Category Archives: UK news

Housebuilders pledge £1.3bn for fire safety work on mid-rise blocks

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Funds for remediation including removal of flammable cladding still short of £4bn government estimate

Major UK housebuilders have so far promised to spend about £1.3bn to remove cladding and other fire hazards from mid-rise housing blocks, but are still short of the estimated £4bn needed to avoid another Grenfell Tower-style disaster.

On Wednesday Barratt Developments and Redrow were the latest to reveal how much they would put aside to address life-threatening fire safety issues in the housing developments constructed by the firms over the past 30 years. Barratt said the decision would cost it up to £400m, while the figure for Redrow is £200m.

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Liz Truss announces full asset freeze against Russia’s biggest bank

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Eight more oligarchs will also face sanctions and UK oil and coal imports will stop by end of year, says foreign secretary

The UK will impose a full asset freeze on Russia’s largest bank and end all imports of oil and coal by the end of the year, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

Eight more oligarchs will also be sanctioned, including Moshe Kantor, the largest shareholder of the fertiliser company Acron and Andrey Guryev, the founder of another key fertiliser company, whom the UK described as a close associate of Vladimir Putin.

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UK politics live: Boris Johnson defends national insurance increase amid cost of living crisis

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Latest updates: PM admits households are facing ‘unquestionably tough times’, but says NI increase is right thing for the NHS

Keir Starmer says the national insurance rise is “the wrong tax at the wrong time”.

The Labour leader said:

People are really, really struggling to pay their bills. And this is just going to impact on them very, very hard.

There are lots of landlords who’ve got many, many properties and they are not going to be paying a penny more in tax. Their tenants, who are going out to work, are going to be paying more in tax.

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Johnson says trans athletes should not compete in events that do not match biological sex

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PM also says women should have ‘dedicated’ spaces, amid fallout over decision to exclude trans conversion practices from ban

Boris Johnson has suggested athletes who are transgender should not be allowed to compete in sports competitions that do not match their biological sex, amid the fallout from his decision not to ban conversion practices for people questioning their gender.

The prime minister said the issue “wasn’t something I thought that I would have to consider in great detail”. Johnson also said that women should have spaces in hospitals, prisons and changing rooms which were “dedicated to women”.

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Logan Mwangi: stepfather punched boy twice days before body found, jury told

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Angharad Williamson is accused with partner, John Cole, and teenager of murdering her five-year-old son

A woman accused of murdering her five-year-old son has told a jury his stepfather violently attacked her “beautiful, happy boy” two days before he was found dead in a river.

Angharad Williamson, 31, claimed her 6ft 4in partner, John Cole, 40, punched 3ft 5in Logan Mwangi twice in the stomach, causing him to land hard on the floor.

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National Grid to be partly nationalised to help reach net zero targets

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Electricity System Operator, the division that keeps the lights on in Great Britain, will form part of a new public body

The job of keeping the UK’s electricity and gas flowing will be returned to public control by 2024, under government plans for the effective nationalisation of a division of National Grid.

A new public body, the “Future System Operator”, will have responsibility for planning and managing energy distribution, with a focus on the challenges posed by decarbonisation.

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Briton who died with son in Australia landslide named as Mehraab Nazir

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Lawyer’s wife still in critical condition while second son stable after rockslide in Blue Mountains near Sydney

Tributes have been paid to a British lawyer and his nine-year-old son killed in a landslide while on holiday in Australia.

Mehraab Nazir, 49, had been hiking with his family in the Wentworth Pass area of the Blue Mountains, a national park west of Sydney, on Monday when they were caught in the rockslide. His and his son’s bodies were recovered the next morning.

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Wiltshire hunt supporters fined after admitting clashing with saboteurs

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William Renny, Callum Lewis and Evan Lorne pleaded guilty to public order offences at December hunt in Lacock

Three hunt supporters have been fined for public order offences after admitting clashing with saboteurs at a post-Christmas meet in Wiltshire.

William Renny, 30, Callum Lewis, 26, and Evan Lorne, 18, pleaded guilty to using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause unlawful violence.

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Ex-P&O Ferries chef sues for unfair dismissal and racial discrimination

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John Lansdown seeking up to £76m, which he will use to set up trust to help fellow seafarers

A former P&O Ferries chef is suing the company for £76m over its decision to sack almost 800 staff without notice last month.

John Lansdown, the only seafarer to launch a legal action, has filed a tribunal claim against the company and its chief executive for unfair dismissal, racial discrimination and harassment.

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Maradona’s shirt from ‘hand of God’ England match expected to sell for £4m

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Former England midfielder Steve Hodge has owned Maradona’s no 10 shirt since the 1986 match

Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal made footballing history and cemented the legendary status of the Argentinian superstar. Now the shirt he wore when he scored that goal at the 1986 World Cup is estimated to sell for at least £4m.

Maradona’s no 10 shirt has been owned for the past 35 years by the former England midfielder Steve Hodge. The two players swapped shirts at the end of the quarter-final between Argentina and England.

