Category Archives: Wales

Further strike action in England looks ‘inevitable’, education union leaders say

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NEU joint secretary says teachers will ‘not back down’ as pay rise negotiations with government reach stalemate

Schools in England look set for further disruption over the coming weeks after talks to avert planned strike action by teachers ended in failure, with no new offer on the table.

Union leaders met the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, on Wednesday morning in the latest of a series of meetings. Though they remarked on a new urgency about the talks, there was still zero progress on pay.

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Legal victory in UK Japanese knotweed case could lead to more claims

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Court of appeal ruled homeowner could recover loss of value even if knotweed has been treated

A significant legal victory in a case brought by a householder affected by Japanese knotweed has raised the prospect of an increase in claims from people stricken by the hazardous plant.

The court of appeal ruled that a homeowner could recover damages for a loss of value of their property from having had Japanese knotweed, even if it had been treated.

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Climber, 23, dies in Snowdonia fall after rock comes away in his hand

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Mountain rescuers say man who was climbing with two friends was ‘very, very unfortunate’

A 23-year-old climber who died after falling 180 metres from a mountain ridge in Wales as he climbed with two friends was “extremely unfortunate”, mountain rescuers have said.

The man, from Yorkshire, was ascending Y Gribin in Snowdonia or Eryri national park in north Wales at 5pm on Saturday when a handhold he was using to pull himself up broke, causing him to fall down the mountainside.

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NHS faces worst day of disruption as nurses and ambulance staff in England strike

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Industrial action expected to be biggest in history of health service as minister insists pay will not be renegotiated for this year

A health minister has insisted there can be no re-examination of NHS pay for this year as the health service in England faces what is expected to be the biggest strike in its history, with no signs of a government plan to end the impasse.

The industrial action on Monday will be the first time that both NHS nurses and ambulance staff in England have stopped work simultaneously, amid an ongoing dispute over pay and staffing.

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Nurses offer to call off strikes if Sunak matches Welsh pay offer

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Union appeals to prime minister to compromise to avert massive disruption

The head of the UK’s biggest nursing union has issued a last ditch appeal to Rishi Sunak to agree a compromise over pay, to prevent the worst strikes in the NHS’s history from causing massive disruption to patients across England on Monday.

In a letter to the prime minister, Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said she was “appealing directly” to Sunak for the first time as she asked him to match offers made by the Welsh and Scottish governments, both of which have led to strikes being suspended.

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Doctors in England and Wales urged to monitor people’s drinking habits

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More than 10m people consume alcohol at levels that pose a risk to their health, experts say

GPs in England and Wales are being urged to ask patients detailed questions about their drinking habits amid concerns that thousands of people with alcohol issues are “slipping through the net”.

More than 10 million people consume alcohol at levels that pose a risk to their health, according to experts. Millions are mildly or moderately dependent on alcohol, while about 600,000 people have severe alcohol dependency and will, as a result, benefit hugely from professional alcohol treatment.

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Clare Drakeford, wife of Wales’s first minister, dies

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Mark Drakeford and his wife married in 1977 and have three children

Clare Drakeford, the wife of Wales’s first minister, Mark Drakeford, has died suddenly, the Welsh government announced on Saturday.

A Welsh government spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we confirm the sudden passing of Clare Drakeford, wife of the first minister.

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Almost one in 10 local bus services axed over last year in Great Britain

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Exclusive: cuts come despite government’s levelling up promise to improve transport connectivity

Almost one in 10 local bus services were axed in Great Britain in the last year despite government promises to improve local transport connectivity being a key pillar of its levelling up agenda.

The reductions – equivalent to more than 1,000 registered routes – follow the publication of a national bus strategy for England in 2021, aimed at improving routes and service frequencies. The figures suggest the “bus back better” strategy, conceived under the then prime minister Boris Johnson, has failed to halt the decline in local bus services.

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Yellow weather warning issued for dangerous ‘freezing fog’

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Dense fog that could reduce visibility to below 100 metres set to blanket UK after sharp overnight frost

A yellow weather warning was issued on Friday, with a dangerous “freezing fog” set to blanket parts of the UK after a sharp frost overnight.

By Saturday morning, the fog could be so dense that visibility drops to below 100 metres in some places, the Met Office said.

