Category Archives: UK news

Half of people trying to get permanent UK residency by 10-year route struggle to afford food

Posted on by

Effects of ‘devastating and punishing’ Home Office system introduced in 2012 now being felt, experts say

More than half the people trying to secure permanent residency in the UK through the Home Office’s “devastating and punishing” 10-year route struggle to afford food and pay bills, a survey has indicated.

The 10-year route to settling permanently in the UK was one of a series of deliberately tough measures introduced in 2012 by Theresa May when she was home secretary, as part of drive to cut net migration. Researchers say the full effects of the policy are only now starting to be felt.

Continue reading...

Spending on British libraries falls 17% as in-person visits soar

Posted on by

Official figures show £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales last year, down from £11,970 the year before

Spending on libraries in Britain has fallen by 17%, according to new statistics, despite in-person visits increasing by 68% since the pandemic.

Figures released by CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, show that in 2021/22 £9,982 was spent per 1,000 people on libraries by central and local government in England, Scotland and Wales. This was down from £11,970 in 2020/21 and £12,646 in 2018/19.

Continue reading...

Misplaced tube may have contributed to London boy’s Covid death, inquest hears

Posted on by

Doctor who treated Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab in March 2020 says breathing tube was in wrong position

An incorrectly placed breathing tube could have contributed to the death of a 13-year-old boy who became the UK’s first known child victim of Covid-19, a doctor has told the inquest into his death.

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, of Brixton, south London, died of acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by coronavirus pneumonia in the early hours of 30 March 2020, three days after testing positive for the virus.

Continue reading...

Peer urges unionists to ignore ‘communal rhetoric’ in assessing Brexit deal

Posted on by

Paul Bew calls on people to respond to substance of Rishi Sunak’s revised Northern Ireland deal alone

A peer and Northern Ireland expert has urged unionists to respond to the substance of Rishi Sunak’s revised Brexit deal alone, rather than the “communal rhetoric” that has been whipped up by others.

Paul Bew told MPs on Wednesday it was “important” that people recognised the tricky political task facing the Democratic Unionist party leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, who must balance the views of the party and its base when making a decision on whether to support the Windsor framework.

Continue reading...

Thousands of pupils in England lose out on first-choice secondary school place

Posted on by

Of 33 councils polled, 18 reported a decline in the proportion of families getting their first preference

Thousands of 10 and 11-year-olds have failed to get into their first choice of secondary school as offers were made across England, but the expected increase in demand for year 7 places in some big cities once again failed to materialise.

There were predictions that the proportion of children awarded a place at their top choice could hit a record low nationally this year as a result of a baby boom 11 years ago, but in London and Birmingham the number of applications and success rates were similar to last year.

Continue reading...

UK weather: snow and frost forecast as March temperatures set to fall

Posted on by

Met Office says start of spring will be colder than usual, after provisionally driest February in 30 years

March may be the first month of meteorological spring but switching the woolly coat for a lighter jacket may have to be put on hold. Forecasters have said temperatures are likely to be slightly colder than usual this year in the UK.

As February drew to an end, the Met Office said parts of the country had increased chances of snow, frost and fog in the coming weeks. The odds of wintry showers were particularly short in the first week of March, it said, with coastal areas in the northern and eastern areas of the UK likely to feel it first, before the cold weather moves southwards.

Continue reading...

UK government made £2.4bn from ‘mortgage prisoner’ loan sales, says Martin Lewis

Posted on by

Tens of thousands of borrowers had their loans sold on to providers at which they were unable to switch

The UK government made a £2.4bn “profit” when it pushed tens of thousands of mortgage borrowers “into poverty” after selling their loans on to new lenders, the campaigner Martin Lewis has claimed.

The MoneySavingExpert founder was speaking at the launch of a report, which he funded, into the plight of “mortgage prisoners”: a group of borrowers caught up in the fallout from the 2007-08 financial crisis.

Continue reading...

Labour challenges Hunt to adopt NHS training policy he wanted to ‘nick’

Posted on by

Rachel Reeves tasks chancellor with finding money to double England’s doctor and nurse training places

Rachel Reeves has challenged Jeremy Hunt to find the money for Labour’s plan to double training places for doctors and nurses – pointing out he said he wanted to “nick” the opposition’s policy just two weeks before becoming chancellor.

The shadow chancellor said NHS shortages were causing 1.5 million people in need of medical treatment to say their work was suffering, with new analysis showing it was costing the economy about £700m a year.

Continue reading...

Kemi Badenoch dismisses idea of trialling menopause leave because it was proposed ‘from a leftwing perspective’ – as it happened

Posted on by

Minister for women and equalities dismisses suggestion government should pilot menopause leave for women

PMQs is about to start.

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s chief whip, has said that he thinks the Stormont brake – the mechanism at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol – will turn out to be “fairly ineffective”.

Let’s not underestimate the fact that when the EU introduces new laws in the future, it will have an impact on Northern Ireland. And the point of the brake was meant to be to give a means for unionists to oppose that. I think it will have to be used on lots of occasions, though I suspect to be fairly ineffective.

As long as it takes us to get, first of all, the analysis, and secondly, the answers from the government, before we make that decision, that’s the time we’ll take.

But the one thing I’ll say to you is that we will not have a knee-jerk reaction to this deal. It means too much to us. And we have got to give it real consideration.

Continue reading...

