Corrupt foreign border officials face being banned from the UK
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has announced a sanctions regime that from Wednesday will target anyone involved in assisting illegal immigration.
It is understood this will include foreign officials such as border guards and police officers who have taken bribes from those involved in supplying and financing small boats.
Producers of fake passports and 'middlemen' who transfer cash through the hawala legal money transfer system will also be targeted.
The move is part of a series of measures intended to disrupt the activities of people smugglers after a pledge from Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to 'smash the gangs'.
Lammy said: 'Those involved will face having their assets frozen, being shut off from the UK financial system and banned from travelling to the UK.'
Legislation is being introduced under the border security, asylum and immigration bill to increase enforcement powers for police forces and partners to investigate and prosecute people smugglers.
The government is under growing pressure over irregular migration. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, claimed on Monday that women and girls were facing a 'public safety crisis' as a result of crimes committed by 'illegal immigrants'.
Philp's comments were delivered in the Commons after six people were arrested after a protest outside an Essex hotel believed to house asylum seekers.
A series of demonstrations has taken place outside the Bell Hotel in Epping since Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, a 38-year-old asylum seeker, was charged with sexual assault over allegedly trying to kiss a girl of 14.
He denied the charge at Chelmsford magistrates court last Thursday.
Philp told MPs: 'Numbers in asylum hotels are now higher than at the time of the election. This is a border security crisis, but it is also a public safety crisis, especially for women and girls.'
He urged the government to 'record and publish the immigration status of all offenders' and to close the hotel in Epping.
Diana Johnson, the crime and policing minister, said it was 'vital that the criminal justice procedures are able to run their course'.
She added that the government took any allegation of sexual assault 'incredibly seriously' and was changing the law to ensure those convicted of sexual offences were not granted asylum.
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Times
22 minutes ago
- Times
How Gordon Brown's ‘baby bonds' failed to raise a nation of investors
Rachel Reeves wants stubborn savers to embrace investing to earn better returns and boost the economy. The chancellor is looking to rip up red tape to let banks to nudge savers towards the stock market, and is also considering cutting back the cash Isa allowance to ensure more of our savings are invested. However, the New Labour chancellor Gordon Brown also had an ambition to create a healthier savings culture, and it did not exactly turn out as he had hoped. Brown wanted to raise a generation of investors by giving every baby at least £250 to kickstart the habit. When detailing the policy in his 2003 budget, he said: 'The child trust fund symbolises the difference between those who believe in modernising the welfare state and those who wish it to wither away. 'At age 18, on the basis of historic rates of return, the child trust fund will accumulate assets that will enable all young people to have more of the choices that were once available only to some.' The tax-free scheme was designed to encourage parents to invest for their children's future, and all babies born between September 1, 2002 and January 2, 2011 were eligible. In all, 6.3 million accounts were opened, and the government paid £2 billion into the accounts, which could be accessed from 18. Yet child trust funds were scrapped by the coalition government in 2011 and many have since been lost or forgotten. Some investors have even been locked out of their funds. The first children with funds turned 18 in September 2020. The latest available data shows the total value of the funds is about £9 billion. While up to 2.8 million accounts have now matured, of these, about a quarter (670,000) have not been claimed. On average it's estimated that each young person could have an account worth about £2,000. A further study revealed that most of the accounts did not have any money paid into them between April 2023 and April 2024, suggesting they've been abandoned as a savings vehicle. Maike Currie, an investment and savings expert who worked for Hargreaves Lansdown until recently, said: 'Child trust funds were a victim of the age of austerity after the 2008 financial crisis. 'On reflection, they were always doomed to fail — starting with the elaborate name. Many people were put off, thinking these were the preserve of trust fund babies, while others simply did not know about them. 