Category Archives: Society

DWP warns carers they could face greater penalties if they appeal against fines

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Officials at Department for Work and Pensions accused of ‘threatening and cruel’ tactics over repayment orders

Government officials have been accused of using “threatening and cruel” tactics towards unpaid carers by saying they could face even greater financial penalties if they appeal against “vindictive” benefit fines.

This month a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of people who look after disabled, frail or ill relatives have been forced to pay back huge sums after being chased by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over “honest mistakes” that officials could have spotted years earlier.

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Hundreds evicted from France’s biggest squat months before Paris Olympics

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Charities say authorities want to clear homeless people from streets and squats to make city look better for Games

Police have evicted hundreds of people from the biggest squat in France, in a southern suburb of Paris, prompting fresh accusations from charities that authorities are seeking to clear refugees, asylum seekers and homeless people from the capital area before the Olympics.

The squat, in an abandoned bus company headquarters in Vitry-sur-Seine, had been home to up to 450 people, many of whom had refugee status, legal paperwork and jobs in France, but who could not find proper housing. As they left the building they were encouraged to board buses to other parts of France.

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Sweden passes law lowering age to legally change gender from 18 to 16

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Proposal sparked intense debate in country but passed with 234 votes in favour and 94 against

Sweden’s parliament has passed a law lowering the minimum age to legally change gender from 18 to 16 and making it easier to get access to surgical interventions.

The law passed with 234 votes in favour and 94 against in Sweden’s 349-seat parliament.

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Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds

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Swiss food firm’s infant formula and cereal sold in global south ignore WHO anti-obesity guidelines for Europe, says Public Eye

Nestlé, the world’s largest consumer goods company, adds sugar and honey to infant milk and cereal products sold in many poorer countries, contrary to international guidelines aimed at preventing obesity and chronic diseases, a report has found.

Campaigners from Public Eye, a Swiss investigative organisation, sent samples of the Swiss multinational’s baby-food products sold in Asia, Africa and Latin America to a Belgian laboratory for testing.

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One in 52 Blackpool children in care as poverty soars in north of England

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£25bn of public money would have been saved between 2019 and 2023 if north had same care entry rates as south, report says

One in every 52 children in Blackpool are in care compared with one in 140 across England, leading to calls for more to be done to urgently tackle the widening north-south divide, brought on by “decades of underinvestment”.

Nine in every thousand children are in care in the north, compared with six in the rest of England, according to a report by Health Equity North.

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Ban smacking children in England and Northern Ireland, say doctors

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Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health urges ministers to follow lead of Scotland and Wales

Parents in England and Northern Ireland should be banned from smacking their children because doing so is unjust, dangerous and harmful, leading doctors have urged ministers.

It was “a scandal” that Scotland and Wales had outlawed smacking but not the other two home nations, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said on Wednesday.

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Teasing children about weight increases risk of self-stigma as adults, study finds

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Research reveals ‘long-lasting effects’ caused by pressure from parents, families, bullies and the media

Parents who tease their children about their weight are putting them at greater risk of feeling bad about their bodies decades later, regardless of whether they grow up to have obesity or not, a groundbreaking study has found.

Thirteen-year-olds who felt pressure from family members to shed pounds and endured weight-based teasing showed higher levels of internalised weight stigma when they turned 31, according to research by the University of Bristol published on Tuesday in the Lancet Regional Health Europe journal.

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Covid pandemic made poorest countries even worse off, World Bank warns

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Poverty reduction drive all but halted across many nations as Bank calls for more money to tackle a ‘great reversal’

The devastating impact of the pandemic on the world’s poorest countries has brought poverty reduction to a halt and led to a widening income gap with nations in the rich west, the World Bank has warned.

In a report released to coincide with its half-yearly meeting, the Washington-based organisation said half of the world’s 75 poorest nations had seen income per head rise more slowly than in developed countries over the past five years.

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Tobacco firms lobbying MPs to derail smoking phase-out, charity warns

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Exclusive: Tactics include proposals to raise smoking age to avoid outright ban, and exemptions for cigars, says Cancer Research UK chief

Tobacco firms are lobbying MPs and peers in an effort to derail Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy to phase out smoking, the head of Britain’s biggest cancer charity has said.

The prime minister’s landmark legislation – which would bar anyone born after 2009 from buying cigarettes and make England the first country in the world to ban smoking – is due to be debated in parliament for the first time on Tuesday.

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More than 2,000 NHS buildings in England older than NHS, figures show

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Lib Dems and health trusts say patient and staff safety being put at risk by poor state of ageing infrastructure

Millions of patients are being put at risk in crumbling hospitals that are unfit for purpose, MPs have said, as figures reveal more than 2,000 NHS buildings are older than the health service itself.

Health bosses have repeatedly warned ministers of the urgent need to plough cash into replacing rundown buildings in order to protect the safety of patients and staff. The maintenance backlog has risen to £11.6bn in England.

