Category Archives: UK news

Voting age to be lowered to 16 in UK by next general election

Posted on by

16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in all elections as part of changes including easier voter registration and crackdown on foreign interference

The voting age will be lowered to 16 in the UK by the next general election in a major change of the democratic system.

The government said it was a reform to bring in more fairness for 16- and 17-year-olds, many of whom already work and are able to serve in the military. It brings the whole of the UK voting age to 16. Scotland and Wales have already made the change for Holyrood and Senedd elections, as well as local council elections.

Continue reading...

Frasers Group sales fall amid ‘challenging’ luxury market and retreat from gaming

Posted on by

Pre-tax profits fall 24% despite rise in Sports Direct sales, driven by closures of House of Fraser and Game stores

A “challenging” luxury market and retreat from gaming have prompted a fall in sales and profits at Mike Ashley’s Frasers.

The group, which is majority owned by the billionaire former Newcastle United owner, said sales fell by 7.4% to £4.7bn and pre-tax profits slid by 24% to £379.5m as it closed some of its House of Fraser department stores and Game video game shops.

Continue reading...

Ministers urged to overhaul and raise carer’s allowance

Posted on by

Resolution Foundation says unpaid carers on low incomes pay ‘very heavy price’ for looking after loved ones

The carer’s allowance benefit should be overhauled and the basic rate of payment increased to lift more unpaid carers and disabled people out of financial hardship, according to a living standards thinktank.

The Resolution Foundation said unpaid carers on low incomes were paying a “very heavy price” – a typical penalty of 10% or as much as £7,000 a year compared with non-carers – for looking after loved ones full-time.

Continue reading...

Nicotine pouches sold to children mimic sweets, says UK trading standards body

Posted on by

Children can buy pouches legally as they are not regulated as a specific tobacco or nicotine product

Nicotine pouches are being legally sold to children and are being made appealing to them with special flavours and packaging mimicking sweets, a trading standards body has said.

In June, it became illegal for single-use vapes to be sold in England to tackle their widespread use by children. However, there is currently no legislation that restricts the age at which you can buy nicotine pouches.

Continue reading...

MPs to tighten laws allowing foreign donations to influence UK elections

Posted on by

Exclusive: changes will end illegitimate funding via shell firms and subject donors to enhanced tests, backed by stronger fines

Ministers are planning to close loopholes that could allow foreign money to influence UK elections, with a crackdown on illegitimate donations through shell companies and new tests on political donors.

As part of a push to tighten up electoral law, the government will on Thursday announce a series of measures to ensure donations come from allowable UK sources.

Continue reading...

Ministers to enshrine UK charities’ right to peaceful protest in new ‘covenant’

Posted on by

Agreement between government and voluntary sector aims to reset relations after erosion of trust under Tories

The right to engage in political activity and protest peacefully is to be enshrined in a new agreement between the government and UK charities and campaigners aimed in part at ending years of damaging “culture wars”.

The agreement is intended to reset relations between government and the voluntary sector after years of mutual distrust during which Conservative ministers limited public rights to protest, froze out campaigners, and targeted “woke” charities.

Continue reading...

‘There’s a bit of a queue forming’: how UK firms are enticing buyers for the next generation of fighter jets

Posted on by

Inside the hangars where robots are poised to keep the UK a top-tier military nation and continue more than a century of building military aircraft

In a factory on the banks of the River Ribble in Lancashire, robot arms stand on a floor striped with glowing lights. They will hold the tail fin for a test model for the UK’s next generation fighter jet, which is intended to fly for the first time in 2027. The jet, known as Tempest, will act as a symbol of Britain’s hopes to remain a top-tier military nation and keep alive more than a century of building military aircraft.

Yet things are markedly different in another hangar at the Warton site, run by British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. There, production of the Typhoon jet, a mainstay of the Royal Air Force (RAF) for two decades, has – for now at least – ground to a halt.

Continue reading...

UK’s anti-corruption champion to visit offshore haven on fact-finding mission

Posted on by

Foreign Office sending Margaret Hodge to British Virgin Islands to investigate slow progress against financial crime

The Foreign Office will dispatch the UK’s anti-corruption champion, Margaret Hodge, to the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) to find out why the offshore haven is dragging its feet on proposals designed to fight financial crime.

Several of the UK’s semi-autonomous British overseas territories missed last month’s deadline to implement new registers of corporate ownership, a measure targeting the secrecy regimes campaigners say benefit criminals and kleptocrats.

Continue reading...

Wallace rejects claim Afghans with ‘tenuous’ links to UK admitted as ex-Tory minister says resettlement scheme was ‘hapless’ – live

Posted on by

Johnny Mercer, former veterans minister, sharply critical of how Afghan resettlement programme handled

In an interview with LBC Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, hit back at his former ministerial colleague Johnny Mercer rather more forcefully than he did on the Today programme (see 8.09am) over Mercer’s comments about the Afghan resettlement programme.

Tom Swarbrick, the presenter, quoted what Mercer said about how this “whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government”.

No, I don’t agree with it. I think my record would show the opposite. It was me and Priti Patel, before the collapse of Kabul, who decided we were going to accelerate bringing people back who were under threat …

People hadn’t come out before. And we made sure that we did this. I think what Johnny, you know, fails to grasp, is quite the massive scale of collapse that happened very quickly in Afghanistan, leaving people at risk, and we had to do our very best.

