Rail strikes have cost the UK more than settling the disputes months ago would have, rail minister Huw Merriman has said.
The strikes have cost the UK more than £1bn, he conceded to a committee of MPs.
However, Mr Merriman said no deal over pay was viable without unions agreeing to “modernise” working practices – a major sticking point in negotiations.
“It’s the reforms that will actually pay for these pay deals,” he said.
He also said the future of train operator Transpennine was under review.
When quizzed by the Transport Select Committee, Mr Merriman said the rail strikes cost rail organisations £25m per day on week days, and £15m per day on weekends.
He cited a report that found the strikes had cost the wider UK economy £700m from June to Christmas.
This has added up to a more than £1bn hit to the UK, he conceded to Labour MP Ben Bradshaw.
There is still a “hangover effect” from the financial instability seen during the prime ministership of Liz Truss, the Bank of England governor has said.
Andrew Bailey told MPs that the cost of government borrowing, which soared after the mini-budget, had normalised.
But he said international investors were still wary about lending money to the UK government.
“It’s going to take some time to convince everybody that we’re back to where we were before,” Mr Bailey said.
“Not because I doubt the current government, I am not trying in any sense to be negative. Obviously there is something of a hangover effect.”
In September the pound fell sharply and government borrowing costs soared after Ms Truss’s administration promised a huge package of tax cuts without explaining how they would be funded.
It caused mortgage rates to surge to a 14-year high. The Bank of England also had to step in to calm financial markets after the chaos put some pension funds at risk.
Since then, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has reversed almost all of Ms Truss’s tax plans and the pound and government borrowing costs have stabilised.
British actor Julian Sands has been named as a hiker who went missing in the San Gabriel mountains last week.
The 65-year-old was reported missing in the Baldy Bowl area on Friday, amid bad weather in southern California.
Police said ground rescue teams were pulled off the mountain last weekend due to avalanche risks but searches continue by drone and helicopter.
Mr Sands is known for roles in popular films and TV dramas including A Room With A View, 24 and Smallville.
In a statement shared with the PA news agency, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s department said Mr Sands was reported missing at about 19:30 local time on Friday 13 January.
The department’s search and rescue crews “responded and began a search”, it added, but had been hampered by severe weather warnings and trail conditions.
“However, we continue to search by helicopter and drones when the weather permits,” the statement said.
Andrew Tate’s head of security has given a dismissive account of the women who surrounded the controversial influencer, in spite of a police investigation into claims of sexual assault and exploitation against him. Tate denies all the allegations.
In an exclusive broadcast interview with the BBC, Bogdan Stancu said more than 100 women had passed through Mr Tate’s compound in Bucharest, since he began work there two years ago.
The former police intelligence officer said he was sometimes asked to physically remove women from the Tate house for being “too drunk” or “making problems”, but that no force was ever used.
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan are currently in 30-day custody in Romania, while police investigate allegations of trafficking and rape.
The case has put a spotlight on the attitudes inside their Bucharest home, and the way women were treated there.
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The wedding of Boris Johnson’s daughter, Lara Johnson-Wheeler, will be a particularly poignant occasion.
For Lara’s fiance, Patrick Mueller, has revealed that he has been fighting a secret cancer battle.
I’m still processing what happened between getting my testicular cancer diagnosis in early summer and a final clear scan last week,’ says Mueller, a German-born art director based in London. He adds online: ‘I couldn’t be more thankful for all the incredible support, care and love.’
Journalist Lara, 29, is the eldest of the former prime minister’s seven children. Her mother is his second wife, Marina Wheeler.
Carol Kirkwood, 60, is currently one of the longest-standing members of the BBC Breakfast team and, with decades in front of the camera, the presenter has experienced her fair share of on-air mishaps. Recalling some of her more embarrassing moments, the weather presenter shared how she made a necklace disappear on live television, much to the amusement of her co-hosts.
Although Carol is known by many as the bubbly weather presenter on BBC Breakfast, the journalist has also spent some time on the famous red couch.
During one such moment, Carol was busily going about her reporting job as usual when her necklace came loose, sparking a hilarious chain reaction.
As she recalled to The Sun: “I could hear the director in my ear saying, ‘The necklace is going, the necklace is going, oh no, it’s going to the cleavage, it’s going! It’s going! It’s gone’.”
While the running commentary on her wardrobe malfunction was laugh-inducing to begin with, the presenter managed to stay professional – that is, until her co-hosts came into play.
Unvaccinated COVID patients retain a greater risk of death and cardiovascular disease for at least 18 months after infection, new research suggests.
The findings come following a study of more than 160,000 people during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic – before any jabs were available.
Those who caught the disease between March and November 2020 were found to be up to 81 times more likely to die within the first three weeks of infection.
And they remained up to five times more likely to die than uninfected people a year-and-a-half later.
Patients also had a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, again up to 18 months after infection, which researchers say forms part of long COVID.
This included coronary heart disease, heart failure and deep vein thrombosis.
Researchers say their findings indicate that COVID patients should be monitored for at least a year after recovery.
The health secretary has appeared to rule out a 10% pay rise for nurses, insisting the move is “not affordable”.
Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Northwick Park Hospital, Steve Barclay reiterated that the independent pay review body is the “right way” to deal with disputes between health unions and the government.
Pressed on whether a 10% pay increase for nurses was reasonable, he said: “Well 10% is not affordable, it would be an extra £3.6bn a year and obviously that would take money away from patient services, essential services that we need to invest in, given the backlogs from the pandemic.”
The health secretary continued: “I have discussions with the Treasury, as do other secretaries of state, and these things need to be balanced not just with the needs of teachers, with the education secretary, or train drivers, with the transport secretary, but also what’s affordable for your viewers in terms of their own cost of living pressures.”
A 15-year-old boy has been found guilty of murdering a man stabbed to death outside an Asda supermarket.
Ian Kirwan, 53, was attacked at the store in Redditch, Worcestershire, on 8 March after challenging teenagers for messing about in the customer toilets.
Two youths aged 14 and one of 16 were cleared of killing Mr Kirwan, but were found guilty of violent disorder. A fifth, 16, was cleared on all counts.
The jury heard the killer was part of a masked gang that “terrorised” people.
None of the four boys can be legally identified because of their ages and are due to be sentenced on 15 February.
Source; https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-64235272
The government has set out more than 100 projects which will get a share of £2.1bn of levelling up funding.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the money would create jobs and “spread opportunity”.
The Eden Project in Morecambe, train services in Cornwall and a number of town centres are among the projects set to get funding.
But Labour said it was “a partial refund” on what the Tories “have stripped out of our communities”.
The idea of “levelling up” – or reducing regional inequality – was a key part of Mr Johnson’s 2019 election campaign. Its aim was to close the gap between rich and poor parts of the country by improving services such as education, broadband and transport.
More on this @https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64321755
