UK Air India crash victim's mum sent wrong body back for burial
Her son, Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, and his husband Jamie were among the 260 people killed when the flight crashed less than a minute after takeoff from Ahmedabad.
Despite initial DNA identification in India, a second test conducted in the UK revealed the remains sent to Ms Donaghey were not her son's.
The family has been unable to lay Fiongal to rest with his husband and is urging the British government to help locate his remains.
The incident is expected to be raised by Sir Keir Starmer with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while Air India has offered interim compensation to affected families.
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BBC News
22 minutes ago
- BBC News
Gordon Brown calls for gambling tax to cut child poverty
Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has repeated his call for higher taxes on gambling to lift half a million children out of has backed a think tank report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), saying the move could raise £3.2bn to fund scrapping the two-child limit and benefit who was also chancellor under Tony Blair, said taxing online casinos and slot machines would be "the first crucial step in the war we must wage against child poverty".A spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council rejected the proposals, describing them as "economically reckless" and claiming they could push gamblers onto the black market. The Department for Media, Culture and Sport has been contacted for comment. The two-child limit and benefit cap affects 1.6 million children and is blamed for rising rates of food insecurity by anti-poverty campaigners, who say getting rid of the cap is the "single most effective" step the chancellor could take to reduce child two-child limit restricts child tax credit and universal credit (UC) to the first two children in most households, while the benefit cap sees the amount of benefits a household receives reduced to ensure claimants do not get more than the government is expected to publish a child poverty strategy in autumn, and children's charities and campaign groups have been united in calling for the two-child limit to be in the Guardian, Brown states: "Britain is now enduring the worst levels of child poverty since modern records began, even worse than in the Thatcher-Major years, and far worse than in most European countries..."These are austerity's children, the victims of 14 years of Tory rule, an era whose most vindictive act was to treat newborn third and fourth children as second-class citizens, depriving them of all the income support available to their first and second siblings."Flagging that child poverty is set to rise to "a wholly unacceptable" 4.8 million, Brown urges Chancellor Rachel Reeves to make "a straightforward budget choice" to raise taxes on online gambling companies to fund tackling child proposals focus on online gambling firms - the fast-growing part of the industry - and avoid any changes to bingo or lotteries. The IPPR suggested increasing taxes on online casinos from 21% to 50% and raising those on slots and gaming machines from 20% to 50%.Many online gambling firms are based offshore and pay little or no UK corporation tax, the IPPR report flags, and already benefits from unique tax advantages, including a complete exemption from VAT. The IPPR said raising gambling taxes in the way they suggested would be unlikely to reduce overall government Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at IPPR, said: "The gambling industry is highly profitable, yet is exempt from paying VAT and often pays no corporation tax, with many online firms based offshore. "It is also inescapable that gambling causes serious harm, especially in its most high-stakes forms."Set against a context of stark and rising levels of child poverty, it only feels fair to ask this industry to contribute a little more."But a spokesperson for the Betting and Gaming Council said they rejected the "economically reckless, factually misleading" proposals which they insisted "risk driving huge numbers to the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market, which doesn't protect consumers and contributes zero tax".They added: "Further tax rises, fresh off the back of government reforms which cost the sector over a billion in lost revenue, would do more harm than good - for punters, jobs, growth and public finances." Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
The Sun
22 minutes ago
- The Sun
Labour minister for homelessness ‘threw out tenants then hiked rent by £700 a month' ahead of law change to BAN doing it
A LABOUR homelessness minister evicted four tenants from her townhouse before upping the monthly rent by £700. Rushanara Ali threw out the people living at her east London property and later re-listed it for hundreds more, as reported by The i Paper. 2 2 According to the news outlet, the Labour MP previously rented the four-bedroom townhouse out for £3,300 a month. But new tenants were forced to fork out an eye-watering £4,000 a month for the home - a stone's throw away from Olympic Park. The landlord MP, who owns two rental properties, is known for her fight against private renters"being exploited" and championed reform against "unreasonable rent increases". In fact, Labour's Renters' Rights Bill will ban landlords who are trying to sell their property from relisting it for higher rent less than six months after tenants move out. The new law is expected to come into force next year. Conservative shadow Housing Secretary, James Cleverly, said the allegations against Ms Ali 'would be an example of the most extreme hypocrisy and that she should not have the job as homelessness minister'. Laura Jackson was one of the four people who rented from Ms Ali. The self-employed restaurant owner was told in November she had four months to leave. Ms Jackson, 33, told The i Paper: 'It's an absolute joke. Trying to get that much money from renters is extortion'. The property was managed on Ali's behalf by two lettings agencies, Jack Barclay Estates and Avenue Lettings. Watch as housing minister reveals new plans to protect tenants They told tenants they'd be charged nearly a staggering £2,400 for the house to be repainted and professionally cleaned. But landlords are not allowed to charge tenants for professional cleaning under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. Ms Jackson dubbed the "exploitative" charges "ridiculous and unfair". However, they were dropped when the firms were told the landlord was a Labour MP. It is understood Ms Ali was told of the fees and cancelled them. Ben Twomey, the chief executive of Generation Rent, said: 'These allegations are shocking and a wake-up call to Government on the need to push ahead as quickly as possible to improve protections for renters. 'It is bad enough when any landlord turfs out their tenant to hike up the rent, or tries their luck with unfair claims on the deposit, but the minister responsible for homelessness knows only too well about the harm caused by this behaviour.' A source close to Ms Ali told The i Paper her tenants were told their tenancy would not be renewed. They were reportedly offered a rolling contract before the house went up for sale. The townhouse was only relisted for rent after she did not find a buyer, said the insider. A spokesperson for Ms Ali said: 'Rushanara takes her responsibilities seriously and complied with all relevant legal requirements.' The property is on sale for £894,990, reduced from £914,995 listed last November. It comes as The Renters' Reform Bill is expected to come into force next year. The far-reaching bill will ban Section 21, also known as "no fault" evictions, as well as prevent landlords from increasing rents to deliberately squeeze hard-up renters out of their homes. The delay to the ban on Section 21 notices, as first reported by The Financial Times, is the first in a string of push backs. A host of other changes are included in the legislation including ensuring possession grounds are fair to both parties. This will give tenants more security but also allow landlords to recover their properties "when reasonable". Providing stronger protections against backdoor eviction will also be enforced. This will ensure tenants can appeal above-market rents which are designed to force them out. A new Private Rented Sector Landlord will be introduced to the Ombudsman, meaning renters can get impartial help if they have a grievance with their landlord. Tenants are also set to receive strengthened rights to request a pet in the property - a landlord will have to consider this and cannot refuse it unreasonably. Meanwhile Awaab's Law is due to be applied to the sector to clear legal expectations about the time frames within which landlords in the private rented sector have to take action to make homes safe where they contain serious hazards.