'This simply reiterates the importance of awareness and education if you're to reignite a nation of investors. If the government today fails on getting this right, they will have another flop on their hands with disastrous consequences.' Education about these accounts was lacking — and remains the case, as shown by a trip by Money in April to one school where many pupils had no idea they had a child trust fund. The initial sum of £250 was doubled to £500 for low-income families. Children had a second payment when they reached seven. However, in 2010, the initial payment was reduced to £50, or £100 for lower-income families, and the second payment at seven scrapped. The first payment was abolished entirely in 2011. New parents were also invited to choose a home for the free cash. They could invest it in the stock market (either choosing the investments themselves or selecting a stakeholder version where the investments were chosen by the provider) or choose a savings-style account where interest was paid. If an account was not opened by the child's parent, HM Revenue & Customs set up a stakeholder account on the child's behalf. Many parents never engaged with the scheme. HMRC stepped in on behalf of 1.7 million parents (28 per cent) who failed to find a home for the £250 within the required 12-month period. All HMRC-allocated accounts were investment-based. According to the Share Foundation, a charity that helps to trace unclaimed funds, more than £400 million is sitting unclaimed in HMRC-allocated accounts. More than half of the unclaimed accounts worth £274 million belong to young adults on low incomes. About 55,000 trust funds mature every month and the charity forecasts that nearly £1 billion will be unclaimed for low-income young adults by the end of this parliament. Gavin Oldham from the Share Foundation said: 'Since September 2020, when the first account holders started turning 18, child trust fund owners have been able to withdraw funds or transfer savings into an adult Isa. 'Yet there's an enormous amount of money sitting unclaimed by youngsters, who could use it to go towards tuition fees, a first home or simply to kickstart their own savings for the future.' The charity has matched more than 85,000 young people with their child trust funds, recovering more than £165 million for young adult account owners. The accounts will continue to mature until 2029, when the last children to get a fund will turn 18, but the worry is that many won't be reunited with their money. • NatWest says stolen £8,500 child trust fund is not its problem There were many other criticisms of the scheme. For example, the investment options were limited and expensive. A parliamentary report highlighted that investment charges for managing the funds were 'very high'. Another issue is that no provision was made for children with disabilities who were unable to manage their own finances. A report has previously suggested 80,000 such young people were unable to access their funds without their families going through the Court of Protection — a process that can be costly and time-consuming. If the amount in the fund is relatively small, the legal fees might outweigh claiming the cash. Analysts have looked for positive outcomes. There was some evidence to show that the accounts appeared to have led some parents to open savings accounts for older siblings who did not benefit. However, it found the scheme did not have a statistically significant effect on the rate of savings for children overall. Education is essential when it comes to encouraging people to invest. Many prefer to keep their savings safe in risk-free cash accounts, where they are unlikely to keep pace with inflation. If you have long enough to ride out the ups and downs of the stock market, investing usually results in a much higher return. A £100 monthly investment into the average global equity fund for the past 18 years (£21,600) would today be worth about £52,800, according to analysis by the investment platform AJ Bell. The same £100 a month saved in an average child's savings account over the last 18 years at 2.93 per cent would today be worth about £28,465, according to Moneyfacts. That's 85 per cent less than if the money had been invested. Currie said: 'Education, awareness and ease are the cornerstones to creating a nation of investors or to put it differently: there needs to be a seismic shift in trust, ease and confidence. 'In the UK, investing is still associated with gambling — people must understand that when you're investing you're owning real assets and the potential for future growth. It's also about getting to grips with the concept of risk and understanding different levels of risk — and the hidden risks of holding too much cash against a backdrop of inflation and longer lives. These are big hurdles to overcome to establish a culture of retail investing in the UK.' • How to get a nation of savers investing Laith Khalaf from AJ Bell said that the UK had a long way to go before reaching the investing culture in the US. Khalaf said: 'The US has been a leader in terms of financial products such as unit trust funds, exchange traded funds, trackers and self-invested personal pensions. As a result there is a greater familiarity with investments and probably a greater risk appetite amongst everyday Americans. That's positive for US investors and stocks over the long term, but it's not without its risk.' In the UK there's perhaps not enough risk being taken, with many people holding large sums of cash and never considering the stock market. Khalaf said: 'At least £100 billion is sitting in cash Isa accounts held by savers with £20,000 or more in cash, but no stocks and shares Isa investments. 