Ex-nurse says inquiry should be suspended until review of convictions has finished
Lucy Letby has called for the public inquiry into her crimes to be halted, arguing there is now “overwhelming and compelling” evidence undermining her baby murder convictions.
Lawyers for the former nurse took the extraordinary step of writing to Lady Justice Thirlwall on Monday to say that the inquiry – which is due to end on Wednesday – should be suspended immediately.
Continue reading...Charlie Bean says OBR forecasts are ‘flaky’ and cautions against trying to hit targets five years away
The former Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean has warned the chancellor against making kneejerk cuts in next week’s spring statement to try to hit fiscal targets that are five years away.
Rachel Reeves is preparing to slash spending, including on disability benefits, in response to weaker forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – prompting a backlash from within her own party.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US
Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.
Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.
Continue reading...Health secretary says the scrapping of NHS England is ‘beginning, not end’ of bid to slash ‘bloated bureaucracy’
The health secretary has declared that scrapping NHS England is “the beginning, not the end” and has vowed to continue “slashing bloated bureaucracy”.
Wes Streeting suggested hundreds more quangos could be in the line of fire after the prime minister announced this week the end of the body overseeing the health service in England.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Streeting said: “The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end.
“Patients and staff alike can see the inefficiency and waste in the health service. My team and I are going through budgets line by line, with a relentless focus on slashing bloated bureaucracy.”
NHS England has managed the health service since 2012, when it was established to cut down on political interference in the NHS – something Streeting described as an act of “backside-covering” to avoid blame for failures.
But on Thursday, Keir Starmer announced this would come to an end as he unexpectedly revealed the government would abolish NHS England in an effort to avoid “duplication”.
In his Sunday Telegraph article, Streeting suggested more was to come, saying the new NHS England chair, Penny Dash, had “identified hundreds of bodies cluttering the patient safety and regulatory landscape, leaving patients and staff alike lost in a labyrinth of paperwork and frustration”.
The move towards scrapping NHS England and other health-related quangos marks a change in direction for Streeting, who in January said he would not embark upon a reorganisation of the NHS.
He told the Health Service Journal he could spend “a hell of a lot of time” on reorganisation “and not make a single difference to the patient interest”, saying instead he would focus on trying to “eliminate waste and duplication”.
But in the Telegraph article, Streeting said he had heard former Conservative health ministers “bemoan” not abolishing NHS England, adding: “If we hadn’t acted this week, the transformational reform the NHS needs wouldn’t have been possible.”
The government expects scrapping NHS England will take two years and save “hundreds of millions of pounds” that can be spent on frontline services.
But during the week, Downing Street would not be drawn on how many people were facing redundancy as a result of the changes.
The Guardian reported on Friday that the jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought.
The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000.
Many thousands more people who work for the NHS’s 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) in England will see their roles axed, as well as the 10,000 working for NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) who have already been earmarked to go.
One of those waiting for Labour’s announcement explains why he depends on personal independence payments
Adam Gabsi is unequivocal on the subject of his personal independence payment: “It really is an essential lifeline. I don’t feel that I would be able to function without it.”
Gabsi receives his Pip disability benefit for multiple sclerosis, with which he was diagnosed 18 years ago, when he was 21.
Continue reading...Controversial plans to cut personal independence payments (Pip) may be shelved after a tense cabinet meeting and backlash from Labour MPs
Ministers have left the door open to a humiliating U-turn on their highly contentious plans to cut benefits for disabled people, amid mounting uproar over the proposals across the Labour party.
Both Downing Street and the Department for Work and Pensions did not deny they were about to backtrack on plans to impose a real-terms cut to the personal independence payment (Pip) for disabled people, including those who cannot work, by cancelling an inflation-linked rise due to come into force next spring.
Continue reading...London council’s policy of offering people homes far from the area led to England’s highest number of refusals
A Labour-run London council left more than 100 families homeless without support last year after they refused to be relocated outside the borough, the Observer can reveal.
Freedom of information data from about 80% of English councils shows that they ended their legal duties to 615 households who refused offers of housing outside the local authority area in 2024 – but this national total is heavily skewed.
Continue reading...Uncollected food waste ‘poses public health danger’ as 400 workers take indefinite action over pay and conditions
A bin collection strike in Birmingham could lead to rats thriving on a “banquet” of food waste and pose a public health danger, pest controllers have said.
About 400 council bin workers in Birmingham began an indefinite strike on Tuesday as part of a dispute over pay and conditions.
Continue reading...Loss of staff will be at least twice as big as thought, as new NHS England chief tells regional boards to cut costs by 50%
The jobs cull from the government’s radical restructuring of the NHS will be at least twice as big as previously thought, with other parts of the health service now being downsized too.
The staff shakeout caused by NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting elsewhere will mean the number of lost posts will soar from the 10,000 expected to between 20,000 and 30,000.
Continue reading...Reforms proposed by health secretary predicted to save as much as £500m but could be distraction for ministers
Wes Streeting has ordered a “high stakes” reorganisation of the NHS that will scrap 10,000 jobs in an attempt to free up cash for frontline care.
