06/01/2016 BBC News at Six

After the worst floods in decades - MPs grill Environment Agency bosses

While large parts of Northern England were underwater,

the agency's boss was on holiday in Barbados.

This was a PR disaster personally for you wasn't it?

Um, yes, as I said in hindsight it would have been much better if I had

come back as early as I could, which was one or two days earlier.

In Carlisle - a month after the floods -

the clear-up is far from over - and there are warnings of yet more

We'll be live in Cumbria to see how communities are coping.

The partner of EastEnders actress Sian Blake travelled to Ghana days

after she went missing - three bodies have been found

Jeremy Corbyn asserts his authority in his first reshuffle -

but three Labour ministers resign from the frontbench in protest.

North Korea claims it has successfully tested its first

hydrogen bomb prompting international outrage

And first day at school - Prince George is photographed

by his mother as he arrives at his new nursery in Norfolk.

of more flooding for the north-east as a new Amber warning is issued.

And plans for national testing in schools are unveiled

but the Government says it won't lead to crude league tables.

Good evening and welcome to the BBC News at Six.

Environment Agency bosses have been defending their response

to the December floods, which have left a trail of damage

and destruction across large parts of Cumbria,

The agency chairman - Sir Philip Dilley -

was accused of a "PR disaster" after being on holiday in Barbados

He said he now wished he'd come back sooner.

The committee of MPs also heard first hand from homeowners

who were flooded - as our home editor Mark Easton reports.

The floodwaters may have subsided but in many parts of northern

England, frustration and anger have been left in their wake.

As the clear up continued at this West Yorkshire school today the row

over whether enough was done to protect homes and businesses

splashed the walls of Parliament. As officials from the agency

responsible for flood defences arrived to face questions from MPs.

Server liberally, chairman of the Environment Agency. Eight and

Environment Agency chief Sir Philip Dilley was asked if he regretted not

returning earlier from his holiday home in Barbados while devastating

floods hit the UK. This was a PR disaster for you personally, wasn't

it? In hindsight, yes, it would have been better if I'd come back as

early as I could, which was one or two days earlier. Officials blame

exceptional rainfall for flood defences being overwhelmed in

Cumbria before Christmas, but one house owner who lost her home and

business told the committee that too much attention is given to

protecting wildlife, including a local scheme to save freshwater

mussels rather than protecting people.

Please, what is the point of all this? Who should you be protecting?

My sympathies to the mussels but I need my community protecting. At

PMQs David Cameron was challenged over whether his government has done

nothing to protect the floods -- from the floods. I have the greatest

pity for anyone who was flooded and we have to do what it takes to get

people and get communities back on their feet, and that's why we put

record sums in more quickly to help communities in Cumbria, in

Lancashire, and now in Yorkshire and we will continue to do that. Flood

defence scheme after flood defence scheme has been cancelled, postponed

or cut, and many more homes are being flooded and too many lessons

have been ignored. The argument is whether the government should focus

more on long-term strategic investment, things like the Thames

Barrier, rather than what critics say is short-term reactive spending

on flood defences, responding to rising levels of misery. Over the

last decade central government real terms spending on flood defences

rose after the floods of 2007 and 2009. They fell when the coalition

came to power, rose again after devastating floods of 2014 and has

fallen back a little, although increases are promised.

The bad weather brought a more disruption to the North of England

today with a 70 tonne landslide blocking the railway line at Hexham.

Questions about how government should respond to the challenge of

our changing climate will continue to rain down for years to come. Mark

Easton, BBC News. Well, it's exactly a month ago today

that Storm Desmond caused widespread flooding in Cumbria,

affecting thousands of homes. In Carlisle, the floodwaters may

have gone - but the clear-up Our north of England correspondent

Danny Savage is there for us now. People certainly care about what was

being said in Westminster today, but there is a few more urgent things to

deal with here still. We might be a month on from the floods but it

still looks like it happened just a few days ago, this rubbish in skips

goes on for a good mile down the road. The houses here are still

deserted, it's like a ghost town and getting anywhere near normality is

proving very difficult for people, and so is getting into any sort of

routine here. needed a boat to get down Warwick

Road. Now it's littered with the remains

of a Christmas past. Wayne is clearing out

his parents' home. Like many people, he provided

emergency accommodation. My mum was downstairs

with my disabled brother and my partner had to move out

into a touring caravan on the drive. So we gave up our house

really for my parents It was the first day of term

today for many pupils, Newman High is uninhabitable

after being flooded. So staff and 650 pupils have been

moved to a mothballed primary school The most important thing was to get

some kind of normality back into the lives of the children

and their families. And as you can see this is the only

source of running water, And your work surface

is this trolley? This is the only work surface

there is, so this is where I do Janet is recovering

from a hip operation, If you could sit down

with the people in power, Well, I don't think any of us

here expected it to flood again. And I think now the whole question

of flooding needs to be looked at very carefully, because water

has to go somewhere. It is not just a question

of building the defences Businesses have set up temporary

kiosks on the street. In the ruins behind closed doors

there is no time for political It is all right looking at it

the television and seeing everybody They just sit there in their little

House of Commons and shout things out to each other and nothing

seems to get done. People just don't want

their concerns swept away. And it is the effect

on mortgages and house prices It's emerged that the partner

of a former EastEnders actress Sian Blake travelled to Ghana days

after she and her two Police are urgently trying to locate

him after three bodies were found yesterday at a family home in Kent.