Foreign Office scaling back support for UK Sikh activist held in India, Keir Starmer says

Posted on by

Sunak’s government has refused to echo assertion that Jagtar Singh Johal is being arbitrarily detained

Rishi Sunak and the Foreign Office appear to be scaling back the UK’s support for Jagtar Singh Johal, the British Sikh activist held in an Indian jail for five years, his family and Keir Starmer have said.

Sunak’s government has refused invitations to echo Boris Johnson’s assertion that the Indian government has arbitrarily detained Johal, a term seen as significant because it means the UK does not recognise there is a proper legal basis to hold him.

Continue reading...

Number of UK children in food poverty nearly doubles in a year to 4m

Posted on by

Support grows for expansion of free school meals to struggling families in face of rising hunger

The number of UK children in food poverty has nearly doubled in the last year to almost 4 million, new data shows, ramping up pressure on ministers to expand the provision of free school meals to struggling families.

According to the Food Foundation thinktank, one in five (22%) of households reported skipping meals, going hungry or not eating for a whole day in January, up from 12% at the equivalent point in 2022.

Continue reading...

Starmer makes it his ‘personal mission’ to tackle domestic violence

Posted on by

Labour leader tells Women’s Aid conference he will use his own experience as DPP after collapse in number of charges

Keir Starmer has vowed to make it his “personal mission” to stand up for victims of domestic violence, after a collapse in the number of charges brought for the crime.

The Labour leader said that as the director of public prosecutions he had witnessed “the devastating impact domestic violence has on victims and their families”, and how abuse often escalated into other forms of serious violence.

Continue reading...

AI could help NHS surgeons perform 300 more transplants every year, say UK surgeons

Posted on by

Researchers have secured £1m to refine method of scoring potential organs by comparing images

Artificial intelligence could help NHS surgeons perform 300 more transplant operations every year, according to British researchers who have designed a new tool to boost the quality of donor organs.

Currently, medical staff must rely on their own assessments of whether an organ may be suitable for transplanting into a patient. It means some organs are picked that ultimately do not prove successful, while others that might be useful can be disregarded.

Continue reading...

UK energy firms must pass on price savings to customers, ministers warn

Posted on by

Grant Shapps to tell suppliers that reduced wholesale prices must be seen in consumer prices

Ministers have warned energy firms that they must pass on the benefits of lower wholesale prices to consumers, amid concern that bills could rise this spring.

In a speech on Wednesday, Grant Shapps will tell energy suppliers that reduced wholesale prices must be seen in consumer prices, “no ifs, buts or maybes”.

Continue reading...

England’s poorer pupils face ‘geographic exclusion’ from top state schools – study

Posted on by

Offering places by proximity results in selection of pupils from more affluent households, say researchers

Disadvantaged children are suffering “geographic exclusion” from England’s best state schools because they cannot afford to live near those with the best exam results, according to new research published by the University of Bristol.

The research found that very few state secondary schools give priority to pupils who qualify for free school meals, despite the government’s admissions rules being redesigned more than eight years ago allowing them to do so.

Continue reading...

Lufthansa’s ‘green’ adverts banned in UK for misleading consumers

Posted on by

Airline claim that it was protecting the world’s future is latest ad to fall foul of ASA rules

An ad campaign by Lufthansa claiming that its green initiatives were protecting the world has been banned by the UK advertising watchdog, which ruled it was misleading consumers over the environmental impact of flying.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) launched an investigation into the campaign – which featured a plane with an image of the Earth on its underside and the strapline: “Connecting the world. Protecting its future” – over concerns the German airline was giving consumers a “misleading impression of its environmental impact”.

Continue reading...

‘It was time to act as adults’: how Sunak charmed his way through a deal

Posted on by

Timing, trust and intense talks brought Northern Ireland deal over the finish line

During the final talks on the new post-Brexit deal for Northern Ireland in Windsor on Monday, Rishi Sunak briefly halted proceedings to present Stéphanie Riso, a key member of Ursula von der Leyen’s negotiating team, with a small birthday gift.

The top official, who is moving to a senior European Commission role after six years living and breathing Brexit, was said by those present to have been visibly moved that the prime minister had both known and then chosen to mark the moment.

Continue reading...

Brexit: Sunak urges Tories not to create ‘another Westminster drama’ over Northern Ireland deal – as it happened

Posted on by

PM says DUP should be given time to assess deal as Steve Baker says party awaits reaction ‘with bated breath’

In his Today interview Rishi Sunak said that Northern Ireland was an “incredibly attractive” place to invest because it was within the UK, but also within the EU single market. It is an argument ministers are regularly made over the past three years to try to persuade unionists of the benefits of the protocol, and Sunak indicated that he will be reviving it again today when he speaks to people in Northern Ireland. He said:

I’ve spent a lot of time engaging with business group [in Northern Ireland]. I thank them, actually, for that engagement and this agreement ensures that they will have a continuing role.

But they all say to me, if we can get this resolved in the way that we have, that will unlock an enormous amount of invesment.

Continue reading...

Carbon emissions from global SUV fleet outweighs most countries

Posted on by

Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

The continued global rise in the sale of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

Continue reading...

Labour says it will urge UK firms to publish menopause action plan

Posted on by

Menopausal women could be offered paid time off as part of efforts to support wellbeing of women

Menopausal women could be offered paid time off and working environments with temperature-controlled areas under Labour plans to support the wellbeing of women in the workplace.

About one in 10 women aged 45-55 left their jobs last year due to their symptoms and ultimately the lack of workplace support, according to research supported by the Fawcett Society.

Continue reading...