'The chancellor's efforts to ignite a retail investing revolution are therefore well met. Getting more people to invest in the stock market will be positive for their long-term wealth and for the economy as a whole. In particular a regular investment plan can help reassure those who don't like the full thrills and spills of the stock market because it leads to a smoother journey.' He added that some things needed to be addressed to encourage investing. 'For example, it's nothing short of bizarre that the Treasury wants people to invest in domestic stocks but charges stamp duty of 0.5 per cent on UK share purchases. An investor can buy shares in a US company like Apple with no stamp duty to pay, but if they buy £10,000 of London-listed AstraZeneca shares, they will pay the government £50 for the privilege.' • The Share Foundation is campaigning for the government to start automatically releasing unclaimed CTF funds once account holders turn 21.• You can search for lost CTF funds using a free HMRC-linked search tool. Have your national insurance number to hand. Tayo Olutunde, 22, received a £2,500 windfall last year when he decided to check whether he had a child trust fund account. Tayo, who lives in Leeds and is studying accounting and finance, watched a TikTok video that prompted him to check with his parents about a child trust fund. They remembered setting one up and contributing to it for a time but couldn't remember with which bank. Olutunde said: 'As a family we moved a lot, including abroad. The contributions would have stopped when we went abroad and the paperwork was lost. I came across the Share Foundation who helped me locate where my account was — with NatWest. 'It took a long time to access the money because I didn't know which address was registered with my account, so I kept failing security. Eventually I got through and found I had £2,400. I was shocked.' Olutunder decided to spend about £400 on a holiday to Italy to celebrate his 21st birthday and invested the rest. But he said more needs to be done to educate young people about the world of investing. He said: 'I have a friend who also located his child trust fund recently. He spent most of it on a fast car, which I'm not sure is the best use of the money.' Scott and Julie James were thrilled to receive the £250 from the government for their daughter Holly when she was born in 2009. The couple, who live in Glasgow, decided to invest the sum to start building a nest egg for her future. Scott, 54, who works as a company director, said: 'The government was giving away free money which was great. Sadly the rest of the scheme wasn't quite so impressive. We wanted to invest the money, knowing that stocks and shares perform better than cash over the longer term. 'But at the time we opened the account, there wasn't a huge number of companies to choose from, and those that did offer child trust funds had a limited investment choice and the charges were high.' They opened an account anyway and it was topped up with money from grandparents. But when junior Isas were launched two years later, Scott felt they offered a bigger range of investments and lower charges, so they started saving in one of those accounts instead. Scott says they are still saving for Holly, now aged 16, perhaps to help with a first property purchase or whatever she might need in adulthood. He said: 'The child trust fund was a nice try, but it just didn't work.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Plea after 11-year-old injured in Southampton hit-and-run
The family of an 11-year-old boy left "traumatised" after being seriously injured in a hit-and-run collision have called for the driver to come suffered two broken hips when he was struck by a car while on an e-scooter near his home in Thornhill, Southampton, last month. Hampshire Constabulary said the car involved did not remain at the scene and has appealed for witnesses to come parents have also calling for tougher policing of e-scooters - illegal for under-16s to ride - after discovering he had been using one at the time. His mother, Hollie, recalled rushing to the scene after being told Bradley had been hit by a car shortly after 19:00 BST on 30 July."He was on the pavement. He had blood on his face, shaking from the shock," she said."Literally my mind was all over the place - I'm so grateful he's alive".He was taken to hospital with with four fractures on his hips and now has to use a wheelchair and waking he is expected to make a full recovery, Hollie said she felt "sick" knowing the driver drove off leaving Bradley said: "How could someone do that to a child? - leave them - I really can't believe it."He's absolutely traumatised. It's affected our whole family." She admitted Bradley was "having a go" on an e-scooter owned by his cousin when he was are not legally permitted to ride are effectively illegal for over-16s to use on public roads and pavements, with the exception of those in council-run hire said: "I'm going to take full accountability he was on an e-scooter on a road."We don't like e-scooters, we always make sure the kids wear helmets on their bikes - but he's made this one mistake." She said other parents should be aware of the dangers."I just want the police to be mindful and stop these children that are underage [using e-scooters]," she said."It might prevent this from happening again. We want people to be aware - we've leant the hard way."This has got to stop now - its not the first time accidents have happened on e-scooters."In a statement Hampshire Constabulary said: "We were called at 7.21pm on 30 July with reports of a car colliding with a pedestrian on Montague Avenue. "The car involved did not remain at the scene."Enquiries remain ongoing and anyone with information is encouraged to report this directly to police." You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Salisbury Plain shooting group fears closure in bird flu row
