Plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ruled unlawful - BBC

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Earlier this week, the Home Office published an economic impact assessment of the government’s Illegal Migration Bill - including the Rwanda plan.

It estimated that sending a migrant to a "safe country" such as Rwanda could cost £63,000 more than keeping them in the UK.

The sum is the difference between the gross cost of relocating an individual - put at £169,000 - and the £106,000 spent on housing support if a migrant remains in the UK.

The total of £169,000 includes a payment to that country of around £105,000 per person, as well as £22,000 for flights and escorting the individual.

But the government argues the policy would also have a deterrent effect - which would lead to savings, including a reduction in the asylum seeker hotel bill.

However, the Home Office said it was "uncertain" what level of deterrence impact the policy would have because it was "novel and untested".

Read more here.

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2023-06-29 09:25:13Z
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Staffordshire earthquake causes rumbling and homes to shake - BBC

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By Susie Rack & Lee Blakeman

BBC News, West Midlands

Residents reported "rumbling" and rattling windows and doors after a 3.3 magnitude earthquake hit Staffordshire on Wednesday evening.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the tremor's epicentre was 7.3km (4.5 miles) below Tean.

People as far away as Yorkshire took to social media to describe the effects.

The BGS said people had reported "an initial rumbling, then a bang" with what "felt more like a shunt, like something had hit something".

It is the largest of 21 earthquakes to strike the UK in the past two months.

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Kelvin Evans, in Upper Tean, said he heard a "very loud, weird, spooky noise, that seemed to vibrate the front of the house."

Another Tean resident, Jenni Brown, said she thought a vehicle had veered off the road and bumped the side of her house.

'A very large shake'

Carol Heather, from Hilderstone, said she felt an impact and noise so loud she thought it was a bomb.

"My hair stood on end, I was jolted out of my seat. I was just watching a film and it was really frightening, terrifying. It was such a bang."

Mark Begg, 30, said he was at home in Uttoxeter when he felt "a very large shake".

After checking the house and finding no signs of damage he concluded "it was most likely a mini-earthquake".

Tom, 38, in Cheadle said: "I was sitting watching an episode of Only Connect with my wife on YouTube and as we opened another bottle of wine the whole house shook.

"I thought either one of the children had fallen out of bed or something else had happened."

Several people in Derbyshire also reported feeling the quake which included Gurj Sanghera who tweeted to ask if anyone else felt it in Derby while Andy Savage posted "there was deffo something it was brief".

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In Sheffield, 67km (42 miles) from the epicentre, people tweeted they had felt the tremor clearly in High Storrs, with a "slight rumble" in the Ranmoor area.

Dr Ian Stimpson, a senior lecturer in geophysics at Keele University, said the area had not historically been hit by earth tremors.

"With this location and depth it is likely to be a natural earthquake rather than anything to do with former mines," he added.

David Hawthorn, a seismologist from the BGS, agreed the quake was unlikely to have been caused by disused mine shafts.

"We think it was about 7-8 km (4.3-4.9 miles) deep and that would be very deep for old mine workings," he said.

The quake was "reasonably big" in a UK context, he added, but about 39,000 times less powerful that the deadly earthquake that hit Turkey in February.

An aftershock could not be ruled out, he said, but was likely to be smaller.

The BGS records and locates between 200 and 300 earthquakes in the UK each year with the majority only detected by sensitive instruments.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the UK was in the North Sea on 7 June 1931, with a magnitude of 6.1.

The epicentre was in the Dogger Bank area, 75 miles (120km) north-east of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

What causes an earthquake?

The Earth's surface is made up of huge pieces of flat rock called tectonic plates.

They float on top of a layer of softer rock called the mantle.

Tectonic plates move very slowly, over millions of years, and where they come together is called a fault.

When the plates rub together, friction forces waves of energy to come to the surface.

This causes tremors and shakes - and these are called earthquakes.