Times
36 minutes ago
- Times
‘Chaotic' early release schemes put public at risk, say prison staff
Eight in ten prison and probation staff disapprove of the government's decision to release inmates early according to a mass survey exposing chaotic management of the prison estate that allegedly 'puts the public at risk of serious harm'. Timetables for implementing early releases were rushed, leading to multiple errors and a lack of oversight of who was being freed early, the report of the survey's findings, which was shared with The Times, said. Probation staff said that criminals released from jail were often not tagged or monitored and they described the management of early release schemes as 'a shambles'. One prison worker said they had overseen three prisoners who had each been recalled within days of release. 'They just viewed it as a fun 'bonus' of being out for a few weeks and unlawfully at large,' the prison officer said. The findings came from a survey of nearly 500 prison and probation workers across England and Wales carried out by the Skills for Justice organisation to understand their views on the various emergency early release schemes introduced over the past two years to ease the overcrowding crisis in jails. A scheme introduced by the Conservative government in autumn 2023 released more than 10,000 prisoners up to 70 days before the end of their sentence. The current Labour government replaced this in September last year with a scheme that allows prisoners to be released after serving only 40 per cent of their sentence. As of March 26,456 prisoners had been released early. Eighty per cent of staff surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with the early release schemes and a similar percentage reported increased work-related stress since the introduction of the schemes. Six in ten of those surveyed were in favour of the government's plans to introduce Texas-style reforms to the prison service where inmates are incentivised to earn early release through good behaviour. They described the proposals as enabling them to more easily plan for individuals being released. Forty per cent of those surveyed, however, said that they wanted to scrap early release measures altogether. Under the government's plans, prisoners would be able to be released as little as a third of the way through their sentence if they were not violent, complied with rules and participated in rehabilitation, work or training courses during their time behind bars. • Early prison releases risk public safety, police warn The findings of the survey, which was conducted with the help of the Prison Governors' Association, the Community Union, which represents prison officers, and Napo, the trade union representing probation staff, showed that 87 per cent said early release schemes had derailed business-as-usual activity such as rehabilitation programmes, training and other purposeful activity intended to reduce reoffending. This had left a depleted workforce struggling to cope, the report of the findings concluded. One prison worker said of the most recent early release scheme: 'This has produced a revolving door of offenders not adequately prepared for release and who reoffend at a higher rate.' A probation worker said: 'It was too rushed. It did not allow sufficient time or resources for prisoners to be released safely. People were not being tagged or monitored. The whole thing was a shambles.' Another said: 'Workload pressures on probation are immense, and without the appropriate resources to manage all the prison releases, something will go wrong, and the public are at risk of serious harm.' Probation staff described how early release had destroyed their motivation to do their job and had forced many colleagues to take days off sick. One said: 'I started this role motivated and ready to do my job but as more and more pressure is placed on us, I feel myself breaking. The job, currently, is unmanageable, stressful and ridiculous. Numerous staff members are having to take stress-related sick leave, and I feel the organisation as a whole will collapse should this continue.' Tom Wheatley, president of the Prison Governor's Association, called on the government to invest more in prison and probation services to improve the quality of staff and boost retention rates. He said: 'Successive governments have failed to invest in probation in the same way that they have failed to invest in prisons. We need to avoid the kind of 'emergency' measures we have seen recently. 'Recruitment and retention policies need to offer pay and conditions of service for all HMPPS [His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service] staff that will not only attract high quality recruits but will also encourage them to stay to gain experience, then build on that to become the highly skilled people needed for prisons and probation to be successful.' Ian Lawrence, general secretary of Napo, said: 'Decades of underinvestment in prisons meant that once breaking point came, the burden fell disproportionately on the shoulders of probation services. Already overstretched, it was down to hardworking and dedicated prison and probation staff to respond to the challenge of automatic early release, without proper operational support. 'We cannot keep expecting probation officers to pick up the pieces. Probation services are transformational to people's lives and central to a functioning criminal justice system. 'We therefore need to ensure the long-term sustainability of the workforce by ensuring people are properly rewarded and supported to do their jobs.' A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'This government inherited prisons days from collapse and had no choice but to take decisive action to stop jails overflowing — an event that would have been cataclysmic for frontline staff. 'To ensure we never run out of prison places again, we are building 14,000 prison places and reforming sentencing so our jails reduce re-offending, cut crime, and keep victims safe.'