A Wiltshire shooting group says it may have to close down if new licensing laws around bird flu are not March, general licences for shooting gamebird, such as pheasant, were no longer issued for 2025 on or around Special Protection Areas by move was over fears the gamebirds could infect important bird populations with bird flu. Natural England was tasked with considering licences on a case-by-case of Bulford and Tidworth Garrison Shoot Hugh Carter said without a licence his shoot on Salisbury Plain would face closure. Natural England says licences can only be granted in "exceptional circumstances" where "clear measures" to cut transmission risk are taken. Special Protection Areas (SPAs) are strictly protected sites where internationally important wild bird populations live, such as the ground nesting Stone Curlew, which live on Salisbury Plain for parts of the Carter said Natural England should reconsider its "broad brush" approach to avian influenza."The assessment over the whole country is at one level but not reflecting what's going on, on Salisbury Plain," said Mr club shoots on the military training area of the plain and has 250 members who are largely serving personnel, military veterans and their dependants. It also employs a gamekeeper for the area, beaters and a gun dog team. Game killed during shoots is given first to employees and then donated to the wider community for Carter said if the shoot folded, the impact would be far-reaching for his community: "If there's no shoot, there's no gamekeeper, no picker-ups, no beaters, no food going into the community, no field sports going to the military community."It's the end. There are eight shoots here on Salisbury Plain all of whom will go out of business in the not too distant future if there is not some measured and sensible assessment done by Natural England." The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) is taking legal action against Natural Lovejoy, BASC's deputy director for conservation, said the focus of Natural England was on "disease risk" and it had not "looked at the impact of the removal of the predator control and habitat management" that shoots management is achieved largely through the employment of a gamekeeper, who controls the number of animals, such as foxes and badgers, which eat protected species like the Stone Curlew. 'Thriving' Ms Lovejoy said: "There is ample evidence that shows that protected bird species are thriving on areas where you have a shoot."Where predator management is undertaken, in our opinion, that whole section is missing in the [Natural England] assessment".She said Natural England's approach risked undermining the very conservation goals it was meant to support. Game management, predator control and habitat improvements, much of it privately funded and volunteer-led, were often inseparable from shooting activities, she added."Shooting contributes over £500m annually in conservation work – equivalent to 26,000 full-time jobs," said Ms Lovejoy. Natural England said it could not comment on ongoing legal matters but Matthew Heard, director of national delivery, said: "Natural England is responsible for protecting internationally important bird populations on Salisbury Plain from avian influenza, such as the Stone Curlew."We have been tasked by Defra with considering individual licences for game bird releases. "But, given the very high risk of transmission of this deadly disease, government policy makes clear they can only be granted if there is evidence of exceptional circumstances and clear measures to reduce risk of transmission." According to the Bulford and Tidworth Garrison Shoot, Minister for Animal Welfare and Biosecurity Baroness Sue Hayman recognises its "biosecurity protocols exceed Defra requirements", but Natural England refused the licence application. Military Veterans Mark Witham is a military veteran who served 36 years in the army and says he relies on the Bulford and Tidworth Garrison Shoot. "I was physically and mentally broken when I left the army," he says, adding that with the shoot, "I'm outside with my dogs, talking to different people every day."It is fantastic for my mental wellbeing".He said working on each shoot with his five dogs, retrieving injured game to quickly dispatch them, and collecting shot game, was his said if shoots closed it would have a "devastating" impact on him. "I'll have dogs that I can't employ, they are my livelihood."I'm also a gundog trainer. I'd have to get rid of my picking-up team because I wouldn't be able to employ them." The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has shown support for the current guidance.A RSPB spokesperson welcomed "the decision made by Defra to not allow gamebird release on SPAs under general licence and the precautionary approach Natural England are taking in granting individual licences".The charity said it wanted the government to go further, calling for "all future releases of reared gamebirds and mallards [not just those on protected sites]" to be licensed.
