Agreements reached on spending plans
By Anonymous on May 28, 2013 03:09 am 28 May 2013 Last updated at 01:03 ET 
The government will set out its spending plans in full next month
Chancellor George Osborne has reached agreement with seven Whitehall departments on some of the savings the government wants to make in 2015.
Mr Osborne wants to reduce spending for the year by £11.5bn, some of which he says will be earmarked for infrastructure projects.
Full details of the deals he has struck with ministers will not be revealed until next month's spending review.
The opposition is expected to say the government has cut too much too fast.
On a visit to north-west England later, Mr Osborne is expected to announce the departments in question, but the financial details will be held back until the review, which will set out spending for the year from April 2015, is presented to Parliament.
It is understood that taken together the savings agreed so far in talks with departments and in previous announcements mean the Treasury still has to find £8bn of the £11.5bn to be saved in the spending review.
The chancellor will highlight a decision made in the Budget to find extra cuts in Whitehall in order to spend more on infrastructure.
Fractious negotiating BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins says the significance of the provisional agreements will become clear only once Mr Osborne reveals which departments have signed up and it is known whether the list includes the biggest and most politically significant Whitehall spenders.
The figures suggest there is plenty of fractious negotiating between departments and coalition partners still to be done, he added.
Mr Osborne has indicated there will be no support for a second Crossrail scheme for London in the spending review.
He believes work on the current £16bn Crossrail project should be completed first, in 2018, before he considers further major transport schemes for London.
Earlier this month, the Commons Public Accounts Committee warned the UK may not be able to afford projected levels of spending on military equipment over the next decade.
Its report was based on a government pledge for a 1% increase in defence spending in the review, and in following years.
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EU ends arms ban on Syria rebels
By Anonymous on May 28, 2013 02:49 am 27 May 2013 Last updated at 18:02 ET 
The European Union has agreed to lift its arms embargo on the Syrian opposition, according to the British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
But there was "no immediate decision to send arms" to Syrian rebels and all other sanctions remained in force, Mr Hague said in a tweet.
Mr Hague was speaking after talks with other EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Britain and France had been pressing to send weapons to what they call moderate opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
But other countries had opposed the move, saying it would only worsen the violence.
Read in browser » Calls for review of police bail
By Anonymous on May 27, 2013 08:00 pm 27 May 2013 Last updated at 20:00 ET By Laura Harmes BBC Radio 5 Live 
People arrested can sometimes be kept on police bail for months or years and are not always charged
More than 57,000 people are currently on police bail, according to figures obtained by the BBC.
In one case a person arrested three-and-a-half years ago remains on bail.
The Law Society told BBC Radio 5 live it wanted a review of police bail practices and said there should be a statutory time limit on police bail.
The data was collated from 34 of the 44 police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which responded to a Freedom of Information request.
It shows that at least 57,428 people are currently on bail. Of those, 3,172 have been waiting for more than six months for a decision on charges.
There is currently no limit on how long a person can be kept on police bail before a decision on whether to charge them is made.
There have been a number of high-profile cases of people who have been held waiting on police bail for a lengthy period of time.
They include former News of the World executive Neil Wallis, who was arrested on suspicion of phone-hacking in 2011 and on bail for 19 months before being told he would not face any charges.
The figures, uncovered by BBC Radio 5 Live, include one case of a man who has not been told whether or not he will be charged, despite having been arrested and bailed by the Metropolitan Police three years and eight months ago.
The force say the man is a 45-year-old who was arrested October 2009 on suspicion of fraud. He is next due to answer bail in August.
A spokesman for the Met said: "We are aware of the length of bail time in this case, which has been a very lengthy and complex fraud investigation."
'Review needed' Conditions can be placed on police bail which can range from curfews, to restrictions on movement and financial transactions while an investigation is ongoing.
Neil Wallis: "21 months of hell for my family"
The Law Society says people are often left "in the wilderness" while police decide whether or not they should be charged with a crime.
Richard Atkinson, chairman of the society's criminal law committee, believes the limit should be set at 28 days.
He said: "I would call for a 28-day statutory maximum period for police bail. But it could be extended by applying to a magistrate.
"There, police would have to explain what stage they were at in their investigation and why a further 28-day extension of bail was necessary."
Steven, a former teaching assistant from Newcastle told the BBC: "After I was arrested, I was on bail for five months before I was told that no further action would be taken against me."
He was arrested in connection with an allegation of sexual assault, which turned out to be false.
Steven says being on police bail and waiting for a decision from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can have a big impact on the lives of those arrested.
He says: "I was suspended from my job and I was scared to leave the house because I was paranoid that people knew I was a police suspect.
"I became severely depressed and contemplated suicide. The uncertainty of not knowing when my ordeal would be over was awful."
'Ruined' Andrew, a mortgage broker from Shropshire, was arrested with his wife in September 2010 on suspicion of conspiracy to launder money.
His bail was ended in May 2013, two years and eight months later.
The police claimed the couple had laundered money through various properties. But Andrew said the police did not communicate with them while the investigation continued and their business suffered.
Andrew says: "We couldn't afford to operate from our office so we had to move out of that and instead to work from home.
"A condition of our bail was a restraining order on our banks and properties. We had to disclose to police all our incomings and outgoings - the court allows us to pay certain bills such a mortgages and utility bills. They allowed us £250 a week to live on outside that."
Andrew adds: "We had to go to bed and wake up in our house. In that whole time we never slept anywhere else. They took our passports away from us and told us not to travel abroad. They seized the children's laptops and mobile phones and a PC from the house. The PC came back broken and two of three laptops came back broken.
"My wife and I are relieved that no charges have been brought, but our business was ruined during our time on bail. We've been left penniless and with a huge solicitors' bill that we can't pay."
A West Mercia police spokesman said: "After detailed and lengthy inquiries into this case a decision was recently made that the suspects should be released without charge. It is recognised that the suspects in this case were on bail for a lengthy period of time.
"This was due to the complex nature of the case which involved the gathering of a significant volume of financial and other evidence which had to be reviewed and assessed prior to the recent decision having been made.
"Every time a person answers their bail and returns to a police station the investigating officer must satisfy the custody officer that it is necessary for that person to remain on bail and that inquiries are being carried out expeditiously," he added.
'More with less' Steve White, the vice chairman of the Police Federation, said more resources were needed to speed up cases.
He tells 5 live: "Resources are always going to have an impact in terms of how quickly we can get stuff done. We are still in the process of dealing with the cuts we are having to face."
Mr White says cuts to the CPS are having a knock-on effect and adds: "The police service is being asked to do more with less and there comes a point where you can't do any more or do it any quicker. The turnaround time in terms of inquiries is sometimes too long. We have to accept that.
"But what do you do as a manager of a team and you have an officer with a case-load where you have several cases where you have people on bail? Do you say to that officer: 'your priority is to get that work done' and they are not able to go out on patrol the Friday or Saturday night so you're down a person?"
A Home Office spokesman said: "We continue to keep police bail provisions under review to ensure they strike the right balance between protecting an individual's right to civil liberty and allowing police to carry out thorough criminal investigations."
The names of some individuals quoted in this article have been changed.
| Police force | People on bail | Those over six months | Longest case |
|---|
| Met Police | 12,178 | 910 | 1,304 days |
| West Yorkshire | 3,979 | 859 | - |
| Greater Manchester | 3,854 | - | - |
| Merseyside | 2,873 | | |
| Northumbria | 2,304 | 159 | 1,088 days |
| Essex | 2,170 | - | - |
| Sussex | 2,102 | 147 | 628 days |
| Avon and Somerset | 2,099 | 22 | 8 months |
| West Midlands | 2,096 | 85 | - |
| PSNI | 1,847 | - | - |
| Nottinghamshire | 1,796 | 177 | 831 days |
| Lancashire | 1,647 | 187 | 1 year 10 months 7 days |
| Hampshire | 1,632 | - | - |
| South Wales | 1,372 | 1 | 181 days |
| West Mercia | 1,342 | 28 | 363 days |
| Cleveland | 1,170 | - | Approx 2 years |
| Staffordshire | 1,147 | 82 | - |
| Devon and Cornwall | 1,092 | 107 | 797 days |
| Lincolnshire | 1,082 | - | - |
| Cheshire | 862 | 61 | 19 months 20 days |
| Dyfed-Powys | 862 | - | - |
| Durham | 754 | - | - |
| Humberside | 730 | 23 | 814 days |
| Norfolk | 670 | 33 | 383 days - now resolved |
| Wiltshire | 667 | - | 636 days |
| North Wales | 658 | 48 | 885 days |
| Dorset | 656 | 61 | 25 months |
| Cumbria | 615 | 38 | 580 days |
| Gloucestershire | 615 | - | - |
| Northamptonshire | 608 | 68 | 389 days |
| Bedfordshire | 607 | 41 | 645 days |
| Suffolk | 504 | 10 | 10 months |
| Leicestershire | 482 | 1 | 219 days |
| Warwickshire | 356 | 24 | 391 days |
| Total | 57,428 | 3,172 | |
Read in browser » 'Lack of support' after intensive care
By Anonymous on May 27, 2013 07:01 pm 27 May 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET By Jane Dreaper Health correspondent, BBC News 
A period in intensive care can have effects, even after recovery
Many intensive care patients suffer pain up to a year after leaving hospital, a study has suggested.
The research also found a quarter of the patients were dependent on help with washing and dressing, months after their discharge.
Almost 300 intensive care patients answered questions for the study, published in the journal Critical Care.
The Department of Health said it was "crucial" patients got the support they needed when they left hospital.
Researchers from Imperial College London and Oxford University received questionnaires from 293 patients who had spent at least two days in intensive care at one of 22 hospitals around the UK.
Half were teaching hospitals - the remainder were district general hospitals.
Almost three-quarters of them (73%) reported having moderate or severe pain a year after discharge, while 44% were significantly anxious or depressed.
Two-thirds still had problems walking, six months after leaving hospital.
Much of the care was provided by family members.
The number of patients who said a job was their main source of income went from 19% before hospital admission to 11%.
And a third of all patients said there had been a negative impact on their family income six months after leaving hospital, with this figure only declining slightly at 12 months after discharge.
Physically weak Barry Williams, a member of the Intensive Care Society's patient liaison committee and a former NHS chief executive, said: "There is often little or no support for these people once discharged from hospital.
"The Departments of Health and Work and Pensions should work with us to produce a policy which would deal with these problems."
Mr Williams got involved in the work after his wife, Kathy, spent 49 days in intensive care. She made a successful recovery.
He said: "Patients are physically weak after intensive care because of the length of time they have spent immobilised and sedated.
"They and their families need practical, short-term help - such as disabled parking badges or adaptations in the house - but this sort of support often isn't available until you've been ill or immobile for a year."
The researchers did not find any evidence that relationships broke down or people needed to move house.
However, they wrote in the paper: "Mortgage protection policies often protect against repossession for an initial 12-month period.
"And many home loan organisations allow repayment flexibility for a prolonged period after illness.
"The UK Building Society Association felt that one-year follow-up was too short a period to identify repossessions."
The study found a small number of patients had seen a health professional to talk about emotional problems - but more patients would have liked this support.
It is hoped that a bigger study can be carried out in the future.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "Leaving hospital can be a difficult time for patients and their families and sometimes, extra help is needed, over and above medical treatment to help ease people back into their usual way of life.
"It is absolutely crucial that the NHS and local authorities work together to help people leave hospital when they are ready and that patients get to go home with the support they and their families need."
He added that £859m had been "set aside" to encourage the NHS and social care to "develop new services that help people maintain their independence".
Read in browser » Warders injured in prison attack
By Anonymous on May 28, 2013 03:44 am 28 May 2013 Last updated at 02:49 ET Two warders have been attacked by three prisoners at a maximum-security jail.
The incident on Sunday at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire, lasted for four hours.
A Prison Service spokesman said the warders received treatment for their injuries, but neither was believed to be seriously hurt.
A police investigation into the attack is under way. The prison, between York and Pocklington, holds some of the UK's most dangerous criminals.
Read in browser » Tenth arrest in Woolwich murder case
By Anonymous on May 28, 2013 03:12 am 27 May 2013 Last updated at 11:03 ET
A tenth suspect has been arrested by police investigating the death of soldier Lee Rigby killed in Woolwich last week.
The 50-year-old man was arrested in Welling, south-east London, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.
The Metropolitan Police also confirmed an address in south-east London is being searched.
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