Law must be strengthened, says home secretary, so professionals like teachers and carers face ‘full force of law’ if they fail in their duty to protect
The home secretary is to spell out new requirements for people working with children in England to report signs or suspicions of sexual abuse.
The government is expected to set out details of plans in the coming days to tackle grooming gangs and better protect children.
Continue reading...Council tax and planning changes aim to make housing more affordable for those on local incomes
Radical measures giving councils in Wales a raft of extra powers designed to stop second homes hollowing out communities, especially in coastal and rural areas, have come into force.
Local authorities across Wales are using the powers to increase the amount of council tax that second home owners must pay and will also be able to bring in changes to planning rules to make it harder for houses and flats to be snapped up as holiday boltholes.
Continue reading...Experts say developers deterred by changes to planning system brought in by successive Tory governments
Planning applications in England have fallen to their lowest level in at least 16 years, according to figures published this week by the levelling up department that highlight the scale of the country’s housing crisis.
Local authorities received fewer applications to build new buildings or improve old ones in 2022 than at any point since before 2006, the earliest year for which the government provides statistics.
Continue reading...Inspectors say ‘deeply troubling’ behaviour found at fire and rescue services across England may be ‘tip of the iceberg’
Every fire brigade in England is plagued with bullying, harassment and discrimination complaints, a damning report has found, and officials have called for drastic measures to clean up the service.
Inspectors urged bosses to carry out background checks on every firefighter, with those who fail being sacked, after long-awaited findings shone a light on “deeply troubling” behaviour in the emergency service.
A senior officer accused of calling a black colleague the N-word dismissing it as simply “having a laugh”.
A firefighter reporting a superior for making a racist comment, only to find his account dismissed because the alleged offender “wouldn’t behave in such a way”. The senior officer in question then threatened “to make his life hell”.
Two male firefighters mockingly told a female colleague they were “going to rape her”, before simulating it with her.
Some staff being reluctant to speak up after being told it would be “career suicide” to do so.
Continue reading...Possible byelection looms for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after MP travelled back to Scotland on train after positive test in 2020
The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.
Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she should be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.
Continue reading...Faith in bloc higher than that in UK parliament for first time in three decades of World Values Survey
People in Britain have more confidence in the EU than the UK parliament, reversing a state of affairs that has lasted for more than 30 years, research reveals.
Since the UK voted for Brexit, the proportion of people declaring confidence in parliament has slumped by 10 percentage points to 22% while there has been a seven percentage point rise in confidence in the Brussels-based bloc, to 39%. Confidence in the UK government also fell from 2017 to 2021.
Continue reading...Scheduling makes Wales hearing look like ‘poorer relative’, say unions, while NI families say at least six weeks is needed
Bereaved families have strongly criticised proposals by the UK Covid-19 inquiry to set aside only three weeks each for its public hearings on the responses to the pandemic in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru argued that the Labour-led Welsh government would escape proper scrutiny unless more time was allocated. Trade union leaders suggested there was a risk Wales could be seen as the “poorer relative” in the inquiry.
Continue reading...Patchiness and exemptions of anti-vilification laws based on gender and sexuality leave queer community vulnerable, advocate says
LGBTQ+ advocates are calling for stronger legal protections following a series of attacks against Australia’s queer community.
Earlier this month neo-Nazis held a banner reading “destroy paedo freaks” at a rally in Melbourne attended by trans rights activists, and days later an LGBTQ+ group said they were attacked by a mob while protesting outside a Sydney church.
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Continue reading...India’s patent office turns down bedaquiline extension to Johnson & Johnson, clearing the way for generic versions
People with drug-resistant tuberculosis in India could soon have access to critical medication at a far lower cost after the authorities rejected US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson’s application to extend a patent.
The firm wanted to extend its patent on bedaquiline, which expires in July, until 2027, which would have prevented cheaper generic versions reaching the market.
Continue reading...In bid to reduce nuisance behaviour ads will be triggered if people search online for terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’
The city of Amsterdam is geo-targeting a campaign to tell young British men wanting a “messy” weekend to stay away.
Research has suggested these Britons aged 18-35, and Dutch men of a similar age, tend to cause most nuisance in the red light district, with stag parties, pub crawls and all-night drink and drug benders making life unbearable for residents.
Continue reading...Matiullah Wesa, head of Pen Path, beaten and arrested outside a mosque after prayers
The founder of a project that campaigned for girls’ education in Afghanistan has been detained by Taliban authorities in Kabul, his brother and the UN have said.
