Category Archives: Society

Ditching two-child benefit cap would cut deaths and A&E admissions, study says

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England research shows huge benefits with resulting savings for NHS and councils

Curbing child poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap would save hundreds of lives a year and avoid thousands of admissions to hospital, the largest study of its kind suggests.

Keir Starmer has faced repeated demands from within Labour ranks and opposition leaders to abolish the policy, which was announced in 2015 by George Osborne, then chancellor. Almost half of all children in some towns and cities now live below the breadline.

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Unions welcome scrapping of Tories’ ‘spiteful’ minimum service law

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Senior figures praise repeal of law but privately some want full workers’ rights overhaul implemented without delay

Unions have welcomed the government’s move to formally scrap a “draconian” anti-strike law that would have ensured a minimum level of service during industrial action as the legislation had restricted workers’ rights.

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, have written to government departments with sectors that were most affected by the strikes to give a “clear message” the measures will be repealed and have urged all metro mayors to start engaging with local employers on the change.

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‘Celebrations of life’ increasingly replacing traditional funerals in UK, study shows

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Report by Co-op Funeralcare highlights shift towards unusual venues, pets at services and glittery coffins

Traditional sombre funerals in religious settings are increasingly being replaced by “celebrations of life” with personal touches held at more unusual locations in the UK, according to a study.

Dr Who-themed farewells, glittery coffins and mourners dressed in football shirts are among requests received by funeral directors.

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NHS ‘soup and shake’ diet puts almost a third of type 2 diabetes cases in remission

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Programme may soon be expanded in England after study finds ‘life-changing benefits’ of meal replacement scheme

Tens of thousands more people in England living with type 2 diabetes could be offered an 800-calorie-a-day “soup and shake” diet after research found almost one in three on the groundbreaking NHS scheme permanently wiped out their disease.

Patients are given low-calorie meal replacement products such as soups, milkshakes and snack bars for three months, triggering rapid weight loss, before getting support to reintroduce normal food into their diet.

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Ministers prepare extra 500 prison places to remand suspected rioters

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Former young offender institution repurposed and abandoned cells made safe, while early release scheme continues

Ministers are preparing an additional 500 prison places to cope with an influx of people expected to be held on remand over the next month, the Ministry of Justice said on Monday.

From next week, cells will be used at the newly repurposed HMP Cookham Wood, a former young offender institution in the village of Borstal in Kent, that was closed in March after it was called “inhumane” by a prison watchdog.

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Portsmouth hospital reopens A&E after restoring power

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Queen Alexandra hospital had closed ward to new admissions and declared major incident after outage

A hospital has reopened its emergency department after closing it to new admissions and declaring a major incident after a power cut.

The outage on Monday morning at the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, Hampshire, also affected phone lines. A small number of procedures had to be cancelled.

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Challenges to deprivation of liberty orders in England soar by a third

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Campaigners say vulnerable people receiving care are being deprived of their freedom in order to save money

Growing numbers of vulnerable people receiving care are challenging deprivation of liberty (Dol) orders that can mean they are locked up or kept under restrictive supervision.

Dol orders are meant as a last resort but campaigners say the increase shows that too often people’s freedoms are restricted as a cheaper option.

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UK pensioners left on ‘financial cliff edge’ by cuts to winter fuel payments

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New analysis shows tens of thousands of older people may end up worse off than those who retain energy benefit

Tens of thousands of pensioners are on a financial cliff edge because of the government’s decision to radically restrict winter fuel payments, a new analysis has revealed. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, opted to introduce a means test for the payments, with only those on pension credit qualifying, stating it was one of the “difficult decisions” she had to make, as she accused the Tories of leaving £22bn in unfunded commitments.

The decision removes the payments from about 10 million pensioners in England and Wales. Officials said this weekend the policy would be among a package of measures “to fix the foundations of the economy”.

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UN calls for foreign security forces to be deployed faster to quash Haiti gang wars

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Armed gangs control much of Caribbean country’s capital with reports of 40 rape victims a day in areas, UN reports

The UN has called for the deployment of international security forces in Haiti to be accelerated after a report that at least 1,379 people were killed or wounded in gang warfare and 428 people kidnapped in the country between April and June this year.

“Service providers report receiving an average of 40 rape victims a day in some areas of the capital,” warns the new report from the UN’s office in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

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Children ‘at death’s door’ as famine declared in Sudanese refugee camp

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UN-backed early warning network confirms people in the Darfur city of El Fasher are starving to death

Famine has been declared in a Sudanese displacement camp in the besieged city of El Fasher.

About 600,000 people are estimated to be living in camps just outside the capital of North Darfur.

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Australian researchers are feeding peanut powder to babies with allergies. Why?

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Nationwide Adapt program will see babies aged under 12 months given a daily dose of powder to try to achieve allergy remission

Australia has the highest rates of childhood food allergies in the world, with peanut allergies alone affecting about three in every 100 children by one year of age.

It can create anxiety for the child and caregivers, as the risk of a life-threatening allergic reaction (known as anaphylaxis) makes it critical to avoid the allergen or ensure quick treatment.