Earthquakes can happen anywhere there is a fault or weakness in the crust, however, major earthquakes usually only occur at plate boundaries.

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

Related Topics

• Sheffield
• Alsager
• Stafford
• Cheshire
• Earthquakes

Related Internet Links

• British Geological Survey

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Staffordshire earthquake causes rumbling and homes to shake - BBC

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By Susie Rack & Lee Blakeman

BBC News, West Midlands

Residents reported "rumbling" and rattling windows and doors after a 3.3 magnitude earthquake hit Staffordshire on Wednesday evening.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said the tremor's epicentre was 7.3km (4.5 miles) below Tean.

It is the largest of 21 earthquakes to strike the UK in the past two months.

The BGS said people had reported "an initial rumbling, then a bang" with what "felt more like a shunt, like something had hit something".

People as far as 20km (12.5 miles) from the epicentre took to social media to describe the effects.

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Kelvin Evans, in Upper Tean, said he heard a "very loud, weird, spooky noise, that seemed to vibrate the front of the house."

Another Tean resident, Jenni Brown, said she thought a vehicle had veered off the road and bumped the side of her house.

'A very large shake'

Carol Heather, from Hilderstone, said she felt an impact and noise so loud she thought it was a bomb.

"My hair stood on end, I was jolted out of my seat. I was just watching a film and it was really frightening, terrifying. It was such a bang."

Mark Begg, 30, said he was at home in Uttoxeter when he felt "a very large shake".

After checking the house and finding no signs of damage he concluded "it was most likely a mini-earthquake".

Tom, 38, in Cheadle said: "I was sitting watching an episode of Only Connect with my wife on YouTube and as we opened another bottle of wine the whole house shook.

"I thought either one of the children had fallen out of bed or something else had happened."

Several people in Derbyshire also reported feeling the quake.

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Dr Ian Stimpson, a senior lecturer in geophysics at Keele University, said the area had not historically been hit by earth tremors.

"With this location and depth it is likely to be a natural earthquake rather than anything to do with former mines," he added.

The BGS records and locates between 200 and 300 earthquakes in the UK each year with the majority only detected by sensitive instruments.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in the UK was in the North Sea on 7 June 1931, with a magnitude of 6.1.

The epicentre was in the Dogger Bank area, 75 miles (120km) north-east of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

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

Related Topics

• Alsager
• Stafford
• Cheshire
• Earthquakes

Related Internet Links

• British Geological Survey

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2023-06-29 05:51:52Z
2194829481

Heating down but spending up for royal finances - BBC

Victoria Jones

By Sean Coughlan

Royal correspondent

The Royal Household's official spending rose by 5% last year, to £107.5m, while its funding from taxpayers remained at £86.3m, annual accounts have revealed.

This meant drawing on reserves for what royal officials called an "exceptional period of transition" following Elizabeth II's death.

It was also confirmed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have vacated Frogmore Cottage, in Windsor, Berkshire.

The accounts also show royal heating is kept at 19C - to cut energy use.

To help save the planet as well as bills, the accounts report a "concerted effort" by staff in royal residences to set the winter heating to 19C, while any empty rooms were kept at 16C.

• Prince Harry and Meghan asked to leave Frogmore Cottage
• Buckingham Palace gets £369m renovations
• How is the Royal Family funded?

The running costs of the monarchy - such as for official visits and residences - are funded by the "Sovereign Grant", currently calculated as being 25% of the profits of the Crown Estate.

The annual accounts for 2022-23 show this funding was £86.3m, the same as the previous year.

But spending was almost £21m higher than the Sovereign Grant, with palace officials attributing the extra costs to:

• the continuing renovation of Buckingham Palace
• extra expenses for the queen's funeral
• the King's accession
• rising inflation

The 10-year £369m project to repair Buckingham Palace had £34.5m allocated this year.

"Virtually no-one" was living in the palace, royal officials said, although staff might stay there on a temporary basis for events.

But the King and Queen Camilla planned to live there once building work was complete, in a few years from now.