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Ethnic segregation in England and Wales on the wane, research finds

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Census data analysis shows growth of ‘rainbow’ towns and cities, as more people live with neighbours of different backgrounds

Ethnic segregation in England and Wales is on the wane as more people live alongside neighbours of different backgrounds, creating “rainbow” towns and cities, research reveals.

Neighbourhood diversity more than doubled nationally between 2001 and 2021, with huge transformations in some places. There was close to a tenfold increase in diversity in Boston, Lincolnshire, albeit from a low base; Barking and Dagenham recorded a ninefold increase, while diversity in Watford and Reading increased fourfold.

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UK weather: warnings of snow and ice as temperatures plummet

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Thermometers forecast to fall to -2C in London, -1C in Cardiff and -3C in Edinburgh and Belfast

People across large parts of the UK have been told to watch out for ice as they make their way to work and school on Monday, after temperatures plunged overnight.

Thermometers were forecast to fall to -2C in London, -1C in Cardiff and -3C in Edinburgh and Belfast. Temperatures in Highland areas of Scotland could be as low as -10C.

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Revealed: cabinet split over NHS pay disputes piles pressure on Sunak

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Health secretary Steve Barclay urges unions to lobby PM over improved pay offer for striking nurses and ambulance workers

The health and social care secretary Steve Barclay has privately urged trade unions to help him make the case to the Treasury and No 10 for extra money for nurses, ambulance workers and other NHS staff in an extraordinary twist to the escalating crisis over health service strikes, the Observer can reveal.

A serious cabinet split has opened up, with Barclay now wanting more money for all NHS staff except doctors – while Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, are refusing to budge from their insistence that no more can be offered.

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‘Persistent heavy rain’ triggers flood warnings across Great Britain

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Rain and flood warnings issued for much of Wales and western parts of England and Scotland

Some homes and businesses could be flooded in parts of the UK on Tuesday, forecasters have warned.

The Met Office has issued three yellow warnings for “persistent heavy rain” throughout the day, covering much of Wales and north-west England.

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Only one in five British trains to run on final day of planned strikes

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Industrial action over pay and working conditions has caused almost four weeks of disruption

The last day in the latest stretch of railway strikes has begun, ending a run of almost four weeks of continuous disruption caused by industrial action over pay and working conditions.

Only about one in five trains across Great Britain will run on Saturday as a 48-hour walkout by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union concludes, with no early morning or evening services and a pared-back schedule on main intercity and urban lines.

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900,000 crimes committed by people on bail under Tories, analysis finds

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Offences committed in England and Wales have included murder, kidnap, and child rape, study of data shows

Nearly 900,000 offences including murder, kidnap, and child rape, have been committed by people on bail in England and Wales since the Conservatives came to power, a new analysis has found.

The latest government figures show more than 20,000 offences were committed by those released from custody as they awaited a hearing, equating to 55 offences a day.

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UK weather: Scotland and Wales told to brace for floods and travel disruption

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Met Office issues yellow alerts for heavy rain on Tuesday and Wednesday with localised flooding predicted

Forecasters have warned that heavy rain could lead to flooding and travel disruption this week.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning of rain for southern Scotland and parts of central Scotland, the Highlands, and Argyll and Bute, valid from 2pm on Tuesday until 6am on Wednesday. It states that occasionally heavy rain, and a thaw of snow lying on the hills, is expected to lead to localised flooding and transport disruption.

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Suspect identified in only one in 10 bicycle theft cases in England and Wales

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Figures uncovered by Lib Dems show that only 1.7% of 74,421 cases over 12 months resulted in a charge

Almost 90% of all bicycle theft cases reported to police over the past year were closed without a suspect even being identified, and just 1.7% resulted in someone being charged, analysis of crime statistics shows.

The Liberal Democrats, who uncovered the data from statistics for England and Wales from July 2021 to June this year, said it was indicative of under-funded police forces being unable to properly investigate such crimes.

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Welsh Labour is readying for snap general election, says Mark Drakeford

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First minister claims Tories in Westminster are ‘staggering’ and could be months away from collapse

The Welsh first minister has told the Labour party in Wales to be prepared for a general election in the new year, believing the UK government could be months away from sudden collapse.

Mark Drakeford claimed the Conservative government in Westminster was “staggering”, and that at any moment it could be “overwhelmed” and forced to call a snap UK election.

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