Scotland Yard have referred their investigation into family's

disappearance to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Our home affairs correspondent June Kelly reports.

Sian Blake, the young actress who landed a part in a top TV show. Come

and see me soon, go on. How can I? A night off would be fun. It was in

the 90s in Eastenders and after she left the soap she became a mother

but recently she was in poor health with a debilitating illness motor

neurone disease. She had two boys, Zachary who was eight and

four-year-old Amon. Now all three are being mourned by their family

and Sian Blake's partner Arthur Simpson-Kent, the children's father,

is being sought by police. It is understood he travelled to the West

African state of Ghana before Christmas. It's unclear if he is

still there. Back home in their neighbourhood there is astonishment

at what has happened. I saw him more than her. He was never a customer,

she was a customer of mine. I saw him walking past with the kids and

would always stop and wave, and always look to wave, which is really

nice and says a lot about the person really, sad, very sad. The family

home in Erith in Kent is now a crime scene and a picture has emerged of

the events leading up to the discovery of the bodies here. Sian

Blake and her children were last seen on December 13. On December the

16th she was reported missing. Police visited the family home and

spoke to Arthur Simpson-Kent. He was then reported missing. Two days

later the police returned to the family home, forced entry, and

searched the house. It was a fortnight after that on January the

1st that officers made their first public appeal for information. On

January the 4th Scotland Yard's homicide crime team took over the

inquiry. The next day, three bodies were discovered in the garden of the

family home. So it was three weeks after Sian

Blake was reported missing that the bodies were found here. Now

questions are being asked about the initial police inquiry, and this

afternoon Scotland Yard announced that it was referring the case to

the independent police complaints commission. The Met said there were

potential issues over the handling and grading of the investigation.

Meanwhile, the international hunt for a partner and father goes on.

June Kelly, BBC News, Erith, Kent. Three Labour shadow

ministers resigned today - one of them live on television -

after the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn carried

out his first reshuffle. Mr Corbyn sacked two

of his ministers and replaced his The move is being viewed - by some -

as punishment for those who don't share his views on key

policies like the renewal Our political editor,

Laura Kuenssberg reports on a day Good morning everybody. He is meant

to be the boss, but Jeremy Corbyn's first reshuffle has been a painful

journey for his party. It was his weekly chance to put the Prime

Minister on the spot. Mr Speaker, it's very strange that when I asked

a question about Leeds flood defence, and then on Cumbrian flood

defence, the prime ministers still seems unable to answer. But Labour's

K is allowed David Cameron to tease him with words from Shakespeare.

There was a moment when it looked like this reshuffle could go into

its 12th Night, and it was a revenge reshuffle so it was going to be As

You Like It. There will be those who worry that Love's Labour's Lost! Has

not been a funny few days for Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary,

the leadership wanted him to move but he stayed put with a promise to

work differently. Really? I have not been muzzled, I will carry on doing

my job as I did before which is speaking for Labour on foreign

policy. Not quite the same as the Shadow Chancellor, Mr Corbyn's

closest ally, who was sent out to outline the changes. That they do

take some explaining. None of us were arguing from a publicly or

privately, that Hilary Benn should go, we were saying basically what we

wanted was to ensure we had a coherent representation of the

party's policies. No comment at all? And after days of getting Maria

Eagle was put out of her misery today, perhaps. She was moved from

her job as Shadow Defence Secretary because she disagrees with Mr Corbyn

over nuclear weapons, but will now take the lead on culture. I'm

looking forward to getting on with my new job and no doubt I will talk

to you in that capacity again in due course. In charge of defence instead

Emily Thornberry, who backs Mr Corbyn's, not the party's

antinuclear stance. There were two, a couple of sackings, for what was

called disloyalty, and in part for this former Shadow Minister Pat

McFadden taking a different view on terror. Then resignations in

protest, lives on TV. I've just written to Jeremy Corbyn to resign

from the front bench. When an individual like that in my own team

is singled out for views that I hold myself it is only right for me to

leave the front bench. And then on radio and even on Facebook. The last

24 hours have been a damaging pantomime. While Jeremy Corbyn has

been hugged up in his office with his close advisers he hasn't always

seemed in charge of events and simply he did not have the clout to

make all of the changes he wanted to. But the Labour leader was able

to wreak as to his Shadow Cabinet more in line with his own

priorities. Reshuffles are really perfect, but today's chaos will be

remembered. Gavle Jeremy Corbyn's thousands of supporters around the

country this flexing of his muscles could be exactly what they want.

