Bristol: Man dies and 90 evacuated in serious flats fire - BBC

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A man has died after a fire in a block of flats in Bristol.

Emergency services were called shortly after 02:15 BST to Twinnell House on Wills Drive, off Stapleton Road.

Avon and Somerset Police confirmed one man died in the incident and eight other people were in hospital, with ninety residents evacuated.

Bristol City Council said its thoughts were with the family of the individual "who has tragically lost their life in this incident".

Several residents reported not hearing any alarms, but temporary assistant chief fire officer Vaughan Jenkins from Avon Fire and Rescue said all fire alarms were working properly, and that there were no communal alarms in line with building regulations.

Residents of the block have described being woken by people screaming and police knocking on their doors.

Terry Wootten, 73, who has lived in the block for 32 years, said he heard screams in the early hours and got himself out of the building after seeing a crowd outside.

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Mohammed Ahmed, has been living in the flats for 10 years and also heard shouting.

He said: "I woke up and checked the window and saw someone shouting 'there's a fire, fire', then I had to come out quickly.

"When I was coming down from the stairs I met one of the policemen who was passing me, going up."

He said police went door-to-door to wake people up.

Leyla Touati said her neighbour banged on her door for 20 minutes to get her family out as she hadn't heard any alarm.

"Everyone was still sleeping," she said.

"He didn't give up, he was just knocking and knocking which shows the community is really strong round here."

Salah Khanog, has lived on the eighth floor of the block for nearly 10 years.

He said: "I've been knocked on by the police and told to run out as soon as possible, and that's how I got out.

"It was kind of nervous, kind of terrifying, thank God I went out and ran out. "

Mr Khanog said he did not understand why he had not heard an alarm.

Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said the fire service had not raised any concerns about fire alarms with him but said it would be investigated.

"There was an organised evacuation of the top floors and then people exited in the lower floors," he said.

"When we have got the investigation into what happened, how it was managed, we will be able to share more there.

"I'd be wary about sparking undue fears, people were exited from the building, but if there is anything that we find wanting about the fire safety in this building we will be open about that and take action."

A rest stop has been set up which is providing support to 40 people at St. Nicholas Of Tolentino RC Church, Lawfords Gate, by Bristol City Council.

The authority confirmed emergency accommodation would be offered to those who needed it.

Supt Tony Blatchford said: "This is a tragic incident in which a man has lost his life.

"While formal identification has not yet been carried out, we believe we know who the man is and have informed his next of kin.

"Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

"Enquiries into what happened have already begun and we will work closely with the fire service to fully understand what started the fire and how the man sadly died.

"I'd like to thank those who have been evacuated from their homes for their co-operation and understanding and promise them all agencies are working hard to enable them to return home as quickly as possible."

Avon Fire and Rescue Service sent eleven fire engines to the scene along with two turntable ladders and other specialist vehicles and said the fire was quickly extinguished.

Dave Hodges, Avon Fire and Rescue Service Duty Group Commander, said upper floors were affected by smoke and fire and water damage had affected many flats on lower floors.

He explained crews faced a "serious fire" on the 16th floor upon arrival.

"The fire has now been contained and fire crews remain in attendance making the scene safe," he said.

He added: "Our sincere condolences go to the friends and family of the deceased."

Wills Drive is closed while emergency services remain at the scene and police expect the cordon to remain around the building until it has been assessed to be safe.

The people treated in hospital include one with minor burns and seven suffering from smoke inhalation.

Three others were treated by the ambulance service at the scene.

A spokesperson for Bristol City Council said: "Our thoughts are with the family of the individual who has tragically lost their life in this incident."

They added they were grateful to all emergency services and council officers who responded.

"Residents affected by this tragic incident are being supported and those who require it will be helped into emergency accommodation whilst their homes remain inaccessible," they said.

“As a Councillor, community member and a father, I am heartbroken by what has taken place at Twinnell House this morning. It is so sad to hear that one of the residents has lost his life in such tragic circumstances”.

