

the richest club in the world, don't

have a women's team. Manchester City

do. He says he will encourage them

and says a club the size of United

should be the pioneers. There was a

member of the press who asked him

who the top scorer of the Women's

Super League is at the moment? He

said, not Izzy Christensen? And it

is, the Manchester City player. But

he says he will get to grips with

the women's game.

Do I know

everything about women's football?

No, but I will. That is my job. When

I went to La Liga, I didn't know

much about La Liga football. Within

a week, I knew everything about

Valencia. Within six months, I was

speaking another language. So I am a

fast learner. I will throw

everything into making sure my 100%

commitment is to the women's game.

He has about six weeks before his

first match. It is an important

women's tournament, with England

taking on France.

taking on France.

Is

This programme has been told

that the universal credit system

could leave up to one million

working people exposed

to benefit sanctions once

it's fully rolled out.

A benefit sanction is a penalty

imposed on a claimant

when they don't meet certain

conditions - like going

to job centre appointments.

Each year around 350,000 people

are sanctioned which could include

a significant cut in benefits

or them being stopped

altogether for a period.

Those sanctions used to only apply

to people who were looking for work,

but now for the first time under

universal credit, people

who are already working

could be sanctioned.

Our reporter John Owen meets a man

who was financially penalised

for going to a funeral.

You wake up in the morning,

thinking, is this the final day

when you're going to be

told to leave?

Waiting for information

from the benefits, to see, well,

from Universal Credit,

to see if they are going

to look into the matters,

if they are going to resolve issues,

if they are going to

reinstate the payments

and reduce the sanctioning.

Until you know that information,

then you're going to be worrying

each day and it's not just a case

of each day, it's each hour,

each minute, because you don't know

what's going to happen next.

And it's distressing.

Nobody should be having

to worry like that.

Conditionality, or the requirement

for claimants to do certain things

like look for work or attend

meetings at the job centre in order

to continue receiving benefits,

has been a feature of the welfare

system for years.

Those who fail to meet

their obligations risk

being sanctioned and could face

a partial reduction in benefit

payments or even their benefits

being stopped altogether.

And now experts have told this

programme that a dramatic

expansion of conditionality

in the welfare system that

puts many more people

at risk of being sanctioned

is currently underway.

We're talking about the number

of people subject to conditionality

being very close to double.

And this programme has heard

evidence of sanctions

being applied inappropriately

and disproportionately and of people

being forced into rent arrears,

debt and destitution as a result.

When people are sanctioned,

there is an increased likelihood,

indeed, a definite association that

people will end up coming

to our food banks.

The Government says that the number

of people being sanctioned

each year is falling,

but the welfare system is currently

undergoing the biggest shake-up

for a generation as every month,

thousands of claimants are moved

from legacy benefits

like jobseeker's allowance

and onto the new Universal Credit

system, which merges six benefits

into a single monthly payment.

With that shift will come a sharp

increase in the number of claimants

who will be exposed to the risk

of being sanctioned.

That's because Universal Credit

means that people in low-paid work

as well as those who are out of work

will face the possibility

of losing their benefits

if they fail to meet obligations set

out by the government.

For the first time, we've

got a benefits system

which is effectively saying

to people who are already working

part-time, often in low-paid,

low-status work, that you need

to search for more work.

By one estimate, an extra

one million people who

are receiving in-work

benefits will face the possibility

of being sanctioned

once the roll-out of

Universal Credit is complete.

No country in the world has ever

attempted such a system.

This is a complete novelty.

And nobody actually has any idea

whether it will work.

The Government says conditionality

in the system is all part of helping

people to get back into work

or to increase their income

once they are in work.

They say that sanctioning

is appropriate in cases

where claimants fail to live up

to their commitments.

But how do sanctions

operate in practice?

Gareth Forrest, a former

employee of the Department

for Work and Pensions,

lives in Preston with his partner.

He now works intermittently

and receives Universal Credit.

In recent weeks, he's received heavy

sanctions and may now be facing

eviction as a result of falling

behind with the rent.

The normal allowance

should be about £705.

The most recent sanction

was £503 which left £202.

That's everything included,

trying to get your rent and pay

for your utilities and food

and basic, basic needs.

Having lost the bulk of his income

due to these recent sanctions,

he says he could be homeless

in a matter of days.

He has made use of hardship

payments, but these are limited

and have to be repaid.

As a Universal Credit claimant,

he also has experience

of being sanctioned whilst in work

as a result of not

looking for more hours.

I have faced sanctions whilst

I have been in work.

There have been deductions

where you tell them that you work

so many hours and they tell

you to work more, find more.

Gareth says that one of his more

recent sanctions resulted

from attending a funeral instead

of going to a meeting

at the job centre.

