Markus Andrews

The Education Secretary has said smartphones have “no place” in schools as she warned of the damage caused by social media and technology.Bridget Phillipson told school and college leaders that they have the Government’s “full backing” on removing disruptive phones from classrooms.Addressing the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) in Liverpool, the Education Secretary said she had tasked officials to explore how to “more effectively monitor” what is happening in schools across England around the use of smartphones.It comes after Manny Botwe, president of the ASCL, said smartphones and social media are increasingly “being weaponised” against schools.The school leader in Macclesfield called for an end to the “chaos” caused by social media as he said it was time to bring social media platforms to “heel”.In her speech to around 1,000 school and college leaders on Friday, the Education Secretary said: “You know, we all know, that phones are disruptive, distracting, bad for behaviour. They have no place in our schools.“And the Government’s position is clear, you have our full backing in ridding our classrooms of the disruption of phones.“I know that will be the case in the overwhelming majority of all classrooms, but I expect it to be true in all classrooms.“So I tasked my officials to look at how we can more effectively monitor what’s happening on the ground.”Schools in England were given non-statutory guidance under the former Conservative government in February last year intended to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day.Speaking to the media at the conference in Liverpool, Ms Phillipson said phone use can be “a driver of poor behaviour” within classrooms and she called on school leaders to enforce existing guidance on phones.She said: “The Conservatives brought in this policy, I think it was the right approach to take, what we need to ensure is that it’s being enforced right across the country, in every classroom.“So we’ll be looking into what more data we need to gather in order to identify if it’s not happening, what more schools need to do to take action.”When asked whether parents should be stricter on restricting phone use at home, the Education Secretary said: “I know lots of parents are worried about access to inappropriate material online and what children can be exposed to. That’s why we are taking action through the Online Safety Act.”She added: “I think the evidence is increasingly clear that we shouldn’t be allowing children unrestricted access to harmful content.“There’s a role for government in that, there is a role for parents in that, and as I said in my speech, schools have a role to play during the school day.”During her speech to headteachers on Friday, Ms Phillipson also called for schools to “catch up fast” to improve pupil attendance and said she would not accept the “damage” caused by children missing school.The Education Secretary said some schools were “not making enough progress” on absences as she called for “old-fashioned graft”. More

Liz Truss spent £285 of taxpayer cash helping one of her staffers brush up their CV after losing her seat at the general election.The former prime minister claimed the £285 sum in August – a month after her election defeat – explaining that a “staff member asked if the cost of this could be covered and took training or help to assist with their CV”. Labour MP Terry Jermy, who took Ms Truss’s South West Norfolk seat in the July election, said the expense claim “shows yet again how she treats public finances”.“I’d give her former staff member some free CV advice and maybe not mention having worked for the ex-PM,” he told The Independent.“Liz Truss is claiming the £115,000-a-year public fund awarded to former prime ministers after only being in office for 49 days, while having crashed the economy while in No 10 after announcing £45bn of unfunded tax cuts.Liz Truss has called for a wave of government spending cuts modelled on Elon Muske’s Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) More