— Cllr Yassin Mohamud (@YassinMohamud20) September 25, 2022

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

South Western Ambulance Service allocated seven double-crewed ambulances, one rapid response vehicle, an operations officer, a doctor, and the hazardous area response team.

Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk

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2022-09-25 12:39:42Z
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Liz Truss's plan for more migrants to boost growth - The Times

Liz Truss is facing her first cabinet row as she prepares to increase immigration to boost economic growth.

The prime minister is pushing for wide-ranging reform of Britain’s visa system to tackle acute labour shortages and attract the best talent from across the world.

In the coming weeks she intends to raise the cap on seasonal agricultural workers and make changes to the shortage occupations list, which will allow key sectors to recruit more overseas staff.

Truss has told colleagues that she is keen to recruit overseas broadband engineers to support the government’s pledge to make full-fibre broadband available to 85 per cent of UK homes by 2025. It has also been suggested that she could ease the English-language requirement in some sectors to enable

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2022-09-24 23:01:00Z
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Mini-budget: Chancellor denies gambling with economy as pound sinks to near historic lows - Sky News

The chancellor has denied suggestions he is gambling with the economy as his raft of tax cuts were met with a hostile reception - and sent the pound plummeting to a 37-year low.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) said he was "betting the house" by putting government debt on an "unsustainable rising path".

Only those with incomes of over £155,000 will be net beneficiaries of tax policies announced by the Conservatives, with the "vast majority of income taxpayers paying more tax", said the respected financial think tank in a scathing assessment of the plans.

Mini-budget - latest updates

During a visit to a factory in Kent on Friday afternoon, Kwasi Kwarteng told reporters: "It's not a gamble.

"What is a gamble is thinking that you can keep raising taxes and getting prosperity, which was clearly not working.

"We cannot have a tax system where you are getting a 70-year high, so the last time we had tax rates at this level before my tax cuts was actually before Her late Majesty had acceded to the throne.

"That was completely unsustainable and that's why I'm delighted to have been able to reduce taxes across the piece this morning."

The Resolution Foundation think tank said the chancellor's measures would involve an extra £411bn of borrowing over the next five years.

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It said the tax cuts do very little to boost the incomes of those who need it the most, pointing out that someone earning £1m a year would gain more than £55,220 a year, while someone on £20,000 would gain only £157.

Pound plunged to a four-decade low

The growth plan outlined by the chancellor to lift the UK from the depths of the cost of living crisis and back to prosperity has been met with horror on financial markets, with the pound taking a particular hammering late in the day.

Sterling, bonds, and share values all fell sharply in the wake of Mr Kwarteng's mini-budget.

The pound - already on its knees this month because of a strong dollar - slid below $1.09 for the first time in 37 years.

That was after US bank Citi declared on Friday afternoon that the currency was facing the prospect of a confidence crisis. It speculated that it could eventually hit parity with the dollar for the first time in history, but added that it expected sterling to settle within the $1.05-$1.10 range.

The all-time low of $1.0545 was witnessed on 25 February 1985.

Biggest tax cuts in 50 years

The chancellor revealed the biggest tax cuts for 50 years as part of the new economic agenda - a package that will be paid for through a huge leap in government borrowing.

He cut stamp duty for homebuyers, and brought forward a cut to the basic rate of income tax, to 19p in the pound, a year early, to April, as part of tax cuts costing up to £45bn annually.

The plans, which include the previously announced energy bill aid for households and businesses, raised the Treasury's debt issuance plans for the current financial year alone by £72.4bn to £234.1bn.

Taken together, It went much further than markets had been expecting.

The package was announced a day after the Bank of England warned the UK may already be in a recession and lifted interest rates to 2.25%.

Read more:
The key mini-budget announcements
Top 1% are immediate winners in mini-budget
How much stamp duty will home buyers now pay?

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The FTSE 100 shed 2% of its value by the close, with miners and energy stocks among the worst performers.

