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Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has ordered an investigation into a data breach involving dozens of Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces.More than 250 former workers seeking evacuation to the UK were mistakenly copied into an email from the Ministry of Defence asking for an update on their situation, the BBC reported.John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, said: “We told these Afghans interpreters we would keep them safe, instead this breach has needlessly put lives at risk.“This is the second major data breach from the MoD this year, after sensitive documents were discovered at a bus stop in Kent in June. Clearly, the defence secretary needs to get his house in order.”A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “An investigation has been launched into a data breach of information from the Afghan Relocations Assistance Policy team.“We apologise to everyone impacted by this breach and are working hard to ensure it does not happen again.“The Ministry of Defence takes its information and data handling responsibilities very seriously.”One of the affected interpreters told the BBC that some others failed to spot the mistake and replied to the entire list with further personal details. The email was sent by the team in charge of the UK’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), which has been dealing with claims of refuge since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August.Conservative MP Johnny Mercer said the treatment of Afghan interpreters had been “deeply shameful”.“In July, myself along with many others in defence asked the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary to sort out the Arap programme,” he said.“They wrote a churlish letter back saying we were reacting to ‘significant misreporting’ and our concerns were ‘simply not true’.“I told them they would regret their childish approach to a genuine effort to protect those who had served in harms way on behalf of our nation.“Their hubris will cost lives; this latest episode will only accelerate that. Deeply shameful.” More

People on the poverty line will be forced to choose between heating and eating this winter because of a triple whammy in the cost of living, the government is being warned.Experts say that rising energy bills combined with the end of both furlough and the universal credit top-up risk creating a living standards crisis this autumn.Annual gas and electricity bills are expected to soar by up to £280 after wholesale energy prices shot up. The hike led suppliers to withdraw their lowest fixed-rate offers on Thursday.In addition, the government price cap on annual energy costs for households is due to rise next month, leaving the average dual-fuel deal at £1,277 a year. But comparison site The Energy Shop expects this to go up to £1,557.At the same time, the furlough scheme, which was established as a way to prevent employers having to lay off workers, winds down at the end of this month.And the £20-a-week universal credit uplift, brought in to help those receiving the benefit cope with the pandemic lockdown, is ending in early October.National insurance is also going up by 1.25 percentage points in April.Figures show that 1.6 million people were on furlough at the end of July, and chancellor Rishi Sunak has been warned that ending the universal credit uplift will result in the biggest ever overnight benefit cut, affecting millions of families.Ministers argue, however, that they have spent £400bn protecting jobs and livelihoods and supporting businesses and public services during the pandemic. The cost of gas is rising sharply due to higher demand brought about by the economic recovery after the pandemic. And a blaze in Kent, which this week knocked out a major cable bringing in electricity from France, is expected to affect supplies until March next year.Wes Streeting, the shadow child poverty secretary, said: “My gas and electricity bill is going up by an estimated £161.67 next year. I’ll manage – but what about working families who, under the Tories, will be clobbered by a £20-a-week cut to universal credit and a 10 per cent rise in national insurance?”Iain Porter, of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Families on low incomes are increasingly anxious about how they are supposed to make ends meet. The prime minister says he wants to unite and level up the country, but he cannot achieve this by cutting the incomes of around 5.5 million families in and out of work. “It’s not too late for him to heed all of the warnings and abandon this cut, or he will risk creating a living standards crisis this autumn.”Morgan Wild, head of policy for Citizens Advice, said: “Millions of people who are still struggling with the impact of the pandemic now face a barrage of fresh challenges. The cut to universal credit, end of furlough, and hike in energy prices will squeeze family finances to the limit.“Keeping the £20-a-week increase to universal credit is the single best way of supporting families through what will be an incredibly hard winter.”Garry Lemon, director of policy at the Trussell Trust, said: “We know many people in need of emergency food are also living in fuel crisis, and are already caught in impossible situations where their only option is to either feed their children or heat their home.”Former Labour leader Ed Miliband said the energy hikes showed the need to use more eco-friendly and secure energy sources.