Continue reading...

Sick pay changes could benefit UK firms by up to £2bn, TUC says

Posted on by

Exclusive: Analysis shows covering part of salaries from first day off can boost productivity and employee retention

Changes to sick pay to cover part of workers’ salaries from the first day off could end up benefiting British businesses by as much as £2bn, according to analysis commissioned by the UK’s main union body.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC), which is pushing for the government to stick with its plans for workers’ rights, said modelling showed businesses would gain benefits of £2.4bn thanks to productivity boosts, while facing direct costs of £425m to pay for extra sick days.

Continue reading...

Dismay after Southampton airport gets permission to cut down cemetery trees

Posted on by

Campaigners attack council for backing plan to fell trees in burial site near runway to allow for increase in passengers

A Labour-led city council has been criticised for backing an airport’s scheme to cut down “majestic” trees in a historic, wildlife-rich cemetery close to a runway.

Environmental campaigners, people whose loved ones were laid to rest in the cemetery and opposition politicians have expressed dismay that the trees in South Stoneham Cemetery in Southampton are to be lost.

Continue reading...

Southern Water issues hosepipe ban for 1m people in Hampshire and Isle of Wight

Posted on by

Announcement takes number of people hit by restrictions across England to about 8.5 million

Southern Water has become the fourth English utility to issue a hosepipe ban, taking the number of people hit by such restrictions to about 8.5 million.

The latest ban, which comes into force for about 1 million residents across large swathes of Hampshire and all of the Isle of Wight from 9am on Monday, comes after Yorkshire, Thames and South East Water announced similar measures.

Continue reading...

No automatic right to resettlement for Afghans in data leak, says Healey

Posted on by

Defence secretary says it was ‘never the plan to bring everyone’ on dataset to UK, while Ben Wallace denies Tories sought superinjunction

The defence secretary, John Healey, has said there is no automatic right to resettlement for Afghans named in a leaked Ministry of Defence database, as the former Conservative ministers Ben Wallace and Johnny Mercer clashed over whether “thousands of people with little or tenuous links” had been admitted to Britain.

The controversy revolves around a dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) that was released “in error” in February 2022 by a British defence official.

Continue reading...

Thousands of Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak

Posted on by

Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme

Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that required the UK to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.

The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

Continue reading...

‘The worst day of all time’: Afghans speak of safety fears after UK data leak

Posted on by

Law firm representing thousands says some already killed and others in hiding as a result of government ‘blunder’

When Abdullah received an email from the British government saying his details had been included in the military data leak, it became “the worst day in all time”.

Speaking from Afghanistan, where he is in hiding, Abdullah fears he will be tortured and killed.

Continue reading...

‘Investing in destruction’: campaigners attack plans to fill Yorkshire tunnel with concrete

Posted on by

Government decision to infill disused Queensbury railway line comes amid calls for it to be converted to subterranean cycle path

Campaigners hoping to convert a disused railway line into England’s longest cycle and pedestrian tunnel are challenging a government decision to fill much of the historic structure with concrete.

Earlier this month ministers decided to award several million pounds to permanently shutter the Queensbury tunnel built in the 1870s for a railway between Halifax and Keighley in West Yorkshire, despite spending £7.2m to shore up the structure less than four years ago.

Continue reading...

UK’s cavalier attitude leaves Afghans facing yet more fear and uncertainty

Posted on by

Leaked details are just another example of how the UK let down Afghans who believed in what Britain promised their country

This week’s revelations about the UK’s dangerously cavalier treatment of Afghans who worked with British forces are shocking but not surprising.

The carelessness with which Britain went to war in Afghanistan was matched by the carelessness with which it left the country and its people to Taliban rule two decades later.

Continue reading...

Pupils in England to be taught law behind sex and gender identity, new guidance says

Posted on by

Updated RSHE guidance says curriculum should be ‘age appropriate’ and lifts strict age limits around teaching gender

Pupils in England should be taught what the law is on biological sex and gender reassignment, but schools must be “careful not to endorse any particular view or teach it as fact”, according to new government guidance.

The updated relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) guidance, published on Tuesday, says schools “should not teach as fact that all people have a gender identity” and must avoid any suggestion that social transitioning offers a “simple solution” to feelings of distress or discomfort.

Continue reading...

Children investigated over Russian and Iranian plots against UK, says police chief

Posted on by

Teenagers suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts on behalf of states, it is understood

Schoolchildren have been arrested by detectives investigating Russian and Iranian plots against Britain, a police chief has said, as he warned hostile state aggression was rising and youngsters were at risk.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit, said children in their “mid teens” had been investigated. It is understood they were suspected of being hired by criminals paid to carry out acts for Russia and Iran.

Continue reading...

Windrush commissioner pledges to fight for justice for marginalised groups

Posted on by

Clive Foster aims to ‘confront uncomfortable realities’ and expand his remit to help those faced with discrimination

The newly appointed Windrush commissioner has promised to expand his remit to fight for marginalised communities who have experienced discrimination in housing, education, employment and policing.

At a launch event on Wednesday, Clive Foster will tell the immigration minister, Seema Malhotra, that he does not intend to perform a public relations role for the government.

Continue reading...