Commenting on the package, Caroline Le Jeune, head of tax at accountants Blick Rothenberg, said: "In 25 years of analysing budgets this must be the most dramatic, risky, and unfounded mini-budget.

"Truss and her new government are taking a huge gamble."

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2022-09-24 03:28:15Z
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UK ticket-holder wins £171m EuroMillions jackpot - check your numbers here - Sky News

A UK ticket-holder has won more than £171m with the EuroMillions jackpot - the third biggest National Lottery win of all time, Camelot has said.

Tonight's National Lottery EuroMillions winning numbers were: 14, 15, 22, 35, 48.

The Lucky Stars were: 03, 08.

One UK millionaire has been created with a winning code of: HJML89118.

Only 16 people in the UK have won more than £100m, putting the latest winners in an elite group.

Camelot's Andy Carter, senior winners' adviser at The National Lottery, said: "What an amazing night for one UK ticket-holder who has scooped the giant £171 million EuroMillions jackpot.

"This winner has just become the third biggest National Lottery winner of all time and the sixth UK EuroMillions jackpot winner this year alone.

More on Lottery

Related Topics:

"Players are urged to check their tickets and to give us a call if they think they are tonight's lucky winner."

But they won't surpass two previous record holders - winners Joe and Jess Thwaite, a couple from Gloucester, who revealed their identities after winning £184m on the EuroMillions back in May.

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Mr Thwaite, who bought the ticket, said: "Generally my luck is pretty terrible, to be honest with you."

Meanwhile, the UK's biggest winner of £195 million chose not to go public, after winning in July.

Read more:
Single father who won £1m jackpot turns up to work as chef on Christmas Day
How to win the lottery
A knees up? Not for this Lotto winner - she needs new knees

What can you buy with £171 million?

The winner is now richer than Adele (who is worth £150m) - and £171 million will go an unsurprisingly long way.

They could buy 585 houses, based on the latest UK average. Or if luxury property is more their thing, they can now buy three Mayfair townhouses - complete with gym and library - and still have change to spare.

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2022-09-23 21:22:30Z
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UK stamp duty cut unlikely to help first-time homebuyers, say experts - Financial Times

A stamp duty cut announced by the UK government on Friday risks pushing up house prices and will do little to help first-time buyers on to the property ladder, according to housing experts.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng laid out plans to cut the property transaction tax as part of his growth-focused fiscal package on Friday. The move is designed to give a leg up to first-time buyers and support an increasingly fragile housing market.

The cut, which could save some buyers more than £10,000, would “support growth, increase confidence and help families aspiring to own their own home”, said Kwarteng.

Effective immediately, buyers in England and Northern Ireland will pay no stamp duty on the first £250,000 of a property’s value — double the previous £125,000 threshold — and first-time buyers will pay no tax on the first £425,000, up from £300,000.

First-time buyers in London and the south-east could potentially save as much as £11,250 under the new measures, according to the government. Non-first-time buyers purchasing a house for £312,000 — the average price of a home in England according to the Land Registry — would save around £2,500, according to official estimates.

But these savings could be dwarfed by higher borrowing costs if the Bank of England seeks to offset the inflationary impact of the government’s tax cuts by raising interest rates. 

Andrew Wishart, at the consultancy Capital Economics, said the market reaction to Kwarteng’s statement suggested mortgage rates of more than 6 per cent were now a “distinct possibility”, a development that would leave house prices “more overvalued than in 2007” and could lead to a “significant correction”. 

Ian Mulheirn, chief economist at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, cited a 2019 BoE working paper finding that a rise of 1 per cent in gilt yields could lower house prices by 20 per cent in real terms in the long term. The stamp duty cut was “small beer in the face of those forces”, he said. 

However, previous stamp duty cuts have driven up property values because sellers add the theoretical saving on to house prices. The government’s stamp duty holiday in 2020 is regarded by property analysts as one of the reasons behind rapid house price growth in the two years since.