The Taliban government last year barred girls from attending secondary school, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where there is a ban on education.
Continue reading...Police will also have greater drug testing powers as part of crackdown on antisocial behaviour
The sale of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, to the public will be banned and the police will be given enhanced drug-testing powers as part of Rishi Sunak’s attempt to crack down on antisocial behaviour “with urgency”.
The levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, said the proposals would stop parks being turned into drug-taking arenas, and would help ministers stamp out antisocial behaviour.
Continue reading...Unions, regulators and NHS England all say staff shortages are affecting health of medics and patients
“There’s a gap today that no locum filled, so I am carrying both bleeps and doing the work of two people.” That recent tweet, by a children’s doctor, is one of many examples posted on social media by medics illustrating how NHS staff shortages affect them, patients, the smooth running of important services – and, sometimes, the safety of those who are receiving care.
It is a concern shared by every organisation that represents frontline staff, by regulators such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and by NHS England, the body that oversees the service. Just as one example, in January the CQC reported that an inspection it had undertaken of Colchester hospital in Essex found patients were missing out on meals because there were too few staff on duty to feed them. Some patients were wearing dirty dressings, and others did not have their call bells answered promptly, for the same reason.
Continue reading...Exclusive: workplace plan sent to ministers says deficit will rise rapidly from current 154,000 if current trends continue
The NHS in England needs a massive injection of homegrown doctors, nurses, GPs and dentists to avert a recruitment crisis that could leave it short of 571,000 staff, according to an internal document seen by the Guardian.
A long-awaited workforce plan produced by NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs, and that number could balloon to 571,000 staff by 2036 on current trends.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Surgeons raise concerns that people using jabs are unaware of risks of redundant skin
From unbearable side-effects to cravings curbed: readers on weight-loss jabs
A surge in the number of people using slimming jabs to lose weight could lead to a rise in patients travelling abroad for tummy tucks or other surgery to remove excess skin, surgeons have said.
Drugs such as liraglutide and semaglutide, which could help people reduce their weight by more than 10%, have been approved for use on the NHS for certain groups of people with obesity, although supplies of the latter under the brand name Wegovy have yet to arrive in the UK.
Continue reading...Washington Post and KFF study found 78% of respondents said living as different gender from birth increased satisfaction in life
A large majority of transgender adults say that transitioning has made them more satisfied with their life, according to a new survey.
The survey conducted by the Washington Post and KFF is the largest nongovernmental survey of transgender adults that uses random samplings.
Continue reading...One-fifth of UK population was in relative poverty after first year of pandemic, when support measures scrapped
Families including 800,000 children were forced to turn to food banks to feed themselves as poverty levels started to rise again after the first year of the pandemic, the first official figures on UK food bank use show.
The statistics came in official poverty data, which revealed that the reduction in relative poverty achieved during the first year of the Covid crisis in 2020-21 was temporary and was reversed after ministers scrapped support measures.
In-work poverty remains high – half (54%) of people in poverty lived in a household where at least one adult was in work, while more than two-thirds of children in poverty (71%) lived in working families.
Child poverty rates were much higher among black (53%) and Asian (47%) families than white families (25%). About 44% of children in single-parent families, and 36% of children living in families where someone has a disability, were in poverty.
Continue reading...Findings reveal level of disruption over three days in July when temperatures reached as high as 40C
Almost a fifth of hospitals in the UK were forced to cancel operations during the three days in July last year when temperatures soared highest, research suggests.
The findings, published in a letter to the British Journal of Surgery, are based on surveys of surgeons, anaesthetists and critical care doctors who were working during the peak of last year’s heatwave, from 16-19 July, when temperatures reached as high as 40C in some parts of the country.
Continue reading...Burnout, poor work/life balance and ‘unsustainable’ pressures are causing many NHS family practitioners to consider retirement
GPs in the UK have some of the highest stress levels and lowest job satisfaction among family doctors, a 10-country survey has found.
British GPs suffer from high levels of burnout, have a worse work/life balance and spend less time with patients during appointments than their peers in many other places.
Continue reading...Only 15% of local councils collect data on proportion of parents who are able to access sufficient childcare
The government’s claims that there are enough childcare places in England are “meaningless” as councils collect little to no information on whether provision meets local demand, experts have said.
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area under section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006.
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