The officials gave no further details of plans for Frogmore Cottage.

The Duke of York remains in Royal Lodge, in Windsor, but they would not comment on his leasing arrangements.

On average, about 500 Royal Household staff were being paid by the Sovereign Grant during the year - and there were questions about efforts to increase diversity, with the proportion belonging to ethnic minorities, 9.7%, showing no change since last year.

Royal staff received training under a "diversity and inclusion strategy", with concerns having been raised after black British charity founder Ngozi Fulani faced repeated questions about where she was "really from", at a Buckingham Palace reception.

The public funding also covers the cost of official royal travel and visits, which included:

• more than £1m on 179 helicopter journeys
• almost £32,000 when the King used the royal train for a two-day tour from Ayr to Manchester
• £187,000 for the then Prince of Wales' visit to Rwanda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
• £146,000 for the King's tour of Germany on his inaugural state visit as monarch

But most of the visits were much more low-key, with:

• 2,700 engagements through the year
• 95,000 guests attending events in royal residences

Paying visitors to royal residences helped to offset some of the costs, with £9.8m in income earned - still less than half the pre-Covid levels.

The queen's death, last September, saw the Palace receiving an unprecedented level of correspondence, including messages of condolence, with 183,000 items arriving in the post.

In separate accounts, the Duchy of Cornwall reported profits of about £24m, in a transitional year that saw the new Prince of Wales replacing his father as the recipient.

'True cost'

Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Michael Stevens said the annual finances covered an unprecedented "year of grief, change and celebration".

As well as events including the Platinum Jubilee, the queen's death and the King's accession, he said, the Royal Household "has not been immune to the impacts of the joint challenges of the pandemic and inflationary pressures, which have resulted in a flat Sovereign Grant".

But anti-monarchy group Republic said the royals were increasing their spending while "public services are being squeezed".

Income from the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster should go to the state, it says, while additional costs such as policing are not included in the annual accounts.

"The royals have long hidden their true cost, which we have worked out to be at least £345m," Republic chief executive Graham Smith said. "That's enough to pay for 13,000 new nurses or teachers."

Read the latest from BBC News royal correspondent Sean Coughlan - sign up here.

Related Topics

• UK Royal Family
• Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
• King Charles III

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2023-06-28 23:11:35Z
2194215057

NHS staff sickness hits record high in England - BBC

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By Nick Triggle

Health correspondent

Staff sickness in the NHS in England has reached record levels.

Figures for 2022 show an absence rate - the proportion of days lost - of 5.6%, meaning the NHS lost the equivalent of nearly 75,000 staff to illness.

This is higher than during the peak pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 - and a 29% rise on the 2019 rate.

Mental health problems were the most common cause, responsible for nearly a quarter of absences, the Nuffield Trust analysis of official NHS data shows.

Big rises were also seen in cold, coughs, infections and respiratory problems, likely to be linked to the continued circulation of Covid as well as the return of flu last year.

There were three categories covering these types of illnesses. If combined, they would be responsible for more sickness than mental health.

Staff leavin

The think tank warned the NHS was stuck in a "seemingly unsustainable cycle" of increased work and burnout, which was contributing to staff leaving.

The analysis, exclusively for BBC News, comes ahead of the publication of the government and NHS England's long-awaited workforce plan.

Nuffield Trust senior fellow Dr Billy Palmer said: "The health service is grappling with a difficult new normal when it comes to staff sickness leave.

"There has been a lot of focus on recruitment but we need more endeavour to improve the working conditions of existing staff and protect them from illness.

"The workforce plan needs to have concrete support to enable employers to improve NHS staff experience if the service is to break this cycle of staff absences, sickness and leaving rates."

'Psychological strain'

The NHS sickness rate, the highest since records began, in 2010, is above the public sector average of 3.6%.

The Nuffield Trust warned it was likely to be an undercount of the true figure as not every absence would have been recorded.