Correct, I had to attend a funeral,

which clashed with an appointment

at the job centre.

I did phone the contact centre up

to say that I wouldn't be able

to attend and why I couldn't attend.

I even had a phone call from the job

centre on the day of the funeral

and they actually thought

that I was not there.

They were saying that, "Are you sure

you are at the funeral?

Are you not lying?"

After providing the order

of service from the funeral,

Gareth was told that the sanction

would be cancelled but soon after,

he received another letter saying

exactly the opposite.

And I received a letter from them

saying that they had

looked at the decision,

looked at the evidence,

and there would be no sanctions.

And then a week later,

I received another letter

from the contact centre saying

that they were actually imposing

sanctions for the same

information, the same reason,

of not attending interviews.

On another occasion,

Gareth had secured a short-term

contract working for HMRC.

When he went to the job centre

to explain this and to say

he would be unable to attend

a future meeting, he was told

that the contract he had brought

as evidence might be fraudulent

and that he would still need to

attend his next job centre meeting.

They are like, "Well,

you need to come to this meeting.

We don't care how you do it.

You've just got to get there,

get to this meeting".

Which I did, at the time,

I actually asked the boss,

the manager, to get some time off,

to finish early, which they

allowed me to do that.

Now, most places won't

allow you to do that.

Gareth explained the psychological

pressure of living with the threat

of sanctions, that he says are often

applied inconsistently

and without compassion.

You get anxious.

You don't know where to turn.

You don't know what is

going to happen next day.

You can't even think what's

going to happen in the next

hour, the next minute,

because you're worried all the time.

You're struggling to sleep at night.

You're scared to ask for help,

even from friends and family

because you don't know

if they're going to be willing

to help or if they are just

going to look and go,

"No, sort it out yourself".

You don't know where to turn.

And it's...

It is, it's distressing.

For people like Alison Inglis Jones,

a trustee of the Trussell Trust

network of food banks,

stories like Gareth's

are all-too familiar.

She says that sanctions are a major

factor in people being forced

to rely on food banks.

We've just finished a four-year

research with Oxford University

into the drivers to food banks

and what we see is that

when people are sanctioned,

there is an increased likelihood,

indeed a definite association,

that people will end up

coming to our food banks.

I'm a volunteer in a number of food

banks across London and some

of the stories I have heard and seen

are absolutely tragic.

For instance, I met a lady who had

a miscarriage at the playground

while she was dropping off her two

children, taken by ambulance

to the hospital and she missed her

interview at the job centre.

So, and she was sanctioned.

We've had a man come in who told

somebody at the job centre

that he was going to go

to his father's funeral.

He asked if he could have the time

of the interview moved.

They said no.

So he decided to go

to his father's funeral.

David Webster is a leading authority

on the welfare system and he's

concerned that the use of sanctions

amounts to a form of what he calls

extrajudicial punishment

and a parallel legal system,

operating without the safeguards

found in the courts.

At the moment, there are around

400,000 sanctions per year.

Some of those are repeat

sanctions on the same people,

so the number of people

being sanctioned in a year

is possibly around

300,000 or 350,000.

What it boils down to is that it's

a parallel penal system.

It is a full-blown penal system,

a system of punishment

for supposed offences.

Now, in the courts,

in the mainstream courts,

there's a whole battery

of safeguards which have been built

up over the centuries, basically,

to ensure that citizens don't get

wrongly convicted and punished.

The trouble about the sanctions

system is that it operates entirely

in private and there really aren't

any safeguards the people.

The decisions are made

in secret, without a hearing.

Money is cut off before there is any

opportunity for appeal.

David explained that

Universal Credit currently has

a higher rate of sanctioning

than its predecessors and that once

it's completely rolled out,

more people than ever will be

vulnerable to being sanctioned.

Under Universal Credit,

what we are going to be seeing

is people who never escape this

system of conditionality,

who are always under the thumb

of the job centre because even

when they are in a job,

they are not earning enough

to escape the conditionality

that is now being imposed

on people who are in work.

So I don't think people have

realised quite how drastic this

system is and what an extraordinary

extension of the control

of the state over individuals' lives

it is and what an extraordinary

attack it is on the

rights of the citizen.

Professor Peter Dwyer

at the University of York

is conducting one of the largest

studies of its kind into the effects

of welfare conditionality.

His team have conducted over 1,000

interviews with people in receipt

of benefits and he has seen

the effects of in work

conditionality up close.

You have got low-paid workers

who are already working,

subject to a sanctions regime that

will penalise them if they do not

search for more and better paid

work, and that is a step change

in the Social Security

system in the UK.