Plans to encourage life-saving rare cancers research and “gift families with more time with the special people that they love” have been backed by the Government.Labour MP Scott Arthur’s Rare Cancers Bill, which passed its second reading on Friday, proposes to create a database to improve access to clinical trials.Health minister Ashley Dalton said people living with rare cancers must be “at the heart” of NHS reform, as she pledged her support for the Bill.Rare cancers are complex, often deadly, tumours which affect fewer than six in 100,000 people.The Bill would set up a disease registry with details about rare cancers, and a contact registry to match patients with clinical trials.A national speciality lead for rare cancers will also be established under the Bill’s proposals, to promote and facilitate research into rare diseases.During the debate on Friday, Labour MP Josh Fenton-Glynn paid tribute to his brother Alex English who died from a rare salivary gland cancer called high-grade acinic cell carcinoma this year.Mr Fenton-Glynn described his brother as “always funny” and “unfailingly kind” in his speech, adding that he would “do anything” to spend more time with Mr English, who died on January 20.He told the Commons: “I tell this story to highlight what we can win, because this Bill can gift families with more time with the special people that they love.“Increasingly, more common cancers are treatable or they’re illnesses people can live with, but for rare cancers we still have a way to go and without focus, we won’t get any further.”The MP for Calder Valley continued: “Not all cancer journeys have the outcome that we want, and even with this Bill, we’re still going to lose some people.“But what more investment into research for rare cancers can give is crucial – it can give us time.“And I’d do anything for more time with my brother.”He went on to say: “I remember the humour and love in the best man speech he gave for me, and I’ll never not be sorry that I’ve written eulogies for my brother but never a best man speech.“While preparing for Christmas in 2023, I got a call from Alex and he asked if I had a minute to talk, which is unlike him because he wouldn’t generally be over-serious.“He said he had a lump on the side of his face that was, in his words, ‘unsightly but not overly concerning’ – it might be cancer but there were a number of other things that it could have been, and if it was cancer it was likely a very treatable form.”Mr Fenton-Glynn later added: “Last spring in my mum’s garden, during a hushed conversation with a different family member to the side, they told me that Alex might only have 18 months to live.“I hugged my two-year-old son who was playing in the garden unaware because I was trying not to make a big deal of it, but sometimes you need to hug someone.“And every update got worse.”Mr Fenton-Glynn said his brother was admitted to hospital on Christmas Eve “and when he returned home, we knew he was coming home to die”.He ended his speech in tears, saying that the proposed new law could give cancer patients and their families “more time, better help and an understanding of the journey that people are on, more special moments, be they a Pixies concert, reading a story for a child – Alex read the best stories – and time to organise what you leave behind”, adding the UK could cement itself as a “world leader in tackling rare cancers”.During the debate, Labour MP Katrina Murray also became emotional, as she told the Commons through tears that her father had died seven weeks ago.“More time’s now passed since his death than the time we had between his diagnosis and his passing,” the MP for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch said.“The grief is still exceptionally raw.”Ms Murray warned that the UK has “one of the most siloed systems – that people in one part of the system often don’t know what’s going on in other parts”.She said: “We need that to stop.”Mr Arthur, who introduced the proposed new law as a private member’s Bill, said rare cancer patients “already have the cards stacked against them, as they are 17% less likely to survive”The Labour MP for Edinburgh South West said: “This is an injustice, caused by the relative lack of research developed in this field over many years.”Health minister Ashley Dalton: “It is my great pleasure to pledge our support to this Bill. We are undertaking fundamental reform of the NHS and people living with rare cancers must be at the heart of this change.“Rare cancer patients deserve better, and this Bill gives them something which we’ve had spoken about across the House today: hope, new hope.” More

The UK economy contracted by 0.1 per cent in January in a blow to Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer’s growth mission, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).Just weeks before the chancellor delivers her spring statement setting out the government’s spending plans, the ONS said the economy started the year shrinking. The fall in gross domestic product (GDP) was a shock, with most economists expecting it to have risen by 0.1 per cent in the first month of the year. Responding to the fall, the Conservatives branded Labour “growth killers”The slowdown is a blow to chancellor Rachel Reeves More

Reform UK is on course for a major upset in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, according to the latest poll, despite a week of bitter infighting in the party.The first poll of the constituency since MP Mike Amesbury quit after being convicted of attacking a constituent, forecasts Nigel Farage’s party will take the North West seat from Labour. It comes after more than a week of rows in the insurgent right-wing party, with Mr Farage suspending one of its five MPs, Rupert Lowe.In July’s general election, Mr Amesbury won the seat for Labour with 22,358 votes, with Reform UK a distant second on 7,662. Labour is facing an uphill battle after its former MP quit the seat in disgrace More

As Labour announces the end of NHS England to “cut bureaucracy” and bring the health service “back into democratic control”, all eyes are on the hundreds of other quangos which could face a similar fate.Funded by billions in government spending, NHS England is Britain’s largest quango and makes decisions on the running of the national health service. Carrying out an administrative function, it is largely run by managers and officials.The change will result in the loss of 9,000 jobs as this control is moved away from NHS England and folded into the Department for Health and Social Care. Health secretary Wes Streeting said the move will end a “complex bureaucracy with two organisations doing the same jobs”.Health secretary Wes Streeting said the move will end a “complex bureaucracy” More

The minister responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) turned to ChatGPT for policy advice, it has emerged. Science and tech secretary Peter Kyle asked the AI chatbot why small businesses in the UK were slow to adopt the technology, records show. Mr Kyle also asked the software which podcasts he could appear on to reach the widest audience possible, and for definitions of terms such as “quantum” and “digital inclusion”. Records obtained under freedom of information laws by the New Scientist magazine show Mr Kyle asked ChatGPT: “I’m secretary of state for science, innovation and technology in the United Kingdom. What would be the best podcasts for me to appear on to reach a wide audience that’s appropriate for my ministerial responsibilities?” Peter Kyle, secretary of state for Science, Innovation and Technology, said he uses ChatGPT “often” in an interview More