And while recording systems differed in Wales and Scotland, it was clear those nations were also seeing increased levels of sickness in the NHS.

Miriam Deakin, of NHS Providers, which represents health managers, said the findings "laid bare the psychological strain on staff".

She said the absences came on top of 110,000 vacancies in the health service and warned the situation was having a "knock-on effect on patient care".

Unison head of health Sara Gorton said the rise in illness was due to the "unrelenting pressure" on the NHS.

"Until the NHS has sufficient employees to care for and treat all the people needing its help, absence levels will keep going through the roof. If there's to be a healthy NHS, it first needs a healthy workforce."

Related Topics

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2023-06-28 23:02:47Z
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UK water sector faces biggest crisis since Thatcher's 1989 privatisation - Financial Times

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2023-06-28 17:37:50Z
2189954915

Queen's University Belfast: 10 students have degree results withdrawn - BBC

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By Robbie Meredith

BBC News NI education correspondent

A university has apologised after some of its students were awarded final results for their degrees but then had them withdrawn.

Queen's University Belfast university blamed "human error at an extremely challenging and difficult time".

But one of the 10 students affected by the error told BBC News NI the news came as "a kick in the teeth".

"My classification was flaunted before me only to be later removed," said Lucy McCormill.

More than 750 students at Queen's are due to graduate without having their degree results finally confirmed as planned this summer.

The situation is due to industrial action by some staff which includes a boycott of marking and assessment.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at universities across the UK have been engaged in long-running industrial action over pay, working conditions and pensions.

A resolution for the dispute at Queen's was announced by the university and the union on Wednesday.

Students at many universities face similar uncertainty over their degree results as those at Queen's.

Lucy McCormill

Ms McCormill is about to graduate with a joint degree in English and history from Queen's.

She was initially told that despite the marking boycott she would be awarded her degree with a classification.

When she logged into the university's online results website it confirmed that she had got her degree with first class honours, the highest grade for an undergraduate degree.

"I was really happy because I had put in so much work, especially in final semester," she told BBC News NI.

"I really throw my all into my academic work and as soon as I found out I was telling everybody."

But she subsequently asked for clarification about one of her marks and was shocked to be told that she had been awarded her degree result in error.

"I thought it was a joke, I really did think it couldn't be real," she said.

• 'Futures at risk' over Queen's marking boycott
• Explained: The marking boycott
• Queen's and Ulster University strikes to resume
• QUB students may not be awarded degrees this year

While Ms McCormill now knows that she will be awarded a first-class honours degree at some point in the future, she does not know when that will be.

It also means that like hundreds of other Queen's students, she will attend a graduation but will not get her final confirmed degree result.

"It's a strange situation because I know I've got it but I can't celebrate it," she said.

"It's kind of invalid. I was conflicted about whether to defer my graduation or not.

"The final mark and the final outcome and the recognition of my hard work is the important thing.

"Sleepless nights have gone into getting my degree but I feel like my achievements are now a bit undervalued and unrecognised.

"So it just feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth."

Ms McCormill wants to go on to post-graduate study and is hoping that the situation with her degree will not hinder that.

'Unfortunate situation'

In response to questions from BBC News NI, Queen's confirmed that 10 students in all had been awarded a degree result only to have it withdrawn.

"We are deeply sorry for the administrative error regarding classifications," said a university spokesperson in a statement.

"We apologise wholeheartedly for the upset it has caused the 10 students affected, especially in the context of the current industrial dispute that is having a serious impact on students across the board.

"They have all received apologies in person from their heads of school and school managers and we are supporting them in dealing with this unfortunate situation and in relation to their next steps, whether than be continuing in education or starting careers."

"The error was down to human error at an extremely challenging and difficult time but we take full responsibility for the mistake and assure all students we have their best interests at heart and are committed to addressing their concerns and resolving the dispute as soon as possible."

Graduation ceremonies at Queen's are due to begin on Thursday.

Related Topics

• Belfast
• NI education
• Queen's University Belfast

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