Peter's colleague Sharon Wright

thinks the shift to increased

conditionality might present

a particular problem for women

in the benefits system.

The redesign of Universal Credit

affects women particularly badly

so women as second earners and women

as lone parents.

So women in their role as mothers

are penalised in a way

because they have an obligation

to their children and that

conflicts sometimes

with their availability for work.

So women are pressurised to look

for full-time work and have less

protection than they used to under

the old system to limit the hours

of availability and the distance

they can travel to work.

So why do policy-makers want to

maintain and expand conditionality?

Matthew Oakley led an independent

review of jobseeker's allowance

sanctions that reported

to Parliament in 2014.

He explains why, in his view,

conditionality in the system,

including the use of

sanctions, is necessary.

I think there are two

clear reasons why we need

conditionality in the system.

First of all, that the vast majority

of international evidence shows that

benefits systems that have

conditionality or requirements

placed on job-seekers are much

better at getting those people back

into work more quickly.

The second reason is

a matter of fairness

and what the public supports.

You speak to the public,

if you speak to benefit

claimants themselves,

overwhelmingly they support

the idea of this, the idea

of something for something,

that in return for the benefits

that people receive,

that they should be required to do

something and that is look for work.

It is clearly just

a matter of fairness.

Where it works well,

where people understand

the requirements that are placed

on them, that they understand

the consequences of not complying

with those requirements,

people support the system.

Speaking to people who are

on benefits who have been

sanctioned, you'll find that some

of them say, "I put my hands up,

I didn't do what I was supposed

to do, I knew what the consequences

were, and you know,

I was sanctioned.

I completely agree

with that decision".

He believes that the expansion

of conditionality under

Universal Credit is simply a matter

of fairness in an evolving system.

Ultimately, people in low-paid

work who are capable,

able to work for longer hours,

you know, they are still claiming

benefits and they could very

well move off benefits

by increasing their hours.

So I think it is right

that we require them to do so.

The Government is currently

conducting trials to determine how

tough the regime for in-work

claimants should be,

but whatever the outcome,

hundreds of thousands of working

people on the lowest incomes

will soon find themselves

for the first time subject

to the possibility

of being sanctioned.

The Department for Work and Pensions

stressed that sanctions are only

used in a small minority of cases,

that claimants have every

opportunity to explain

why they failed to meet

their obligations and can appeal any

decision to sanction.

But the newly-appointed Work

and Pensions Secretary,

Esther McVey, who has previously

spoken in support of the sanctions

system, will now no doubt be

considering the potential political

consequences of expanding

conditionality under

Universal Credit.

If you want to read more about it,

it is on the BBC News website.

It is one of the most read stories

on our website.

The Department of Work

and Pensions told us

that they are "committed to helping

people improve their lives

and Universal Credit is helping

people into work faster and,

The Department of Work

and Pensions told us

for the first time, helping

them earn more in work.

They said, "It's reasonable that

people have to meet certain

requirements in return

for their Universal Credit payment,

just like under the old system.

These are agreed with people

in advance, and are

realistic and achievable.

Sanctions are only used when someone

has failed to meet the requirements

without good reason -

this is in a small minority of cases

and people are given every

opportunity to explain why they have

failed to do so before

a decision is made."

Thank you for your messages. You are

telling me your experiences of being

sanctioned. Holly says, "I was

sanctioned for attending training to

better myself in my career. It took

them over three months to realise

the mistake plunging me into debt."

Jenny says, "I once got sanctioned

for leaving a job that hadn't paid

me for nearly three months. I was

facing eviction because I couldn't

pay my rent I had bailiffs at the

door for nonpayment of council tax

and had been unable to pay my

childcare fees. Still, I was

sanctioned as the Jobcentre deemed I

had made myself willingly

unemployed. It would appear we are

now required to work for free yet

somehow still pay the bills."

And Fay says, I am petrified of

Universal Credit coming to my area.

How am I supposed to know what I

will receive from one month to the

next? If you are getting in touch,

you're very welcome.

Still to come:

The BBC is proposing to cap news

presenters pay at £320,000 a year.

The jaw of some of you is hitting

the floor at that cap. If you want

to give your reaction, get in touch.

We'll be discussing it shortly.

And the highly-professional armed

robber that police say probably has

a military background.

Time for the latest

news, here's Ben.

The impact of Brexit could leave

Britain substantially worse off

over the next 15 years,

according to a leaked

government document.

The analysis of three

different scenarios has been

carried out by the office

of the Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, and has been seen

by the online news service Buzzfeed,

but government sources point out

that the document hasn't looked

at the impact of Number Ten's

preferred option -

a bespoke trade deal with the EU.