“There has been a lot of tinkering with stamp duty over the past decade and the one thing which is crystal clear is that buyers pay for cuts and sellers pay for rises through market adjustments,” said Roarie Scarisbrick, an estate agent at Property Vision.

The opposition Labour party criticised the cut. “These stamp duty changes have been tried before. Last time the government did it, a third of people who benefited were buying a second home, a third home, or a buy to let property. Is that really the best use of taxpayers’ money?” asked shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Property experts said the measures would do little to insulate buyers from the effects of rising interest rates or meaningfully boost first-time buyer numbers.

The cut “helps first time buyers in London and the south-east. But [the saving] is still fairly small given the big deposits they need. It might help some buy a bit quicker but it won’t help those with no bank of mum and dad,” said Neal Hudson, a housing market analyst and founder of the consultancy BuiltPlace.

But he added that the cut may entice investors to target properties valued up to £250,000.

Richard Donnell, research director at property portal Zoopla, said the changes “won’t do anything [to address] the problems facing the [property market] in south-east England from mortgage rates moving towards 5 per cent from 2 per cent in January”.

He added that the measures were likely to have a neutral effect on the exchequer’s stamp duty tax receipts because 90 per cent come from properties valued at £250,000 or more, and prices are still rising.

The Treasury received a record £17.5bn from stamp duty in the 12 months to August this year.

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2022-09-23 12:58:22Z
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Kwasi Kwarteng: A politician who challenges established thinking - BBC

Reuters

Self-doubt is a concept that has rarely troubled Kwasi Kwarteng.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do very well," the teenage Etonian joked to an apologetic admissions tutor, who had turned up late for his interview at Trinity College, Cambridge.

With supreme confidence in his intellectual abilities, Mr Kwarteng went on to dazzle audiences across the worlds of academia and politics with his mastery of multiple subjects.

"He wears it extremely heavily," says his old Cambridge university friend Dr Catherine Brown.

"But in a way that is extremely charming," she adds.

• Kwasi Kwarteng: A chancellor who won University Challenge
• Huge tax cuts for millions set to be unveiled
• UK may already be in recession - Bank of England

One theme stands out in Mr Kwarteng's career as an academic and now at the height of politics - this is a man who always challenges established thinking.

"I think he is certainly someone who is not going to be afraid of a big idea - he is not risk averse," says the journalist Sarah Sands who has known the chancellor since he was at Cambridge.

In Friday's statement to Parliament on his growth plan, the chancellor will slay orthodox Treasury thinking. He will cut taxes with no corresponding spending cuts - all to be funded by increased borrowing.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says reversing the rise in National Insurance contributions and cutting corporation tax amounts to the biggest tax cut in one event since 1988.

Getty Images

This is a chancellor moving at speed after a relatively slow start to his political career.

Mr Kwarteng was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and saw other contemporaries shoot ahead of him up the ministerial ladder.

But one event and two people turned round his political fortunes. He was a genuine supporter of Brexit, believing with his historical overview that it was always going to happen.

"We were always going to leave," he told friends after the referendum as he moved into the new political mainstream.

"It just happened a little earlier than expected."

Mr Kwarteng was a supporter of Boris Johnson who put him on the ministerial fast-track as energy minister in 2019.

Then his political partnership with Liz Truss, a fellow member of the 2010 intake of MPs, paid dividends when she asked her close ally to serve as chancellor.

George Freeman, another member of the 2010 intake, believes that this mini-budget marks a historically significant step.

Mr Freeman, who worked under Mr Kwarteng as a business minister, told BBC Newsnight: "I think it is bold, confident stuff.

"And I think both the prime minister and Kwasi understand that leading in these roles is about confidence, the markets' confidence, public confidence in the economy.

"But it is also quite high risk and I don't think they would demur from that. I think they've understood that slow growth, post-pandemic risk of recession requires bold action."

Independent or ideologue

As an historian, it is little surprise that history instilled in Mr Kwarteng the belief of taking risks.

A key influence in his thinking about how to act as chancellor was an essay written by the economist John Maynard Keynes on Andrew Bonar Law, chancellor during World War One and later prime minister.

