Assisted dying bill must now be killed off
Since the bill was given the initial approval by MPs last November, these fears have only grown. Some are due to the haphazard nature of the legislation: such
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The Independent
26 minutes ago
- The Independent
The tax change Starmer is being urged to do to improve UK finances
Sir Keir Starmer is facing growing pressure to introduce a wealth tax to address a significant shortfall in public finances. New polling indicates that 91 per cent of Labour members support taxing the rich more, with 84 per cent also advocating for an end to the two-child benefit cap. Senior Labour figures, including Angela Rayner and Anneliese Dodds, have previously urged consideration of wealth taxes as an alternative to departmental cuts. The survey also highlights widespread concern among Labour members regarding party discipline, with 74 per cent believing challenging controversial legislation should not result in suspension. Critics within the party warn that the leadership is out of step with its membership and risks losing support if it does not adopt a more progressive policy direction.
BBC News
27 minutes ago
- BBC News
Facing past trauma and ADHD after becoming homeless
Stephanie and Rob have never met but have several things in common - both have lived through trauma, are neurodivergent and have experienced suggests 94% of people facing homelessness have experienced one or more traits are over-represented in homeless people, according to separate Williams, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is being tested for autism, became homeless in December following a suicide attempt and the breakdown of her marriage. "It can happen to just anybody, a lot of us are actually only three pay checks away from being homeless ourselves... especially if you haven't got savings behind you," she said. Experts have said neurodivergent people appear to have a higher risk of becoming homeless as they may have fewer friends and family they can turn to for support and find it hard to stay on top of the things they need to to keep their housing, such as bill-paying and said through her life she had struggled to maintain relationships. "I've lost quite a lot of people through them not understanding how I've meant something or if they've said something I've taken it very, very literally," she added. "When you've got autism or ADHD, a lot of the time you're looking at how other people are in a situation, you're mimicking but it creates this massive distance between you because you're trying to fit into something that you're really not understanding what it is that you're trying to fit into." She said she had never understood how other people were able to make friends and maintain friendships. Initially after moving out of the home she had rented with her wife she was able to stay on a friend's a few weeks she contacted Citizen's Advice and was moved into a hotel that was being used to house others experiencing now has a permanent home in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, is a Scout leader, volunteers with homelessness charity The Wallich and plans to start her training to become a support worker next was only recently diagnosed with ADHD and is on medication for that, she still sees a psychiatrist and is about to start psychodynamic therapy, to explore traumas she has faced in her life, including being "outed" as gay when she was growing up. Rob Thomas is a private practice clinical psychotherapist and counsellor in Swansea, who works with people experiencing homelessness. He experienced homelessness himself in his 20s, which he believes was in part down to living with childhood trauma and undiagnosed ADHD. Rob was born with a heart condition and spent long periods of time away from his family while being treated in hospital."What I realise now is that I was taken away from my family and what that embedded in me was a sense of it's just me, I'm on my own with this, so then asking for help became impossible," he began unravelling after he finished his degree in biomedical science in Preston - and he found he could not ask for help. "My landlord wasn't happy with me because I wasn't maintaining the property to his satisfaction... I hadn't paid council tax, I hadn't been paying my electricity," he said. Missed appointments at the Job Centre meant his benefits were stopped. "Someone who is neurotypical would encounter a problem and they'd go 'all right I'll make that phone call to the electricity company and sort that out' but the level of anxiety that I would experience would be overwhelming, the idea of making that phone call I'd be getting sweats, I'd go into panic, I'd have problems sleeping," he said. "I would not respond to letters. I wouldn't answer the phone."Rob said he found himself with nowhere to go and was forced to sleep rough, often in bus stops. "You're sleeping for like an hour, two hours, and then you're awake again. You're constantly on guard - who's going to come asking for money? Who's going to try taking shoes?," he said. After being on the streets for a few weeks his friend's mother took him in."She basically dragged me by the scruff of the neck, kicking and screaming to her house," recalled Rob. He stayed for several months before moving back to his parents' in took many years but he eventually returned to education and became a support worker for The Wallich before becoming a psychotherapist. But even 30 years on from losing a grip on his bills he gets a rush of panic when his phone rings."Everybody's expected to be the same but neurodiverse people are just people who think differently," he added systems were only set up with neurotypical people in mind. "If you don't fill out the form the system doesn't ask you 'why didn't you fill out the form? Is there anything we can help with?' It's 'you didn't fill out the form, you have your money stopped' or 'you didn't fill out the form so we're not giving you any more appointments'." Sean Stillman, who founded Zac's Place that provides support to the homeless in Swansea, said people often make assumptions about people who are homeless but almost everyone his project supports has experienced trauma."When you truly try and engage with somebody's story, you start to lift the lid, you discover that there are often multiple traumas," he said. "You might think someone has ended up sleeping rough or they're homeless because they've got an addiction but then if you ask the question why you discover there's so many layers, there might be broken relationships, issues of abuse, you might find that they've fallen out of the care system but once you get caught in a destructive pattern which involves sleeping rough, your health and mental health can quickly deteriorate, and all of a sudden you end up being somebody quite different."Anthony Vaughan is a trauma-informed specialist at The Wallich, which runs an in-house counselling service, the Reflections said the people they work with who have not dealt with their trauma found it harder to move out of homelessness. "We know that people don't have 'something' wrong with them - they are people who've had 'something happen to them'," he said."They are survivors of trauma."
BBC News
27 minutes ago
- BBC News
Afghans resettled in UK affected by new MoD data breach
Thousands of Afghans brought to safety in the UK have had their personal data exposed, after a Ministry of Defence (MoD) sub-contractor suffered a data breach. The names, passport information and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) details of up to 3,700 Afghans have potentially been affected after Inflite The Jet Centre, which provides ground-handling services for flights at London Stansted airport, suffered a cyber-security comes just a month after it was a revealed another major data breach in 2022 leaked the details of almost 19,000 people who had asked to come to the UK in order to flee the Taliban. The government said the incident "has not posed any threat to individuals' safety, nor compromised any government systems." There is currently no evidence to suggest that any data has been released Afghans affected are believed to have travelled to the UK between January and March 2024, under a resettlement scheme for those who worked with British troops. An email sent out by the Afghan resettlement team on Friday afternoon warned their families that personal information may have been exposed."This may include passport details (including name, date of birth, and passport number) and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) reference numbers," it affected also include British military personnel and former Conservative government ministers, the BBC understands.A government spokesperson said: "We were recently notified that a third party sub-contractor to a supplier experienced a cyber security incident involving unauthorised access to a small number of its emails that contained basic personal information."We take data security extremely seriously and are going above and beyond our legal duties in informing all potentially affected individuals." Inflite The Jet Centre said in a statement it believes "the scope of the incident was limited to email accounts only" and has reported it to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The BBC has contacted the ICO for comment. The incident follows a February 2022 incident in which the personal data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to move to the UK under the Arap scheme was mistakenly leaked by a British official, leading to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK. The leaked spreadsheet contained the names, contact details and some family information of the people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban. That incident was made public for the first time in July of this year.