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Somalia arrests another journalist as press clampdown intensifies

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Detention of reporters for covering sensitive news is having a ‘chilling’ effect on free media in Somalia, say rights groups

The arrest of a journalist for reporting on drug use in the Somali military is the latest incident in an apparent clampdown on critical reporting in the country, which is having a “chilling” effect on Somalia’s media, rights campaigners said.

AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of “immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces”, after publishing a now-deleted video suggesting that soldiers were vulnerable to attacks by al-Shabaab militants because of widespread use of the traditional narcotic khat.

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Hidden cost of UK workplace sickness rockets to £100bn a year, report finds

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Rising bill largely result of ‘staggering’ levels of presenteeism causing loss of productivity

The hidden cost of rising workplace sickness in the UK has increased to more than £100bn a year, largely caused by a loss of productivity amid “staggering” levels of presenteeism, a report warns.

Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows the cost of staff sickness has grown by £30bn a year to £103bn in 2023. The annual bill was £73bn in 2018, its study found.

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Benefit cap traps families in crowded, rat-infested homes, report finds

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Limit on welfare support, introduced in 2013, leaves some with just £4 a day for each family member

Low-income families affected by the benefit cap are living on as little as £4 for each person a day, often in overcrowded, rat-infested and damp homes with little prospect of escape, according to a new study.

The cap puts a ceiling on the amount a working-age family can receive in welfare support if no one in the household is working or they are on very low wages. Families affected by it in many parts of the country are, in effect, trapped in poor quality, private rented properties they cannot afford, even though these are often already the cheapest homes available in their local area, the London School of Economics study said.

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Winter fuel payments to be restricted as Reeves says there is £22bn spending shortfall – UK politics live

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Chancellor suggests budget, on 30 October, will involve tax rises and cuts to spending and benefits

Downing Street has refused to comment on a report saying junior doctors are being offered a pay rise worth about 20% over two years.

In a story for the Times, Steven Swinford reports:

The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee has recommended an offer that includes a backdated pay rise of 4.05 per cent for 2023-24, on top of an existing increase of between 8.8 per cent and 10.3 per cent.

Junior doctors will be given a further pay rise of 6 per cent for 2024-25, which will be topped up by a consolidated £1,000 payment. This is equivalent to a pay rise of between 7 per cent and 9 per cent.

As we’ve said before, we’re committed to working to find a solution, resolving this dispute, but I can’t get into detailed running commentary on negotiations.

We’ve been honest with the public and the sector about the economic circumstances we face. But the government is determined to do the hard work necessary to finally bring these strikes to an end.

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Hospital and road projects face cuts to plug £22bn fiscal hole, Reeves says

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Social care and winter fuel payments also targeted as chancellor accuses Tories of covering up scale of fiscal shortfall

Rachel Reeves has scrapped the social care cap and curbed winter fuel payments, as well as announcing big cuts to hospital and road projects, as she seeks to plug what she called a £22bn hole in public spending that was “covered up” by the Conservative government.

In a statement to the Commons that mixed detailed economics and partisan politics, the chancellor justified the cuts with the repeated mantra: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”

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Girls as young as nine gang-raped by paramilitaries in Sudan – report

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Human Rights Watch accuses RSF militia of ‘countless’ cases of rape and torture in Khartoum in 15-month civil war

Gunmen from a notorious militia roamed Sudan’s capital gang-raping “countless” women and girls, some as young as nine, according to an investigation documenting the shocking prevalence of sexual violence in Khartoum during the country’s civil war.

Some of the attacks by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were so brutal that women and girls died “due to the violence associated with the act of rape”, according to the research by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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Ruqia was murdered by the man she was forced to wed. Her mother has now been jailed over the marriage

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Sakina Muhammad Jan to serve at least 12 months in prison in Australia’s first forced marriage conviction

Ruqia Haidari wanted to marry for love.

Instead, she had an arranged marriage at the age of just 15, with the relationship ending in divorce when she was 20.

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Tories ‘deliberately covered up’ true state of public finances, says minister

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Steve Reed hits out at Conservatives’ handling of public services as chancellor prepares to detail ‘£20bn black hole’

The last Conservative government “deliberately covered up” the true state of public finances, a cabinet minister has said, as the chancellor prepares to detail a “£20bn black hole” in the public finances.

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, said his cabinet colleagues “always knew” the inheritance from the Tories was “going to be bad”, but that since coming to office they had found “additional pressures” that had not been disclosed by the Tories.

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‘We got failed by the police’: how veterans of Leeds riots stepped in to defuse disorder

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A group of Muslim men put themselves in danger to calm unrest in Harehills over children being taken into care

Nadsy Qurban bent his neck to show how the crown of his head was ­covered in a number of burns, each the size of coins. “The smell was like I’m burning some goat or something, like I’m cooking some goat. That’s how bad it was,” he said.

Needless to say, it hurt. But a week on, the burns he gained while putting out fires during unrest in the Harehills area of Leeds are ­starting to heal.

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