Women at the BBC have told MPs they

faced a veiled threats when they

raised the subject of equal pay. The

claims, which were made to the

digital, culture, media and sports

select committee, come as the BBC

announces plans for a pay cap on its

news presenters. The proposed

maximum salary of £320,000 will

affect only a handful of people and

forms part of a wider restructuring

of pay. Police say a highly

professional former soldier is

believed to have carried out seven

violent raids with military style

planning. Surrey Police have

released CCTV footage of a suspect

who is accused of staking out

expensive properties in the Home

Counties so that he knew their exact

layout and the location of safes.

The owners were robbed of jewellery

and watches while being threatened

with a sawn off shotgun.

A significant number of people who

receive personal independence

payments from the government are

expected to receive more money once

their claims are reviewed. All 1.6

million recipients are having their

cases looked at again after the

government decided not to challenge

a court ruling that said changes to

so-called Debt payments were unfair

to people with mental health

conditions.

Ryanair has formally recognised a

pile of that first time. The British

Airline Pilots Association said it

was a historic agreement.

was a historic agreement. Last

month, a shortage of pilots caused

thousands of flight cancellations.

That's a summary of

the latest BBC News.

Listen to these messages. On

Facebook, Dave says, I enjoy your

show and I have to comment on the

salary cap the BBC News presenters.

Obviously, bringing male and female

salaries in line is to be applauded,

but I am gobsmacked at the amount

they can earn. I never imagined we

are paying such salaries. I suppose

I shouldn't be surprised. As always,

when it comes to spending public

money, it's way over the top. Sandra

says, do the people at the BBC not

think people are sick of hearing

about your pay gap? The people

paying your wages are working hard

and getting around £15,000 per year.

We will talk more about this in a

moment. Do feed in your messages and

I will bring them into the

conversation.

Here's some sport now with Olly.

David Beckham has been given the go

ahead for entering a Miami franchise

in the Major league soccer. They

have found a site for a new stadium.

He says he hopes to recruit some of

the world's top players. The new

women's head coach Phil Neville says

he will encourage his old club

Manchester United to start a women's

team. He says they should be the

leaders and pioneers in the game. It

is transfer deadline day tomorrow.

Aubameyang is close to joining

Arsenal, but his move may rely on a

player going the other way. The

funeral of the former West Bromwich

Albion and England striker Cyrille

Regis is taking us today. The

cortege stopped outside the

Hawthorns, his old club, where fans

had gathered. He died earlier this

month at the age of 59. We will

hopefully be going live to West Brom

in the next hour after ten.

Next, we're going to talk about BBC

pay and for the sake of transparency

I am a member of the BBC women's

group which has been calling

for equal pay for equal

work at the corporation.

The BBC has announced today

it is proposing a pay cap

for its news presenters of £320,000.

It follows mounting criticism of how

much it rewards some high profile

figures and of the discrepancy

between what male and female

employees earn for similar jobs.

Let's talk now to the chair

of the Digital, Culture, Media

and Sport Committee,

Conservative MP Damian Collins.

He'll be questioning

BBC execs tomorrow.

And Carrie Gracie,

who quit her role as China editor

in protest over BBC pay.

And Stewart Purvis, the former

Chief Executive Officer of ITN

and now sits on the

board at Channel 4.

Tell us about discovering that you

were being paid less than men doing

similar jobs?

I was health

correspondent for BBC Scotland for a

long period, 15 years. And it was

about halfway through my 10-year

when I realised I was paid

significantly less than men doing

the same job. Many of the men I was

working with were extremely helpful

and told me what that salary was. So

I went and asked for pay rises, but

I was repeatedly told it wasn't the

right time or this wasn't the right

forum. When I asked after a

particularly good appraisal, it was

only when I used equal pay

legislation or cited it that I was

given an immediate pay increase of

£5,000. But that still doesn't put

me up to the level of some of my

peers who I felt were doing a

similar role.

And were there any

other explanations, i:e., could one

of your colleagues have had more

experience than you? Had they taken

up that job having come from a

higher paid job, so they were on

their old salary?

Well, one of my

peers who was earning more had been

with the BBC for much longer than I

had. In the earlier days of the BBC,

that counted towards your salary as

long Lex Service.

Is that fair,

then, and pretty? If someone had

more experience and worked at the

BBC for longer?

Well, another may

appear had been appointed at the BBC

after me to an immediately higher

salary. And yet we were doing the

same job.

Let me bring in Damian

Collins, chair of the media

committee, the media select

committee which is looking at this.

Reaction firstly to this cap of a

salary of £320,000 a year for news

presenters at the BBC?

