Tag: News Story

STORY

The Government has announced a £343 million programme to open up to 159 NHS mental health facilities across England. The plans comprise 100 community mental health centres offering walk-in support without a referral and 59 dedicated mental health emergency departments intended to provide specialist crisis care outside general accident and emergency units.

The first facilities are expected to open from autumn 2026, with further centres following from March 2027. The community centres are intended to bring together mental health teams, GPs, councils, voluntary organisations and services dealing with employment and housing, so that patients can receive help before their condition reaches crisis point.

Ministers said the programme represented the largest redesign of mental health services in a generation. The Government said demand has risen sharply, particularly among children and young people, and that the new model is intended to reduce long waits, improve access close to home and ease pressure on busy hospital emergency departments.

STORY

More than 60,000 rural homes and businesses across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire can now access faster broadband through the Government’s Project Gigabit programme. The latest connections include communities around Barnsley, Huddersfield, Hull, Bradford, York, Boston and Wisbech, where poor connectivity has previously restricted working, studying and access to online services.

Quickline is delivering the network after receiving £127 million through Project Gigabit. The company said its full fibre network now reaches about 260,000 premises across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, while the publicly funded work has also supported more than 130 apprentices and science, technology, engineering and mathematics activities involving more than 1,700 young people.

The Government said Project Gigabit has helped upgrade more than 1.3 million premises across the United Kingdom, with most of the work focused on rural and hard-to-reach areas. Ministers said the programme is intended to extend gigabit-capable connections to locations where commercial investment alone would be unlikely to deliver them quickly.

STORY

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband have discussed the need for Europe to take a greater role in its own security during talks in Washington. The meeting was Miliband’s first major bilateral visit to the United States since becoming Foreign Secretary.

The two ministers discussed the war in Ukraine and reaffirmed the importance of NATO and the United Kingdom-United States relationship. Miliband was expected to emphasise that Ukraine’s security was inseparable from wider European and transatlantic security as Kyiv sought additional air defence support against Russian missile attacks.

The talks also covered safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and the humanitarian situation in Gaza. A British official described the meeting as productive and warm and said the ministers had agreed to remain in close contact.

STORY

More than 1,100 people have been prosecuted under the offence of illegal arrival introduced by the Government in 2022, according to information obtained from the Home Office through a Freedom of Information request. The data, secured by University of Manchester research fellow Dr Victoria Taylor, covered cases between July 2022 and January 2026.

The figures showed that 628 of those prosecuted had arrived in the United Kingdom by small boat, including 296 people recorded on surveillance footage steering a dinghy. Only 12 people were convicted of the separate offence of facilitating an arrival, which requires evidence of involvement in organising or assisting the journey rather than simply controlling a boat.

Those prosecuted included survivors of torture and trafficking and at least 30 people whose ages were disputed, 19 of whom spent time in adult prisons. Taylor described the selection of people for prosecution as “arbitrary and cruel”, while campaigners argued that the policy risks criminalising people who travelled irregularly in order to claim asylum.

STORY

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has ruled out forming a coalition with Reform UK, saying she has no interest in an electoral pact or a post-election agreement with Nigel Farage’s party. She made the comments during an interview with the Political Currency podcast published on 6 August.

Badenoch described Reform as a ‘woke’ party and accused it of promoting a victim mentality and grievance-based politics. She said calls to ‘unite the right’ were focused on arrangements between politicians rather than the interests of the wider public.

The Conservative leader said her objective was to unite the country rather than assemble an alliance of parties on the political right. Her remarks come amid continued debate about whether the Conservatives and Reform could cooperate if no party secured a Commons majority at the next general election.

STORY

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory class inquiry into concerns about charities working in illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine. The fact-finding investigation will initially examine eight charities identified through information recently submitted to the regulator, although their names have not been published.

The Commission will investigate whether charitable funds or other resources have been used in the settlements, the purposes of any expenditure and whether the spending furthered the organisations’ stated charitable purposes. It will also assess whether charity assets or beneficiaries are at risk and whether regulatory action is required.

The regulator stressed that opening the inquiry did not amount to a finding of wrongdoing and said the number of charities covered could be expanded. Information about the concerns has been shared with the police and HM Revenue and Customs, while a report will be published after the inquiry or relevant stages of it have concluded.

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The Government has said that a public inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s activities in the United Kingdom is not being actively considered. The clarification followed comments from victims minister Alex Davies-Jones, who had told the BBC that Prime Minister Andy Burnham was looking into the possibility of holding an inquiry.

The Ministry of Justice said the Prime Minister remained committed to meeting victims but that no public inquiry was currently under active consideration. The statement exposed a difference between the minister’s description of the position and the subsequent formal response issued by the department.

British police are already examining a number of allegations linked to Epstein and his associates, including alleged child sexual abuse, the trafficking of women through British airports and possible misconduct in public office. The Government said its thoughts remained with those who had survived abuse connected with Epstein.

STORY

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has defended the selection of Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for Somerset Council despite his previous convictions for hate offences. Bonehill-Paine was convicted in 2015 of racially aggravated harassment of the then Labour MP Luciana Berger and was also imprisoned for stirring up hatred against a Jewish community in north London.

Badenoch said his past conduct had been appalling but argued that he had rejected his former views and demonstrated rehabilitation through work connected with the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme. She said the election was for a local authority role involving matters such as parking and bins, rather than a national political platform.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council declined an invitation to meet Bonehill-Paine and called on the Conservatives to withdraw his candidacy. Berger said there was a major distinction between explaining why earlier conduct was wrong and seeking public office, describing what happened to her as a sustained campaign rather than isolated remarks.

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The Government’s Sovereign AI fund has invested in OLIX, a British company developing computer chips for artificial intelligence systems. The equity investment forms part of a nine figure fundraising round and makes OLIX the fifth business backed by the state venture fund since the programme was launched.

OLIX is based in London and has offices in Bristol. The company is developing chips intended to make AI processing faster, cheaper and more energy efficient. The Government said the company had achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion, placing it among the United Kingdom’s newly established technology unicorns.

Ministers said the investment was intended to strengthen domestic capability in advanced semiconductors and retain more of the employment and economic activity associated with AI infrastructure. Sovereign AI was established to take stakes in selected British companies considered capable of scaling internationally. The value and detailed commercial terms of the Government’s investment in OLIX were not disclosed in the announcement.

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Severn Trent Water has agreed payments totalling £2,277,424 to environmental charities following Environment Agency investigations into pollution incidents in the West Midlands. The money is being provided through two enforcement undertakings, which allow the regulator to accept restoration, prevention and financial commitments for certain environmental offences.

More than £1.8 million will go to Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, including £1.5 million relating to unauthorised sewage discharges from Blackminster Wastewater Treatment Works into Broadway Brook in June and August 2022. A further £327,424 relates to a breach of an ammonia permit condition at Cheltenham Hayden Wastewater Treatment Works in 2021.

Severn Rivers Trust will receive £450,000 for projects intended to improve river environments. Severn Trent must also meet the Environment Agency’s costs and carry out measures to prevent recurrence or repair harm. Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust plans to use part of its funding for work including the Severn Treescapes project, which supports tree planting and restoration at sites across the region.