Experts warned that the move to abolish NHS England and fold it into the Department of Health could distract ministers from the urgent job of ending long waits for treatment, while trade unions expressed concern about the “shambolic” announcement of job cuts for public servants.
Join Wes Streeting in conversation with Pippa Crerar discussing England’s health and social care system and how Labour plans to turn it around on Tuesday 25 March 2025, 7pm-8.15pm (GMT). Book tickets here or at guardianlive.com
Continue reading...Influential Labour figure says cuts ‘not a Labour thing to do’, while George Osborne says when chancellor he resisted move as ‘step too far’
The former shadow chancellor Ed Balls has criticised plans for cuts to disability benefits, saying on his podcast that it was “not going to work”.
George Osborne, the architect of welfare cuts during the coalition years, also told the same podcast that he had resisted freezing personal independence payments (Pip) – a move currently under consideration – because he felt it was going too far.
Continue reading...Union says staff will have been left reeling after surprise news that body will be scrapped
Starmer is now talking about regulatation, and giving examples of where he thinks it has gone too far.
l give you an example. There’s a office conversion in Bingley, which, as you know, is in Yorkshire. That is an office conversion that will create 139 homes.
But now the future of that is uncertain because the regulator was not properly consulted on the power of cricket balls. That’s 139 homes. Now just think of the people, the families, the individuals who want those homes to buy, those homes to make their life and now they’re held up. Why? You’ll decide whether this is a good reason because I’m going to quote this is the reason ‘because the ball strike assessment doesn’t appear to be undertaken by a specialist, qualified consultant’. So that’s what’s holding up these 139 homes.
When we had those terrible riots … what we saw then, in response, was dynamic. It was strong, it was urgent. It was what I call active government, on the pitch, doing what was needed, acting.
But for many of us, I think the feeling is we don’t really have that everywhere all of the time at the moment.
The state employs more people than we’ve employed for decades, and yet look around the country; do you see good value everywhere? Because I don’t.
I actually think it’s weaker than it’s ever been, overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly, unable to deliver the security that people need.
Continue reading...Israeli forces have used sexual violence as weapon to ‘dominate and destroy’ Palestinian people, report also says
Israel’s systemic attacks on women’s healthcare in Gaza amount to “genocidal acts”, and Israeli security forces have used sexual violence as a weapon of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”, a UN report states.
The 49-page report on sexual and gender-based violence was drawn up by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and presented to the UN human rights council.
Continue reading...Surrey was region of UK with most sign-ups for Smartphone Free Childhood’s parent pact, launched last year
An online campaign committing parents to bar their children from owning a smartphone until they are at least 14 has garnered 100,000 signatures in the six months since its launch.
The Smartphone Free Childhood campaign launched a “parent pact” in September in which signatories committed to withhold handsets from their children until at least the end of year 9, and to keep them off social media until they are 16.
Continue reading...First such study finds laws on abortion, debt and dress help increase rate of women being jailed twice as fast as for men
Poverty, abuse and discriminatory laws are driving a huge rise in the number of women in prison globally, according to a new report.
With the rise of the far right and an international backlash against women’s rights, the research said there was a risk that laws would increasingly be used to target women, forcing more behind bars.
Continue reading...Firings announced Tuesday as administration decried as ‘detached from how Americans live’
The US Department of Education intends to lay off nearly half of its workforce. The layoffs of 1,300 people were announced by the department on Tuesday and described by the education secretary, Linda McMahon, as a “significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system”.
In a post on X, McMahon said: “Today’s [reduction in force] reflects our commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”
Continue reading...Research has found that the number of ADHD prescriptions in England increased from around 25 per 1,000 people in 2019/20 to 41.55 in 2023/24
The number of prescriptions being issued in England for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication has risen by 18% year on year since the pandemic, with the biggest rise being seen in London, according to research.
Experts said increased public awareness via social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok could be a factor behind the substantial rise in prescription rates, encouraging “more people to seek assessment, diagnosis and treatment”.
Continue reading...Health secretary accuses food companies of ‘exploiting loophole’ over food safety and urges greater transparency
The US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has directed the Food and Drug Administration to revise safety rules to help eliminate a provision that allows companies to self-affirm that food ingredients are safe.
The move would increase transparency for consumers as well as the FDA’s oversight of food ingredients considered to be safe, Kennedy said on Monday.
Continue reading...Police said they had identified Morgan Harris, 39, and had also found more remains of another person
Canadian police have identified the remains of a murdered Indigenous woman at a landfill and found more remains from another person, after a months-long search demanded by the families of victims targeted by a serial killer.
Police said in a statement they had confirmed that human remains found in the Prairie Green Landfill, north of Winnipeg, had been identified as those of Morgan Harris, who was 39.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Justice minister James Timpson says more cell capacity means emergency early release schemes won’t be needed
Prisons are being prepared to cope with a sudden influx of offenders in case there is a repeat of last summer’s riots, the justice minister, James Timpson, has told the Guardian.
Hundreds of extra makeshift cells and newly refurbished cells will be in use by the end of this year, officials have disclosed, as the prisons minister said there will be “no more emergency measures” such as early release schemes.
Continue reading...