As you said

yourself in your introduction, I

think this affects a relatively

small number of people. If you look

at the core grievance that Carrie

Gracie brought forward that as the

BBC's China editor, she was paid

less than other international

editors for doing work of equal

value, this wouldn't have had any

impact on that. There are many

people at the BBC who work at all

levels and certainly below the

£150,000 pay level would require

public disclosure of their salaries,

who feel that they have not been

getting equal pay for doing work of

equal value. The BBC has to address

this much bigger issue that runs

through the whole organisation. It's

easy to pick on a small number of

very highly paid people and ask them

to take a pay cut, but that doesn't

address the fundamental issue.

Do

you think they have to address other

areas of the BBC like sport,

entertainment and people who work

for?

Yes. People will question why

this pay cap has been restricted to

news only. There could be pay

disparities elsewhere in the BBC.

There are BBC women who have brought

their grievances thawed and they

don't all work in news.

Stewart

Purvis, the former head of ITN and

now on the board at Channel 4... A

lot of licence fee payers are

balking at this cap. They can't

believe how high it is, 11 and a

half times the average salary.

I

agree that it is not the heart of

the issue, but I totally understand

that your viewers are wound up about

it. This will not come as much

consolation, but I can only say that

that is the market rate. There are

people I know who earn more than

that outside the BBC. It goes back

to the age-old argument that you

have a publicly funded body

competing with commercially funded

bodies. What is the appropriately

level of pay?

Hasn't that market

rate argument been blown out of the

water, though? Since the list of

salaries was published at the BBC of

the most highly paid people, no one

has been poached. No one has left.

No. I come from having worked mostly

outside of the BBC. But to go to the

heart of the issue, how is the BBC

now going to take this forward? From

my experience at ITN and Channel 4,

at ITN I was paying people at a rate

for the job. But I was also paying

people more if they had more

experience. That is something you

referred to just now. And I stand by

that is a policy. The problem is

that so often, men were doing those

jobs. So they are the people with

the experience because in a sense,

mostly men were doing it. So the

problem is that if you pay people

for experience, you are almost

enshrining some of the unfairness of

the past. That is a dilemma I am

keen to see how the BBC can find

their way through that.

After ten

o'clock, the director-general will

address staff at the BBC. Damian

Collins, do you have sympathy with

the BBC in terms of the experience

argument?

Is not entirely, but

because when you look at some of the

concerns that have been raised, they

have been brought forward by people

like Carrie Gracie, senior

journalists at the BBC, looking at

people she would regard as

contemporaries and being paid a lot

more. So it is not as simple as

saying someone who is young should

not be paid as someone who is senior

and has been there a long time. This

is about people with similar

experience doing work of equal value

who are not being paid the same

amount. And when you look at the

disclosures so far, it is hard to

discern what the BBC policy is on

equal pay. They have to be able to

demonstrate from today how they are

going to deliver equal pay across

the corporation.

I certainly agree

that the BBC now has to set out a

policy which they can explain to

people. They have two set out a

policy in which people can

understand, if you are in a pay

band, why am I in that slot in the

paid and? Nor does the BBC, but lots

of employers around the country are

watching this as a test case. It has

wider significance than just the

media. I don't dispute that if

someone has equal experience, they

should be paid the same. But I do

find it difficult to say to somebody

who has been winning awards for 20

years, who has been through war

zones for ten years, that there is

nothing in your salary to reflect

that. The question is, is that

inherently favouring men over women?

Eleanor, what are you hoping for?

Firstly, I would like to point out

that I am not on the salaries that

are quoted, nowhere near that. But

also, one of the reasons I decided

to speak out is that when I was

vocal about this at the BBC, I felt

that they there were straightforward

things that could be lamented

immediately. For example, better

advance for people when they went on

maternity leave about their rights,

for example, the right to know when

there is a job that you are eligible

to apply for. That guidance was

never produced.

never produced. So there are first

steps that the BBC can take. But I

also recognise that this is a huge

problem and there is no magic

bullet. But if anyone should be

tackling it, it should be the BBC.

Sean on Facebook says, I would like

to ask why it is necessary to pay

even £320,000 when such large

private earnings can be had from the

profile working for the BBC gives

you? Why do you need to pay TV cooks

when you are helping to build their

restaurant and book businesses etc?

Allen says, that cap is way too

high. News presenters paid more by

the Prime Minister? It's a disgrace.

The cap should be 120,000, Max.

Judith says the 320 pay cap is more

than is earned by the majority of

university vice chancellors, and the

media has called them parasites

because they earn more than the PM.

This is strange. Thank you all for

coming on the programme. The BBC

will make its announcement at ten

o'clock with more details of how it

is going to address pay.

We have, of course, asked the BBC

if we could interview anyone

from the BBC including

the Director-General

and Head of News and,

as yet, no one is available.

Actually, that announcement is

10.15.

We will talk to a Conservative

backbencher who is cited as a tu

fewer Tory leader and asking him why

telling Theresa May to sort out her

leadership of the Government.

A gay clergyman who was stopped

from taking up a job

as a hospital chaplain

after he married his same-sex

partner is taking his fight

to the Court of Appeal.

Canon Jeremy Pemberton was barred

by his bishop from taking up

the job back in 2014,

just weeks after he'd got married.

But an employment tribunal found

that the Church of England had not

broken equality laws with its stance

on same-sex marriage.

He's appealing that ruling -

it starts tomorrow.

And Canon Jeremy Pemberton

is with us now.

Good morning to you.

Good morning,

Victoria.

When we spoke to you last

you had lost your initial tribunal.

You haven't been able to work as a

priest since then. What's that been

like?

It is difficult. I am a

priest, but I have no way of

operating as a priest at the moment

and that's fairly painful. The

employment tribunal judge said the

State could not impose same-sex

marriage on the church. That's why

you lost effectively and that's

right, isn't it? It is a decision

for Parliament? No, one is trying to

impose same-sex marriage on the

church. I had a civil marriage which

is my right to have so no one is

imposing it on the church. Why the

church has to punish me for doing a

good thing which is getting married,

I don't understand.

Taking this to

the Court of Appeal is to test what?

There are still questions as to

whether the church of England's

exceptions on under equality law

stretch as far as the Church of

England likes to think they would.

Nobody goes to the Court of Appeal

because they want to, they go

because there is a legal question

that needs to be tested and that's

what we're going to test starting

tomorrow in the Court of Appeal.

And

you must have thought long and hard

about whether to enter this process

again?

I have the most amazing legal

team, Sean Jones QC and Helen

Trotter and Justin Gowe and they

work for me because they believe in

this case and believe there is a

point of law that needs to be

examined thoroughly until it is

finally settled and without them,

and without my solicitor, I couldn't

do this. So, I am amazingly well

supported bill people who are

generously giving their time and

expertise to test this point.

The

Church of England says in a

statement, "Churches across the

country continue to offer a generous

welcome to people from all

backgrounds and we remain fully

engaged in the church's exploration

of questions relating to human

sexuality. The Church of England

supports gay men and women who serve

as clergy in its parishes, and

institutions, it has no truck with

homophobia and supports clergy who

are in civil partnerships as set out

in the House of Bishops guidelines

in 2006."

Yes, well they would say

that, wouldn't they? The fact is the

institution is a homophobic

institution. Lots of people within

it ant homophobic. Certainly not at

parish level and at the level of

ordinary people in churches, but if

you're a clergy person, heaven help

you if you get married.

Why do you

want to continue working as a priest

then for what you have just

described as a homophobic

institution?

Because that's my

calling. I believe God's called me

to be a priest and that calling

doesn't end just because I run into

some difficulty in the institution.

The Church of England can change.

The Church of England will change.

But it's slow at doing it. It's a

massive tanker and it's very hard to

turn tankers round, but somebody has

to stay on the bus and say, "I'm not

getting off."

And do you think God

accepts you as you are and your

husband and your civil marriage?

Yes, absolutely. Without question.

I'm well supported. My husband is

fantastic and I couldn't do it

without him and I just keep going

because I think there is an

injustice here that needs to be

pushed.

Thank you for talking to us.

Thank you. We will follow your

appeal, of course.

A highly-professional soldier

is believed to have carried out

A highly-professional ex-soldier

is believed to have carried out

seven violent raids on expensive

properties across the Home Counties

with military-style planning.

The man stakes the homes out,

knowing their exact layout

by the time he raids them, wielding

a sawn-off shotgun.

He has taken jewellery,

watches and "irreplaceable

heirlooms" worth a total

of around £1 million.

Susan Morris was one of his victims.

Some of her account

of what happened is distressing.

I was alone and I heard a very

loud voice behind me.

I was at my computer and I was quite

taken aback and I turned

around and saw a very,

very large man dressed

all in black with a balaclava

on and he shouted very cloudily,

"I want the jewellery,

take me to the safe."

It all happened incredibly quickly.

It is still very vivid

though in my mind.

He came towards me and I then

realised he a sawn-off shotgun

and he grabbed hold of me.

He was holding me the whole

time of the burglary,

he never let go of me.

I've actually got bruises

all over my body where

he was gripping on to me.

He was in gloves.

So, all I want to do is get him out

of the house as quickly as possible,

give him whatever he wants

and get him out because I knew that

Stephen was on his way home.

I took him to the jewellery.

I gave him the jewellery,

it was already frightening,

but he actually said to me, "Get

on the floor."

I actually thought he

was going to rape me.

I was very, very frightened.

I gave him a lot of

jewellery from the safe.

And I said to him, "You've got some

valuable things there.

Now get out".

But he wasn't happy with that. He

asked for more jewellery. I gave him

some more jewellery and he then

wanted more jewellery. This is when

he really got angry and started to

hit me. He hit me very, very hard on

my face. Not enough to knock me out,

I think he knew exactly how hard to

hit me, but he hit me three times on

my face. It was very, very painful

and I couldn't believe the blows

kept coming.

He then started beating

Susan's head against the wooden

floor in his anger.

I had terrible

bruising on the back of my head.

That's partly from when he was

hitting me against the wall in the

dressing room, but yes, he's banging

my head on the floor. He actually

drags me by my hair across the

floor. It really hurts when someone

drags your whole body by your hair

across the floor. It was very, very

frightening. I think he has been

trained to know how hard to hit, to

not knock someone unconscious, but

enough to frighten them. The use of

the gun.

I think the sexual assault

as well just to intimidate and to

put even more fear...

He held on to

me the whole time. Someone said,

"Why didn't you set the panic alarm

off?" There wasn't a chance because

he was holding on to me and

secondly, he had a gun. I wasn't

going to do anything that he didn't

want me to do. So he was holding on

to my arm. There was massive

bruising there and he grabbed my

breasts. There are photographs of

the bruises so it was sexual in

order to frighten me.

It was sexual

intimidation, wasn't it?

Sexual and

at one point when he was hitting me

with the gun, sorry, the gun was

pointing at me and he was hitting

me, it was that moment I did

actually think this is it. It's all

over.

Stephen and Susan Morris.

Police say they are looking

for someone who may seem to have

money disproportionate to their job,

and might be travelling or away

for long periods of time.

They need your help.

If you've got any

information, you can call

Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Thank you for your messages today.

Jacqueline e-mailed, "The BBC should

be paid for by subscription so these

huge salaries are not forcibly paid

through a tax on everyone including

poor people and those on benefits.

If people could have the choice of

subscribing to the BBC, it would be

fairer." And Christine says, "As a

member of the woman's group asking

for equal pay, does that mean you

should get paid as much as the men

or the men should get paid as much

as the women? Will you playing soft

music during your items so we feel

sorry for the poorly paid BBC News

reporters?" Thank you for those. The

e-mail address is:

You can send us a message on Twitter

and you can message us on Facebook

or whatsapp. Here is Carol with the

weather. It seems to be very, very

cold again.

weather. It seems to be very, very

cold again. The temperature in

Benson in Oxfordshire was six

degrees lower than it was this time

yesterday morning. There is frost

around this morning. Now, we have

got lovely Weather Watchers pictures

to show you. We've got some sent in

earlier by our viewers. This one of

Great Chesterford in Essex and frost

on the ground in Staffordshire. A

beautiful sunrise. For many of us,

it is going to be a lovely day.

Across the north-west, this is where

we have showers courtesy of this

array of weather fronts coming in

from the Atlantic. Later on we've

got more weather fronts coming in

across the south-west. They're

bringing cloud and we will see

drizzle coming out of that

increasingly across the Isles of

Scilly and through Cornwall and

Devon. We've got high cloud around

across parts of Wales, northern

England and that's producing the odd

spot of drizzle, largely on the

hills, but the main wet weather is

across the north and north-west of

Scotland. That's where we've got

showers falling as snow on the

hills. So through the afternoon, you

can see the progress that the cloud

and the drizzle is making across the

south-west. Drift east of it and we

are looking at sunny skies.

Temperature wise, six, seven or

eight and it is the same too across

East Anglia and the Midlands, but in

the Wales, the West Midlands, we

will see the cloud build. Here and

there, you could see a shower from

it. Across Northern Ireland, it is a

similar scenario, a plethora of

showers coming in across the north

and north-west of Scotland again

falling as snow on the mountains.

The wind here will strengthen as we

go through the evening. The rain

will turn heavier as it cascades

south-east wards. We've got the

patchy rain coming in from the

south-west. The two will meet in

this band of cloud. Underneath this

band of cloud and showers, it won't

be as cold as the night just gone,

further north it is and the snow

level will increasingly be coming

down. So this is courtesy of these

two weather fronts which through the

course of tomorrow will continue to

move away from the South East,

taking the rain with them. Behind

it, brighter skies and sunshine and

showers and north-westerly wind

which is a cold direction and that

will push right the way down the

country.

country. Tomorrow it will feel cold.

It will be noticeably windy as well.

Perhaps an icy start on untreated

surfaces, but as the rain clears and

the sun comes out, we have a lot of

showers. In Scotland, northern

England and Northern Ireland, we

will see snow down to 200 meters

which is modest, but we don't expect

it to be as disruptive as it was in

recent weeks.