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Thousands of disabled people ‘will get £2,800 a year less under universal credit’

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Single people with long-term disability that stops them working will be much poorer after rollout, Resolution Foundation says

The rollout of universal credit is on course to make thousands of working-age disabled people significantly poorer, according to a report showing that more than 7 million people will be covered by the six-into-one benefit change before the end of the next parliament.

A single person with a long-term disability that prevents them from working is £2,800 a year worse off when they transfer to universal credit (UC), the Resolution Foundation said, adding that all single people with long-term disabilities will suffer this loss of income when the rollout of UC is completed by 2030.

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UK swapped to fatal US blood products to save money, minutes suggest

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Exclusive: contaminated blood campaigners say internal 1976 Immuno AG document proves British government negligence

The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to get “lower-priced” blood products, according to a document that campaigners claim proves state and corporate guilt in one of the country’s worst ever scandals.

A public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with conditions such as HIV and hepatitis will publish its final report in May, four decades after the NHS started prescribing blood and blood products – including from drug users, prisoners and sex workers – sourced from the US.

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Revealed: hundreds of vulnerable children sent to illegal and unregulated care homes in England

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Observer investigation finds that private companies made £105m despite not being registered with Ofsted

Hundreds of extremely vulnerable school-age children in England are being sent to illegal, unregulated homes every year because of a chronic shortage of places in secure local authority units.

An Observer investigation has established that councils placed 706 children, the majority of them under the age of 16, in their care in homes that were not registered with Ofsted, the children’s social care watchdog, in 2022-23.

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Veteran trans campaigner: ‘Cass review has potential for positive change’

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Stephen Whittle talks about life for young trans people in the 1970s and now, and the influence of ‘anti-trans’ views today

When Stephen Whittle transitioned as a teenager in 1975, he was one of only a handful of young people in the UK to be offered hormone treatment and, later, surgery.

Almost half a century later – much of it spent fighting for trans rights – he said there was “masses” he agreed with in this week’s review of the NHS’s gender identity services by Hilary Cass. He said he also believed the report had been influenced by groups and individuals with “transphobic” views, and said the “potential for positive change must be backed with resources”.

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Ex-ministers press Sunak on ‘persecution’ of carers who broke earnings rules

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David Blunkett and Alan Johnson join Iain Duncan Smith in dismay at DWP’s treatment of benefit recipients’ minor mistakes

The “scandalous” prosecution of unpaid carers uncovered by the Guardian must end now and an inquiry must be launched immediately, Rishi Sunak has been told.

The pressure on the prime minister grew as three former work and pension secretaries and Labour demanded to know why thousands of people who care for their loved ones have been hounded for thousands of pounds – and in some cases convicted – after unwittingly breaching earnings rules by just a few pounds a week.

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Wes Streeting defends Labour plan to use private sector to cut NHS backlog

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Exclusive: Failure to do so would betray working-class people, shadow health secretary says

Wes Streeting has defended Labour’s plans to use the private sector to help cut the NHS care backlog, arguing that a failure to do so would result in a “betrayal” of working-class people who cannot afford to pay for care.

The shadow health secretary said his approach was a “pragmatic but principled one” as he doubled down on his remarks this week about “middle-class lefties” whom he said risked putting ideological purity ahead of patient care.

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Carer convicted over benefit error worth 30p a week fights to clear his name

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George Henderson had to sell his home to repay nearly £20,000, years after ticking wrong box on carer’s allowance form

A carer who says he was “dragged through the courts” and had to sell his home to pay back almost £20,000 in benefit overpayments is fighting to clear his name after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) acknowledged he made an innocent mistake.

George Henderson, 64, said he made a gain of just 30p a week while claiming carer’s allowance for his son John, who has learning difficulties and is addicted to heroin. He now costs the Treasury £1,000 a month more in benefits, having become homeless and too unwell to work.

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‘Right to freedom from torture’: UN experts urge the Gambia not to decriminalise FGM

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Repealing ban would mean return of ‘one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children’

A team of UN experts has urged Gambian lawmakers not to repeal a ban on female genital mutilation, saying such a move would set a dangerous global precedent.

In a letter dated 8 April and made public on Thursday, the experts, led by Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said allowing the unchecked return of “one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children” would violate their right to freedom from torture.

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Boris Johnson calls Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban ‘absolutely nuts’

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Former PM laments state of Tory party saying it is ‘mad’ that party of Winston Churchill is ‘banning cigars’

Boris Johnson has attacked Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, calling it “absolutely nuts” in a lament about the state of the Conservative party in Britain.

Speaking at an event in Canada on Wednesday night, Johnson said it was “mad” that the party of Winston Churchill was “banning cigars”.

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Adult transgender clinics in England face inquiry into patient care

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NHS England to review seven specialist services after staff share misgivings privately

Adult transgender clinics in England are facing a Cass-style inquiry into how they treat patients after whistleblowers raised concerns about the care they provide.

NHS England has announced that it is setting up a review of how the seven specialist services operate and deliver care after past and present staff shared misgivings privately during a previous investigation.

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