And after all that fuss and confusion of the last few days,

where are we tonight? From the moment Jeremy Corbyn became Labour

leader there was huge enthusiasm from his supporters around the

country and his team at Westminster, but a massive gap between them and

some Labour MPs who think the whole project is a complete nonstarter.

What has happened in the last couple of days is that gap, that profound

gap between those two views has got wider and wider and the tensions

even tighter. And while the party is still really struggling to come to

terms with itself, it is hard to see how they are going to be able to

present anything convincing to the general public.

Political editor Laura Kuenssberg, thank you.

One month on from the start of the floods, floods bosses

defend their handling of the crisis to MPs.

Hugging a humanoid - the robot being touted

And coming up on Reporting Scotland at 6.30.

.Org Trump threatens to withdraw investments over calls to ban him

from the UK. And the new kids on the

block who are reviving Govan's proud tradition

of bagpiping. There's been widespread condemnation

of North Korea's claim to have tested for the first

time a hydrogen bomb - including from its

closest ally, China. It hasn't been independently

verified yet - but if confirmed it would be North Korea's fourth

nuclear test since 2006 and mark a major upgrade

in its capabilities. The test was detected

after an earthquake was registered near the Punggye-ri

nuclear site this morning. Our correspondent Rupert

Wingfield-Hayes reports from Seoul. North Korean state television made

the dramatic announcement A successful hydrogen bomb test

has been carried out, On the streets of Pyongyang,

crowds had been marshalled South Korea they measured an

earthquake caused by the explosion. It was not very big.

And it remains unclear whether this latest test really

So what is the difference between a hydrogen bomb

Atomic bombs were first dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The blast is created by splitting an atom,

releasing the huge amount of energy contained inside.

Hydrogen bombs use an atomic bomb to force elements together creating

The resulting blast is thousands of times more powerful

But hydrogen bombs are much more difficult to make.

North Korea's soldiers may be good at goose-stepping,

but a hydrogen bomb would put this impoverished country

The main beneficiary would be its young dictator,

In October he paraded the huge war machine he commands,

including North Korea's latest long-range missiles which one day

For the young Mr Kim, nuclear weapons are about one thing.

Perhaps Kim Jong-un wants to tell his domestic constituency

that he is powerful, he is strong, he's in control of his regime

that he just took over a few years ago.

He also seems to be trying to tell the international community

that his country is a nuclear weapons state and that means

For people living here in Seoul, the idea that North Korea,

just 30 miles away to the north of here, may now have a hydrogen

But the question remains, what can the world do about it?

Sanctions have been tried and have failed.

Maybe it is now time for the world to engage with North Korea.

But it is very hard to see how any Western leader can engage

with a regime that has just set off a nuclear device.

Rupert Wingfield Hayes, BBC News, in Seoul.

One of the frontrunners in the contest to become the next

Fifa president has described the upcoming leadership election

as the "last chance to save the organisation".

Prince Ali bin Hussein insists he's the only candidate capable

of rooting out corruption within football's world governing

body - which chooses a new leader next month.

He was speaking to our Sports Editor, Dan Roan.

A series of arrests, raids, and corruption investigations

The wrongdoing went to the very top, President Sepp

Blatter kicked out of the organisation he ruled for 17

With the new year comes the chance to turn a corner.

One of the favourites in next month's

presidential election told me he must win, or else.

I think it is the last chance to save the

And to get it back in the right shape and then to focus

on what my real goal is, which is total

development of football around the world.

I don't want to see a day coming in the future if you have another

situation where scandals come up in the next year or two.

Prince Ali was the sole challenger in May's election.

But days later, Sepp Blatter stepped down

But days later, Sepp Blatter stepped down amid a spiralling corruption

Now the Jordanian is back, presenting

We need fresh ideas, fresh blood, free thinking.

But are you fresh blood, are you a fresh way of thinking?

With the greatest respect, you have served on that executive

For sure I am, and my track record speaks for itself.

These are the men who stand in Ali's way.

Asian football chief Sheikh Salman of Bahrain.

Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino.

And former fifa executive Jerome Champagne.

But already this year more controversy.

Yesterday Fifa announced that Sepp Blatter's former

right-hand man Jerome Valcke faces a nine-year ban for violating ethics

The question now it seems, whether anyone can be trusted.

Are there any skeletons in your closet?

Can you give us a cast-iron guarantee that we are not

going to discover anything about you in the future?

For sure, I can guarantee that I am the right person for this job.

And my track record is that I keep my

Fifa of course has been notoriously resistant to change.

