Markus Andrews

The education secretary has said the government is looking at allowing universities to hike tuition fees every year based on inflation to stop them going bust.It comes less than a year after Bridget Phillipson announced that fees would increase in England for the first time in eight years as part of a major overhaul of the higher education system. Tuition fees have been frozen at £9,250 since 2017, but in November, it was announced that they would increase in line with the Retail Price Index inflation in September 2025. Asked whether the government would allow universities an inflation-linked tuition fee increase every year to improve their financial situation, Ms Phillipson did not rule it out. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson (PA) More

Watch live as Sir Keir Starmer welcomes Volodymyr Zelensky to 10 Downing Street on Thursday, 14 August, a day before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are due to meet.The UK prime minister’s meeting with the Ukrainian president comes after he vowed that Britain will “increase pressure” on Russia if necessary.Meanwhile, the US president has threatened Russia with “severe consequences” if Russia rejects a ceasefire.Sir Keir joined a call with the US president and European allies on Wednesday, praising Mr Trump for his efforts to advance a “viable” chance of an end to the conflict.Concerns have been raised over the exclusion of Mr Zelensky in the meeting between Mr Trump and Putin; the Ukrainian leader has reiterated that there can be no talk of territorial concessions without his country’s involvement. Mr Trump said that if his meeting with the Russian leader goes well, he would like to have a quick second meeting with Putin and Mr Zelensky.Mr Zelensky has warned Donald Trump and European leaders that Putin is “bluffing” over his intentions to end the war.Sir Keir said ahead of the Friday meeting: “As I’ve said personally to President Trump for the three-and-a-bit years this conflict has been going on, we haven’t got anywhere near a prospect of actually a viable solution, a viable way of bringing it to a ceasefire.“And now we do have that chance, because of the work that the president has put in.” More

The UK has reportedly scaled back its plans to put troops in Ukraine, now offering a smaller “reassurance force” to support peace efforts in the region.While a 30,000-strong group from countries that make up the coalition of the willing – a group of countries which have pledged support for Ukraine against Russia’s aggression – had initially been floated, military chiefs are now said to have dropped the idea, instead favouring a smaller, “more realistic” operation.It comes as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to No 10 on Thursday morning, as Europe rallies behind Ukraine. Allied national security advisers discussed the war in Ukraine at the weekend ahead of a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin (Yevhen Titov/PA) More

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he had a large knife pulled on him and was “pelted with bottles” during a visit to a migrant camp in northern France. During a trip with Daily Express journalist Zak Garner-Purkis, the Conservative MP attempted to speak to asylum seekers living in tents near Dunkirk, as they waited to cross the English Channel in small boats. After attempting to speak to a group of Eritreans and a man carrying lifejackets, he is approached by Mr Garner-Purkis, who informs him that a man with a “rather large knife” has walked behind them. In the clip, Mr Philp says: “I found it pretty shocking – you said behind me somebody had pulled out some sort of machete and we left pretty quickly.”Mr Garner-Purkis says the man was “swinging it around in the air”, adding: “It was clear he was doing it to send a message to the other people there – whether it was a case of ‘don’t speak’.”Shortly afterwards while walking along the road recounting the incident to the camera, objects can be seen being thrown at them. Mr Garner-Purkis says “they are throwing bottles at us” and Philp responds: “Right, we’ve got to go.In a post on social media, the Croydon South MP said: “We were attacked today at the migrant camp dubbed “The Jungle 2” just outside Dunkirk. “We were threatened with a machete, pelted with bottles & our car hit as we sped off. “Those responsible are likely to be in the UK soon in a taxpayer funded hotel. This border madness must end.” In another video, he filmed a group of migrants boarding a bus while French police appear to be standing by showing “complete inactivity”.Migrants climbing onto a small boats near Gravelines in France to cross the Channel More

Rachel Reeves has been accused of “coming for your family’s future” with a possible inheritance tax raid – but a former Treasury adviser has warned the changes still won’t be enough to fill the £50bn black hole. Officials are thought to be looking at scrapping the ‘seven-year rule’ – which means that no tax is due on any gifts you give if you live for seven years after giving them – to help address the UK’s multi-billion-pound shortfall left by Labour U-turns, higher borrowing and sluggish economic growth.It comes just days after the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) piled pressure on the chancellor to come up with solutions ahead of her budget in the autumn.But Jonathan Portes, a former Treasury adviser and professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London who supports the idea of inheritance tax reform, told The Independent such changes would “certainly not raise tens of billions of pounds, or anything like it”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly looking at altering inheritance tax laws (Oliver McVeigh/PA) More