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Partygate: ministers refuse to disclose pictures taken by No 10 photographers

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Cabinet Office won’t confirm or deny existence of taxpayer-funded pictures of illegal gatherings after freedom of information request

Ministers are refusing to disclose any pictures taken by official No 10 photographers of illegal gatherings held inside Downing Street, prompting Labour to call on Boris Johnson to “come clean and release these photos”.

The Cabinet Office refused to confirm or deny the existence of any photographs of events in the cabinet room, leaving parties, and a party in the prime minister’s Downing Street flat, after official pictures of the gatherings were requested under freedom of information laws.

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LGBTQ+ conference cancelled over conversion practices furore

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Organisations pulled out of Safe to Be Me after government failure to ban conversion practices for transgender people

The government’s flagship LGBTQ+ conference is to be cancelled after it fell into disarray with more organisations pulling out and a key government adviser accusing ministers of waging a “woke war”.

With Downing Street under fire for watering down its commitment to ban conversion practices, the Safe to Be Me event due to be hosted in June has now been scrapped.

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‘Heroic’ neighbour died in kettlebell attack saving two-year-old

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Milton Keynes coroner rules highways officer Richard Woodcock was unlawfully killed

A “heroic” neighbour who sacrificed his life to save a two-year-old boy died after being repeatedly hit with a kettlebell, a coroner has said.

The body of Richard Woodcock, 38, a highways officer, was found by Thames Valley police when they forced their way into a property in Milton Keynes on 26 June last year.

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Tory ’revenge’ against Channel 4 could turn into bruising battle

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Analysis: why ministers are risking political capital pushing ahead now with privatisation plan is unclear

According to one key individual involved in the battle for Channel 4’s future, the broadcaster is a “wonderful company doing a fantastic job”, it is performing well financially and plays a crucial role in supporting the British television ecosystem.

Curiously, that individual is Stephen Parkinson, a government minister arguing that the only solution to secure Channel 4’s future is to rapidly privatise it and sell it off to a commercial owner, possibly one based overseas.

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Ministers launch fracking study, paving way to end moratorium in England

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Conservatives seek to examine latest techniques, citing rising energy costs

Ministers have paved the way for a reconsideration of the moratorium on fracking in England by commissioning a new study to examine safety concerns about the controversial practice.

In an effort to decrease Britain’s reliance on imported energy given spiralling costs, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said it was “absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources”.

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Channel 4 privatisation plans face Tory backlash – UK politics as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest stories on Channel 4 below:

DCMS select committee chair Julian Knight has questioned if the government’s plans to forge forward with the privatisation of Channel 4 are “revenge”, adding that many Tories believe the move is “payback time” for “biased coverage”.

Knight said Channel 4 could succeed if it was privatised and managed well, but it’s “a big risk” and “must be done as part of a thorough overhaul of all public service broadcasting”.

It is certainly true that Channel 4 will have greater freedom to compete once privatised and if managed well it should be able to continue to innovate and crucially appeal to young audiences - a real USP in today’s broadcast landscape.

However, this is a big risk. The question has to be, do you think a restricted but brilliant small state broadcaster will part compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon or does it need to be able to borrow and grow in a way only privatisation can unlock?

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Ukraine war to slow growth and drive up poverty in Asia, World Bank warns

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Conflict adds strain to developing economies in east Asia and Pacific already struggling with Covid and inflation

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further dampened the economic prospects for developing countries in east Asia and the Pacific, meaning lower economic growth and higher poverty in the region this year, the World Bank has warned.

The Ukraine factor came on top of the existing risks that the region – home to 2.1 billion people and stretching from China to Papua New Guinea – has been facing in recent years. They included the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the financial tightening in the US, and the pandemic resurgence amid China’s zero-Covid policies.

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UK politicians request visa scheme for Ukrainian students and academics

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In a letter to Priti Patel, the cross-party group calls for temporary places where those displaced can study and carry out research

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has joined forces with UK universities in calling for the visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to be extended to temporary placements for students and academics.

In a letter to Priti Patel, the home secretary, the parliamentarians and Universities UK, the advocacy organisation for universities, said the scheme should provide visas and temporary places for displaced students and academics to study and carry out research.

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Repeated maternity failings uncovered in Sheffield NHS trust

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Watchdog expresses concern over safety of mothers and babies days after damning Shrewsbury report

Hospital inspectors have uncovered repeated maternity failings and expressed serious concern about the safety of mothers and babies in Sheffield just days after a damning report warned there had been hundreds of avoidable baby deaths in Shrewsbury.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found Sheffield teaching hospitals NHS foundation trust, one of the largest NHS trusts in England, had failed to make the required improvements to services when it visited in October and November, despite receiving previous warnings from the watchdog.

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Priti Patel’s immigration bill suffers multiple defeats in Lords

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Peers find fault with many aspects of nationality and borders bill, in particular proposal to divide refugees into classes

Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill has been ripped apart for a second time by the House of Lords as the government suffered more than 10 defeats over controversial proposals to tighten immigration rules.

Peers supported proposals to ensure that the bill complied with the 1951 Refugee Convention and challenged the government’s plan to redefine refugees into two classes based on how they arrived in the UK.

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