“We need the government to reassure households and businesses that they are working with all relevant bodies to ensure secure, affordable energy supplies.“They also need to recognise what this shows about the problems of government policy,” he said. “The best answer to these issues is to scale up and diversify our domestic energy sector, to shore up our security of supply and protect industry, including drawing on all possible zero-carbon sources of power.“This growing crisis also reinforces the urgent need to manage demand by upgrading and insulating houses across this country.“Instead, the Conservatives sold off the Green Investment Bank, blocked onshore wind power, cut subsidies for solar, and scrapped their flagship Green Homes grant.”A government spokesperson said: “The furlough scheme and the uplift to universal credit were always temporary. They were designed to help people through the financial disruption of the toughest stages of the pandemic, and as we look forward and get back to normal, it’s right that our economic support reflects this.“Universal credit continues to provide vital support for those both in and out of work, and we’re now focusing on our plan for jobs, getting people back into work, progressing and earning more.“The Warm Home discount scheme supports over 2 million low-income and vulnerable customers each year with their energy costs.”The government has previously said that children in households where every adult is working are five times less likely to be in poverty than those in households where nobody works, and that its jobs plan will help people to learn new skills and increase their hours or find new work. More

A range of measures could be implemented if numbers of Covid-19 cases surge this winter, Sajid Javid has said.The Health Secretary said the measures are part of a “Plan B” if attempts to control the spread of coronavirus – that include a massive booster vaccination programme – are not effective.The contingency plans will only come into force if there is “unsustainable” pressure on the NHS in England, Mr Javid said.Those measures could include public warnings that the level of risk has increased, the legal requirement to wear face masks in some settings, and advice for people to work from home if they can.The government is also considering as part of the “Plan B” measures to introduce mandatory vaccine-only Covid passes to access settings such as indoor venues with 500 or more attendees, outdoor settings with 4,000 or more people, and any settings with 10,000 or more people.The Covid passes would be proof that the bearer has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.Ministers shelved plans to introduce mandatory Covid passes by the end of September, but the possibility of them being used – along with mandatory face masks – risks a backbench revolt from Tory MPs that are opposed to the plans.Mr Javid’s statement detailing England’s autumn and winter plan came after experts set out the case for a booster vaccination programme.Third jabs will be offered to people aged 50 and over, those in care homes, and frontline health and social care workers from next week.The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will be used as the booster dose for around 30 million people, with experts saying it is safe to be given alongside the usual winter flu jab and to those who have previously had AstraZeneca Covid vaccines.People will be able to get their Covid and flu vaccines on the same day, preferably with one shot in each arm.Wales has also said it will begin a rollout of booster vaccines. Updates are expected from Scotland and Northern Ireland later on Tuesday. All those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and anyone aged 16 to 65 in an at-risk group for Covid (who were included in priority groups one to nine during the initial vaccine rollout) will also be eligible for a jab.The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) set out its findings, recommending that booster doses should be administered six months after the second jab.When there is more data, the JCVI also plans to look at whether boosters should also be offered to healthy people under the age of 50.Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, told a Downing Street briefing: “We know that this pandemic is still active, we are not past the pandemic, we are in an active phase still.“We know this winter could be bumpy at times and we know that winter viruses such as flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) are highly likely to make their returns.” More

Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are more likely to be stopped by the police, threatened or subject to police violence and falsely accused of rule-breaking and wrong-doing during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report.Lockdown conditions and new police powers pose a threat to already over-policed communities and the most marginalised and vulnerable sections of society, says the study, A threat to public safety: policing, racism and the Covid-19 pandemic.Published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), and authored by academics from the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) based at the University of Manchester, the report is published in the context of increased scrutiny around policing, following Black Lives Matter protests and ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstrations against the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill.Researchers spoke to people of colour across England aged between 19 and 62 about their experiences of coronavirus policing and found evidence of police consistently failing to use PPE or observe social distancing regulations, with one pregnant woman describing an encounter where officers refused to wear masks when asked. The report’s lead author, Scarlet Harris, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a period of extraordinary police powers which arrived in a broader context of racist over-policing and police violence. This report draws on extensive conversations with people from racially-minoritised groups and communities living across England over the course of the pandemic.“The findings dismantle the myth that the police contribute to public safety. Instead, they demonstrate how policing such a ‘crisis’ has reproduced profound harms for those from racially minoritised groups and communities.”In one case, an interviewee called Darren told IRR researchers how a police stop, initially justified on the basis of wrongful suspicion of drug possession was quickly replaced – and the stop explained – with a nod to Coronavirus regulations.“I asked him [police officer] how come you’re stopping me? And then he said you smell like you was in possession of cannabis, or I have smelled a strong smell of cannabis coming from you,” Darren said.“He (then) said, well, you and your mates are breaking Covid rules, we’re in a Tier 4 lockdown and you was with them in Sainsbury’s, wasn’t you? So I said, I don’t know who they are, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but I don’t know these people, do you know what I mean? “You’re only stopping me because I’m Black and you’re racially profiling me; and I don’t even want to play the race card, but some people would be acting a lot worse than I am right now.”Another contributor, Kieran, said: “Even though you do get stopped a lot, it’s just now they feel like, oh, we can now, because we can say it’s down to Covid, and that’s what’s really sticking like right there, it’s like, I can drive out to the shop now, you know, I could go to, for example, McDonald’s, and it’s like, why are you out of your house?”This comes as expert warn that the new policing bill, to be debated this week, risks deepening racial and gender disparities in the justice system.A previous report from the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) found that young men from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds were almost twice as likely to be handed fines for breaches of Covid-19 lockdown rules than white men the same age.Findings of an inquiry by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published last year, suggested Black people in the UK feel that their human rights aren’t protected as much as white people from policing to healthcare.Speaking about the IRR research, co-author Remi Joseph-Salisbury said: “The evidence in this report really urges us to question the state’s reliance on the police to solve social and public health problems. Despite being central to the government’s handling of the pandemic, policing too often threatens rather than protects public safety, particularly for people of colour.”The Independent has approached the National Police Chiefs Council for comment. More

The Department for Work and Pensions is unable to explain “shocking inequality” as unemployment among young Black people soared to 41.6 per cent during the pandemic, a damning new report has found. The DWP is also unable to properly assess or improve the impact of its own policies and spending, MPs have said. The unemployment rate among young Black people rose from 24.5 per cent to 41.6 per cent from October-December 2019 to the same period in 2020, while among white people it rose from 10.1 to 12.4 per cent over the same time period. Though the government increased its spending on employment support programmes, from £300m in 2020-21 to £2.5bn in 2021-22, and hired 13,500 new work coaches, the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) warned that its focus was misplaced. Ongoing problems surrounding work coaches, from understaffing and backlogs of work, and DWP’s “focus on getting people into any form of employment” undermines its “ambitions” to support disabled people to work and people on low pay to progress, the report said. The increase in unemployment as the furlough scheme winds down has “not been as sharp as feared”, but the Committee says any second surge in new benefit claims and unemployment as the scheme ends at the close of September could “disrupt DWP’s ability to provide employment support”.Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “In response to the pandemic, DWP has increased spending on employment programmes a staggering eight-fold in the space of a year. But there is a lack of curiosity about the impact of the policies it’s implementing.“When we are talking about the long-term prospects of a generation of our young people, and the extraordinary differential in job losses among young Black people this needs serious attention now or a whole generation will be scarred. This needs to be a real focus now to avoid embedding inequality of opportunity over decades.”Moreover, the PAC report found that the DWP has “relatively few” programmes aimed at people from minority ethnic communities and also uncovered shortcomings in the department’s data on diversity and disadvantage among Universal Credit claimants which, it says, poses potential issues in properly evaluating the effectiveness of its schemes for different groups.This comes after economic thinktank the Resolution Foundation warned that young Black people have been the hardest hit by the rise in unemployment during the pandemic, having borne the brunt of the job losses because they disproportionately worked in worst-hit sectors such as hospitality and leisure.Separate research from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) published in January found that Black and minority workers have been 26 times worse hit by the employment crisis sparked by Covid-19 in the last year-and-a-half.This prompted the union to urge government ministers to tackle inequalities as a matter of priority, citing racism as a key reason for this disparity in the labour market.“The time for excuses and delays is over,” TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said. “Ministers must challenge the systemic racism and inequality that holds back BME people at work.”A DWP spokesperson said: “Before the pandemic we lifted the employment rate to a record high for ethnic minorities and we are now focused on helping people from all backgrounds back into employment through our Plan for Jobs. “Our £150 million Flexible Support Fund also invests in local initiatives, benefiting communities, such as mentoring for people from ethnic minority backgrounds.“We understand disabled people may need different kinds of assistance which is why we offer specialist programmes paired with personal support and we remain committed to seeing 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027.” More

Health Secretary Sajid Javid is reportedly making the Covid vaccine a requirement for all NHS staff.The government believes that making the vaccines a condition of employment would help limit the spread of the coronavirus in healthcare settings, as well as the numbers of Covid-related deaths.But the plans are feared to cause a staff retention and recruitment crisis in healthcare, The Sunday Telegraph reported.As many as 190,000 healthcare workers had not received one dose of a Covid vaccine by 11 April, NHS England data shows, and the figure does not include temporary staff.It is feared that the NHS could see a mass exodus of staff as seen in the care sector, partly as a result of mandatory vaccines.All care workers – including agency workers, volunteers, and healthcare visitors – have to be vaccinated by 11 November.Almost 90,000 care home staff in England have still not been fully-vaccinated against Covid-19, and – out of this number – 41,000 have still received no vaccine at all, according to NHS figures published this week.In a blow to the already-struggling sector, care home staff are leaving to better-paid jobs elsewhere – including Amazon’s warehouses and the NHS – where they have not been required to be vaccinated, according to a report by The Guardian this weekend.There were already at least 120,000 social care vacancies before the Covid-19 pandemic and the government last month estimated that as many as 68,000 care workers, in the worst-case scenario, could be lost as a result of the vaccine rule.Public and health sector union Unison called on the government this week to scrap the “no jab, no job” policy – warning ministers that they are “sleepwalking into disaster”.It comes after the government announced in June that it would be launching a consultation on whether to extend this mandatory vaccination policy from care home staff to NHS workers. Today (5 September), Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that the consultation launched in the summer has not yet concluded.He said that the NHS had a “duty of care” to ensure patients did not become infected, but said that an “incredibly high” proportion of frontline healthcare workers – more than 94 per cent – were already vaccinated.The chief executive of the NHS Confederation, Matthew Taylor, said compulsory jabs for health staff are “not necessary”.He told Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “The overwhelming majority of NHS staff are choosing to be vaccinated. And the important thing is to support people, to give people the opportunity to be vaccinated.“So I think we would want to say that there is no necessity for compulsion, for surveillance of people, at this stage because the staff themselves are doing the right thing.”Medics have also warned against extending the rule to the NHS, saying that staff should not face losing their jobs for declining a vaccine.Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association council, had said in June that “compulsion is a blunt instrument to tackle a complex matter” and that implementing a blanket rule would “raise new ethical and legal implications”.He added: “Recent research has highlighted that pressurising health and social care workers can have damaging effects, leading to an erosion of trust, worsening concerns about the vaccine, and hardened stances on declining vaccination.”Mr Nagpaul said efforts should be focused on targeted engagement and any policy must avoid discrimination, given that vaccine uptake is lower in some ethnic minority groups. NHS staff are recommended to be inoculated against flu, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, and MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) – among others – but the vaccines are not compulsory.Isra Black, a University of York lecturer specialising in healthcare law, told The British Medical Journal earlier this year that “any public authority, whether the state or individual NHS trusts, that mandates vaccination will need to comply with human rights and equality law.”Mr Black added: “Mandatory vaccination interferes with the right to private life protected by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, so the relevant authorities will need to show that the interference is justified in its pursuit of a legitimate aim and its proportionality.“Public bodies must also show that they have taken into account the public sector equality duty and that mandatory vaccination policies comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010.” More

Geronimo the alpaca’s distraught owner has accused government officials of hiding from her how he was killed and how they “tortured” him on his final journey, calling for them to resign.Helen Macdonald said giving her the truth about how her animal died was the very least officials should do after four years of “mentally abusing” her, during her prolonged legal battle to save him from being put down.She said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was still ignoring her, leaving her not even knowing how Geronimo died, after government vets “bungled” his transportation.Ms Macdonald, herself a veterinary nurse, said she felt let down by her own profession over “the worst case of cruelty” she had ever seen in her entire career.In scenes that horrified animal lovers worldwide, police officers and vets went onto the Gloucestershire farm without notice on Tuesday, capturing the frightened animal and forcing him into the back of a trailer as he made loud distress calls.Experts said Geronimo was gasping for air because the government vets failed to use a headcollar so his breathing was obstructed, and he was incorrectly tied up. Where, when and how he died remains a mystery. The Independent has asked Defra for the details.Defra had refused to allow a third test on the animal after two highly disputed tests suggested he had tuberculosis, insisting he be killed as part of the government’s TB eradication plan.Ms Macdonald, who has also called for environment secretary George Eustice to quit, said: “We’ve expressly asked for all the circumstances of his removal and what happened to him afterwards, and they’re ignoring us.“Somebody knows what they did to him. I don’t know whether he died in the trailer, whether he was shot or what. They won’t tell me. It’s the least they could do after what they did to him.“They had no idea what they were doing and tortured him. They didn’t ask for help – they were cruel beyond words and incompetent. They should be struck off. I’m going to find out who they are.“I want to know every single detail. Unless these people are dragged out by their hair, I don’t know how we’re going to find out, and that’s just unforgivable.”In an official complaint to the government on Wednesday, the British Alpaca Society also called for those who led the operation to be suspended immediately for “gross misconduct and animal abuse”.“If Geronimo arrived at his final destination still alive and not strangled or suffocated, how can we be sure he was humanely euthanised?” the society wrote.“The lack of knowledge as to the correct way to handle alpacas was startling and totally inexcusable…“It is also well documented that alpacas sit down when being transported, yet Geronimo was tied up like a horse.“There is no excuse for these actions. The correct information is in the public domain, yet whoever led this repulsive exercise yesterday simply hadn’t bothered to find out the proper techniques.”A planned protest outside Defra’s offices on Wednesday is expected to draw hundreds of demonstrators.Ms Macdonald added: “They’ve been abusing me for four years, forcing me through court cases, and now they won’t even do me the courtesy of telling me how he suffered in his last moments. It’s outrageous.”She said “someone needs to hold them to account because I can’t rest until I know”.“And it was a vet who did it – my own profession, for Christ’s sake.”She said it was too early to know what action she would take, adding: “This is beyond anything that anyone should have to endure.”A crowdfunding appeal set up during her four-year court battle to fund the legal costs has raised more than £36,000.The Independent has asked Defra to respond to the claims, in particular why it has not responded to Ms Macdonald, and why her own vet was barred from attending the post-mortem examination as an observer. More

Priti Patel has announced that the Home Office is seeking advice on whether to criminalise the possession of laughing gas.In a move branded branded a “waste of time” by drug experts and “baffling” by one Tory MP, the government has asked the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to review the harm caused by nitrous oxide.It comes just weeks after drug-related deaths were found to have hit an all-time high in England and Wales for the eighth consecutive year, most involving opiates, and follows the publication of a damning landmark review which concluded that England’s drug treatment system is currently “not fit for purpose”.The Home Office said it is acting following what it calls a “concerning” rise in nitrous oxide use among young people.Nitrous oxide is the second most-used drug among 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK, behind cannabis, with nearly 550,000 people in that age group reporting taking it in the latest annual crime survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). However, while up on 2013 levels, the proportion of young people in England and Wales using nitrous oxide has been the same for the past four years, according to ONS, sitting at 8.7 per cent at the last count.The sale of nitrous oxide for its psychoactive effects became illegal under the Psychoactive Substances Act in 2016, but it is not a crime to possess the drug. The government is reported to be concerned this is a “significant factor” in its use, and the home secretary said that “should the expert ACMD recommend further restrictions on this drug, we stand ready to take tough action”.But Adam Winstock, a consultant psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist, said criminalising possession of the drug “would likely lead to illicit sales” and would merely “add the risk of criminality to all”.“Asking for evidence is great but the ACMD advice comes framed by the current home secretary’s preconceived notion that a problem related to drug use can be successfully addressed by making something illegal,” said Prof Winstock, founder of the Global Drug Survey.“This is palpably and evidentially false. But making a drug with minimal risk to most users illegal will add the risk of criminality to all.”Nitrous oxide is “very safe” compared to other drugs, Prof Winstock said, with the risk of accidental harm low but increased when consumed with other substances. But he said the risk of nerve damage is “real and significant”, with a study on 16,000 users showing just over 3 per cent reported symptoms consistent with nerve damage.“That is a worry. But avoidable,” he said. “Smart education, not blunt regulation, is required.”When used recreationally, nitrous oxide is typically released into balloons from small silver canisters and inhaled, giving temporary feelings of relaxation and euphoria. It is also used medically as an anaesthetic, given for instance to women in labour.Prolonged use of nitrous oxide can cause vitamin B12 deficiency, anaemia and nerve damage, and the substance has been associated with 36 deaths between 2001 and 2016, according to the ONS. The ACMD last reviewed nitrous oxide six years ago, concluding it did not seem to warrant control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.The advisory panel’s former chair, David Nutt, who was sacked in 2009 after saying that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol, called the move a “gimmick”.The Imperial College London professor said it is “completely symptomatic of the utterly blinkered perspective that this government has on drugs”, adding: “This is completely pointless, an utter distraction, this is pretence of doing something about drug problems, but focusing on a drug that has very, very little harm – way less harm than alcohol – and they should be investing their money on people who are dying of drugs like fentanyl and heroin.”Meanwhile, the government has since faced accusations of undermining the ACMD’s independence, with Professor Alex Stevens quitting the panel in protest in 2019 at the government’s “political vetting” of potential members.Prof Stevens cited several instances where a minister had allegedly blocked suitable applicants who had criticised the government on social media, including Niamh Eastwood, the executive director of drug charity Release. She had tweeted that a letter from minister Victoria Atkins rejecting the ACMD’s call for safer drug consumption rooms despite a climate of rising drug-related deaths was “utter BS”.Reacting to the Home Office’s request over nitrous oxide, Crispin Blunt, chair of the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group, said that “in the light of [recent drug death statistics] this request is a baffling use of the wretchedly limited resources of the ACMD”.“The already overstretched ACMD should be given proper resources to consider, for instance, the scheduling status of other substances which haven’t been evaluated in far longer than six years and which could significantly upgrade our ability to deal with the country’s worsening mental health crisis and overdose problem,” Mr Blunt said.Additional reporting by PA More