The Home Secretary has defended the Government’s expansion of live facial recognition technology as a “targeted” crackdown on high-harm offenders, amid concerns over privacy.Yvette Cooper denied the technology was being used to catch lower-level crimes such as ticket-touting, as it has been previously in Wales, and said “safeguards and protections” will govern its deployment.Critics including Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti have attacked new plans to roll out 10 vans equipped with facial recognition technology across seven police forces in England as part of a Government overhaul of neighbourhood policing.The former shadow attorney general said the expansion was a step towards a “total surveillance society” in the UK.Asked whether the rollout would infringe on people’s privacy, Ms Cooper said: “Well, the way this technology is being used is to identify people who are wanted by the court, who maybe should be returned to prison, or who have failed to appear before the court, or who have breached things like sexual harm prevention orders, so serious criminals.“And I think being able to identify them, alongside having proper legal safeguards and a legal framework in place because there do have to be safeguards and protections, but we also need to be able to use the technology to catch dangerous criminals and to keep communities safe.”In 2017, South Wales Police said facial recognition was being used to track suspects including ticket touts as the force prepared for the Champions League final in Cardiff.Pressed on whether she was happy for the technology to be deployed in this way, she said: “No, that’s not how they’ve (police in South Wales) used it.“They used it for targeting where there’s serious organised crime, where there are criminal gangs, but in every case that they do use it, they need to obviously have safeguards in place and we need to make sure that we’ve got a new legal framework for it to be operating under, and also that it can be used to tackle serious crimes and keep communities safe.”Ministers have said a new legal framework will be drawn up to support use of the technology following a consultation launching this autumn.Checks would only be done against police watchlists of wanted criminals, suspects and those subject to bail or court order conditions such as sex offenders, the Home Office said.The vans would be deployed across seven forces – Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire – in the coming weeks.They would be manned by trained officers operating within College of Policing guidance.But Lady Chakrabarti said the technology was “incredibly intrusive” and had been “developed pretty much completely outside the law”.“Some would say this is yet another move towards a total surveillance society – challenges to privacy, challenges to freedom of assembly and association, and problems with race and sex discrimination because of the higher likelihood of false matches in the context of certain groups,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.“It’s particularly odd that this has all been developed pretty much completely outside the law.”She welcomed plans to consult ahead of possible new legislation, but warned that to date, “it’s been a bit of a Wild West”.Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson dismissed the claims, telling BBC Breakfast: “With the greatest of respect, that’s not what this is about.“This is about giving the tools to our police officers to enable them to keep us safe.”Forces already deploying live facial recognition had used it to arrest rape, domestic abuse, knife crime and robbery suspects as well as sex offenders breaching their conditions.Meanwhile, the Home Office said every community across England and Wales had now been assigned a “named, contactable” officer to handle reports of crimes such as anti-social behaviour.Their details would be made available for residents on their local force’s website, it is understood.The pledge was made as part of the Government’s previously announced Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, under which forces have signed up to a commitment to respond to neighbourhood queries within 72 hours.The Government said the move would help ensure “the public will have consistent direct links to their local force, with dedicated anti-social behaviour leads and new visible patrols in town centres”. More

Shopkeepers should not place “high value” items close to store entrances because “obviously people will nick”, a Labour minister has told shopkeepers.It comes after new figures showed that shoplifting is at a record high, with retailers accusing police of not doing enough to tackle the problem. Asked about the issue, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said expensive items such as alcohol should not be displayed at the front of stores and said shopkeepers needed to do more to deter shoplifters.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Dame Diana said: “I think stores need to play their part in making sure that items that are high value are not at the front of the store because that is an issue in some stores, that they put bottles of alcohol at the front of the store, which obviously people will nick.“If they are going to steal to resell, they will nick items like that. So I think it is not just one thing here, it has to be an approach with the retailers, with the government and with the police to work together.”Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson More