News – World and UK

Taxes and borrowing are both set to increase as Rachel Reeves signalled she would rewrite the way Government debt is measured in her first Budget. The Chancellor said she faced difficult choices but insisted her Budget would “begin to fix the NHS and start to rebuild our economy”. The cost of Government borrowing increased in response to speculation the Chancellor would change debt rules to spend billions more on investments. […]

Child serial killer Lucy Letby has lost a Court of Appeal bid to challenge her conviction for the attempted murder of a baby girl. Letby’s lawyers asked senior judges for approval to appeal against her most recent conviction after being found guilty following a retrial in July of attempting to kill a newborn known as Child K. On Thursday, lawyers for the former nurse told the Court of Appeal that […]

A Windrush Commissioner is to be appointed and funding made available for groups which help victims apply for compensation, Yvette Cooper announced as she committed to a “fundamental reset of the response to this scandal”. The Home Secretary said £1.5 million will be made available for organisations providing advocacy for applicants to the compensation scheme, which has been criticised by many as complicated and too slow. Labour had committed in […]

Police Scotland have lost more than one million days to staff absence in the past four years, figures show. Since 2020, 1,020,930 working days have been lost by staff absence, with each full year between April 2020 and April this year showing at least 200,000 days lost. Of those lost days, 239,507 were as a result of “psychological disorders”, according to the figures released by Police Scotland to the Scottish […]

The UK economy is set to grow slower than previously expected over the next two years amid cautious consumer spending, according to new forecasts by economists. EY Item Club’s latest quarterly economic forecast also suggested that caution by Bank of England rate-setters not to cut interest rates too quickly will contribute to “steady rather than rapid” growth. It represents a potential blow to Chancellor Rachel Reeves days ahead of the […]

The majority of Year 10 pupils did not do any work experience last year, a report has suggested. There is a wide gap between the proportion of teenagers doing work experience in the south of England and in other regions, according to the school support organisation The Key Group. Some secondary schools reported that they can no longer afford to run placements, while others said it had become harder to […]

The ban is set to come into force on 1st June 2025 The sale of disposable vapes will be banned by next summer, the Government has said. New legislation to ban the sale of single-use vapes from June 1, 2025 has been laid out in Parliament, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed on Wednesday. It added that businesses will have until the deadline “to sell any remaining stock they hold […]

Rachel Reeves has promised her first Budget will be an economic “reset” for the UK. The Chancellor said her statement on October 30 will invest in the “foundations of future growth”. Ms Reeves was speaking before talks with finance ministers from around the world in Washington DC at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meeting. She said: “A Britain built on the rock of economic stability is a Britain that is a […]

Venom: The Last Dance star Tom Hardy has said he is “very proud” of director Kelly Marcel who he has been friends with for “decades”. Speaking at the film’s premiere in London on Wednesday, Hardy told the PA news agency he was “loving every moment” and said the film is “monumentally brilliant”. The film, which will be released in the UK on Friday, will see the 47-year-old return to play […]