Mr Keynes wrote that Mr Bonar Law was highly accomplished in using his skills as a chess player to prevent political opponents from from going no more than a few moves ahead.

Mr Kwarteng saw that as a missed opportunity. Surely better, he thought, to show some flare and deploy the most idiosyncratic piece on the board - the knight.

"Kwasi is a flare of exciting, original thinking," Mr Freeman says.

"I think he's probably the most exciting appointment of this reshuffle."

But the veteran former Labour minister, Dame Margaret Hodge, believes the chancellor is embarking on a gamble too far.

Dame Margaret told Newsnight: "I think he's an ideologue who lives in a bubble, who really doesn't understand most ordinary people's lives, who has this sort of theoretical brilliance, but a total lack of pragmatism, which I think creates this chaotic set of policies.

"I can't think how anybody can believe that it is sensible at this time to reintroduce bankers bonuses when everybody else is struggling.

"I mean it's not bold, it's immoral."

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Dame Margaret's remarks show Labour believes that the Kwarteng/Truss approach has gifted them a strong line of attack: Tories prioritising tax cuts that will benefit the better off.

Mr Kwarteng is unlikely to be troubled by Labour criticism.

One of his oldest friends from Cambridge, who is on the Labour left, says Mr Kwarteng never concedes an inch in political debates and mocks her views. But it always done with charm and a laugh.

"There is a political gulf of a Homeric scale between us and yet our friendship bridges it," says Dr Catherine Brown, now an English literature academic.

And his response to her political views? "Yeah, he made fun of them."

Reforming chancellor

But Mr Kwarteng once found himself in a minority round Dr Brown's dinner table, prompting a revealing insight into the historian's view of Brexit.

"I think he was the only Brexiteer round this table, which was a table of academics, and he was asked to say something about his position and in defence of his position.

"He actually likened it to the English Reformation. He said that at the time Henry VIII brought that about, Henry didn't know exactly what a Protestant England or Britain was going to look like, nor did his immediate descendants.

"And it took about a century of bloodshed. These are his words. But in the end, it all worked out and Britain sailed on into its glorious future, which I thought was an interesting analogy."

As Mr Kwarteng embarks on an economic experiment he will need results on a rather faster timetable.

And he will need those to show that his decision to override Treasury orthodoxy, by cutting taxes now, has delivered strong economic growth.

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2022-09-23 00:54:09Z
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UK mini-Budget latest: Kwasi Kwarteng expected to cut property stamp duty - Financial Times

The UK pound has extended its decline to slip below $1.12, the currency’s weakest point since 1985, as the economy veers towards a recession and the government prepares a mini-Budget in which it promises a number of tax cuts.

Friday’s 0.75 per cent decline brings the drop for the the year to more than 17 per cent, putting the currency on track for its worst year since 2008 when it lost more than a quarter of its value against the dollar.

Sterling’s drop on Friday overshot the euro’s 0.6 per cent decline against the dollar in early trading.

Much of the move is due to the strength of the dollar, which is at its highest against a basket of peers since mid-2002, propelled by concerns over the global economy and aggressive interest rate rises from the US Federal Reserve.

On Friday the dollar index rose 0.5 per cent to push its monthly gains to 3 per cent. The index has advanced 17 per cent over the year.

The UK economy has weakened over the past few weeks with the Bank of England now believing it has shrunk over two consecutive quarters, which technically would be a recession.

The central bank this week lifted interest rates by 50 basis points to 2.25 per cent, the highest since 2008, meaning borrowing will become more expensive for businesses and households. It expects inflation to peak at 11 per cent in October from its current 9.9 per cent, a near 40-year high, further eroding households’ real incomes.

UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will on Friday attempt to deliver shock treatment to Britain’s stagnating economy, with a 30-point growth package to turn “the vicious cycle of stagnation into a virtuous cycle of growth”.

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2022-09-23 08:00:47Z
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