Thank you very much. It is Tuesday.

It's 10am. I'm Victoria Derbyshire.

A leaked government document

suggests the economy will grow at a

slower rate outside the European

Union. But not everyone believes

that.

that.

Every forecast from the

government to do with Brexit or the

economy has been wrong.

We'll get reacton in

the next few minutes.

Also today - this programme has been

told that up to 1 million people

in work could face benefits

sanctions once the universal credit

system has been fully rolled out.

We have got low paid workers who are

already working, subject to a

sanction regime that will penalise

them if they do not search for more

and better paid work. That is a step

change in the social security system

in the UK.

Tell us what you think -

have you received sanctions whilst

being in work?

And the BBC is proposing to cap

the pay of its news presenters

at £320,000

after mounting criticism of how much

it rewards some high-profile figures

and of a gender pay gap.

Do tell us what you

think of that pay cap.

Ben Brown is in the BBC

Newsroom with a summary

of the rest of the day's news.

The impact of Brexit could leave

Britain substantially worse off

over the next 15 years,

according to a leaked

government document.

The analysis of three

different scenarios has been

carried out by the office

of the Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, and has been seen

by the Buzzfeed News website.

But Government sources say

the document hasn't looked

at the impact of Number 10's

preferred option -

a bespoke trade deal with the EU.

A report into what the BBC

pays its on-air talent

will be published shortly.

The review - by the auditors PWC -

follows mounting criticism

of the discrepancy between what men

and women are paid.

Women at the BBC have told MPs

they faced "veiled threats"

when they raised the subject

of equal pay.

Our Media Correspondent,

David Sillito reports.

Some of the BBC's top news

presenters have already agreed

to have their pay cut,

but this goes a step further -

a ceiling of £320,000.

It is still more than twice

what the Prime Minister makes,

and will only affect

a handful of people.

But it is part of a wider audit

and report into star salaries.

One key issue was highlighted

by the recent resignation

of Carrie Gracie as the BBC's

China editor.

She says a comparable male

colleague was making more

than 50% more than her.

This and other pay issues are now

being investigated by MPs.

What we want from the BBC is,

you know, a clear explanation

of the steps they will take to bring

about an open and transparent

policy on equal pay,

and how they account for some

of the pay decisions that

were made in the past,

that saw some people being paid many

times more than their

colleagues for doing

what was essentially the same job.

All of this follows the publication

last summer of the pay deals

of the BBC's top stars.

The women campaigning for equal pay

say they have not been consulted,

and so have no confidence

in today's report.

But the BBC says it is committed

to equal pay, and says today's

proposals will make significant

changes to the way it

pays its on-air stars.

David Sillito, BBC News.

Police say a former soldier is

believed to have carried out seven

burglaries with military planning.

They have released CCTV footage of a

suspect who is accused of carrying

out robberies in the Home Counties

where he knew the exact location of

saves. The owners were robbed while

being threatened with a sawn off

shotgun.

The Irish government has agreed to

hold a referendum on liberalising

abortion laws at the end of May. The

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said

there must be an end to women having

to go abroad for terminations. The

Republic of Ireland currently has a

near total ban on abortion.

MPs are investigating how

the construction giant

Carillion collapsed today.

A joint inquiry by MPs on the Work

and Pensions committee

and the Business committee is trying

to establish how the company's

long-standing financial problems

weren't spotted before its collapse

two weeks ago.

The chief executive of the financial

reporting Council has been speaking

before the committee.

We have

announced the investigation into the

audit. We started our inquiries into

the quality of the audit immediately

after the profit warning. We have

now completed those and we are doing

a formal investigation. In relation

to the financial statements and the

conduct of the directors in that

regard, the FCA has been conducting

its own inquiries. We have got their

information and we will be reaching

a view as soon as possible on

whether to extend that an

investigation into the directors.

Dave says to me, Victoria, you are

nothing special and I see people in

the NHS grafting like there is no

tomorrow. People are paying their TV

licence to pay for your lavish

lifestyle. Another says, the pay cap

is excessive but does not address

the issue of gender inequality. It

appears to be a defect in strategy

which would imply that BBC

management are still failing to

understand the basic equality issue

- equal pay for women at all grades

should be implemented without this

prevarication. And another says, I

struggle to pay my licence fee. BBC

executives are completely out of

touch with ordinary people. Selected

stars are paid grossly inflated

salaries which are out of kilter

with every other walk of life,

earning more than some FTSE 100

chief executives. Get real, BBC.

Time for the sport now.

The funeral takes place today

of the former West Bromwich Albion

and England footballer

Cyrille Regis, widely regarded