For Ali, overcoming that hurdle will be one

But even if he wins, repairing the damage done

Robots that can act as your companion, virtual reality headsets

They're just some of the gadgets of the future on show in Las Vegas

for the latest Consumer Electronics Show.

The show has just got underway. There are several reasons, Virtual

reality, changes in the way that our cars are controlled and the onward

march of artificial intelligence. They have in the way that our cars

are controlled and the onward march of artificial intelligence. They

happen, but technology is entering more areas of our lives. Right down

to humanoid robots coming into our homes.

Is this the year you get a robot for your home?

In Japan, 7000 people have already ordered Pepper,

a robot which is a companion, offering a hug or a high five

rather than a purely practical device.

For us the robot is very different from other digital devices

because the way you interact with it is very natural.

There is no keyboard, there are no screens you touch on.

And here is Buddy, another robot interacting with humans in Las

As well as following you around and looking cute, this robot,

due to go on sale later this year, does have some practical uses.

When you're out of the house, Buddy can act as a sort

of nightwatchman, watching out for strangers like me turning up.

Virtual reality is another big theme here, with all sorts of VR

This one combines the real and virtual worlds, so you can

see your fingers and use them to spin the earth around.

Of course it's all very well having these wonderful new gadgets,

My phone is down at 7% right now and anyone with a smartphone knows

it is very hard to get through a day without a charge.

But one British firm thinks it's got the answer.

Intelligent Energy is developing fuel cells to power all

This prototype is for a smartphone, and keeps it charged for a week.

It is bulky now, but could be built into the phone one day.

The firm says visitors to this show could see a big change

They will never have to plug in to the wall,

they will have a device that will be charged and powered for the whole

And you're saying that is a realistic prospect

This electric concept car, developed by a Californian firm

with Chinese money, is one product that will never go on sale.

But in this show motoring is yet another industry that the technology

In cricket, the second test between England and South Africa has

ended in a draw in Cape Town - but only after England threatened

England lost a flurry of wickets in their second innings

With two matches still to come South Africa's captain, Hashim Amla,

has decided to resign to concentrate on his batting.

Photographs have been released of Prince George on his first

The pictures were taken by his mother - the Duchess

of Cambridge - and show the prince - along with his rucksack -

outside the nursery, near his parents' Norfolk home.

As our Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell reports,

it's hoped releasing the images will help protect the young Prince's

From the moment of his birth in July 2013 George's parents have been

determined to balance the huge worldwide public interest

in the life of the future King with their desire to ensure that

George has as normal a life as possible.

And so since George's birth there have been a few carefully

controlled appearances in front of the cameras.

From his christening at St James's Palace to William

and Catherine's visit to New Zealand and Australia and George's scene

stealing antics at a children's playgroup.

He did the same on the day of his recently arrived sister

Charlotte's christening at Sandringham last July.

Now today, another significant occasion in George's life.

Aged two and a half, his first day at a nursery school.

He went this morning to the school near William and Catherine's

Significantly, these two photographs issued by Kensington Palace

were taken not by a professional photographer, but by his mother.

By all accounts the environment was controlled and tranquil,

just as his parents had hoped it would be.

What a contrast to how it was more than 30 years ago when William

was taken by his mother to his first day at school.

It is this sort of experience that William is determined

I think the mainstream UK press will respect the privacy

I have my doubts whether the international paparazzi

especially those in the US, Europe and the Far East,

Will the immense international market for pictures of George be

satisfied with these photographs taken by his mother?

More rain I wish I could change the record but I cannot. More rain is on

the way, that news for areas badly affected by flooding. This is the

cloud responsible for that bad weather, rain sweeping across the

whole of the country over the next 12 hours or so. And some quite

strong wind, following behind some clearer skies. Already dumped across

the East of Scotland. And by morning rain getting heavier and more

persistent. Watch out for some strong wind through the Irish Sea as

well. Things to improve by the afternoon with some sunshine but for

Scotland it is a different story, it stays wet and we could be revisiting

scenes like these. So a real risk of renewed flooding across eastern

parts of Scotland and the warning from the Met office. A lot of snow

over the high ground, feeling cold and roll across Scotland. For many

of us getting better with some sunshine through the day. Feeling

quite chilly in the wind despite that sunshine. But the sunshine

makes all the difference, it will feel quite pleasant out there.

Through tomorrow night it stays wet across the north-east of Scotland

was some hill snow. Ice could be a problem elsewhere and into Friday

more wet weather again for the North East of Scotland. Showers moving

west elsewhere across the country but again some sunshine, the best of

that across the southern part of the UK. For the weekend, more rain and a

further risk of flooding and then a change. Quite a significant change

as we go into next week. It turns a lot colder, some frost may be some

snow. But at least try and it has been for some considerable time. --

dryer. That's all from the BBC News at Six

- so it's goodbye from me and on BBC