Call for inquiry after families stripped of child benefit due to flawed travel data

Calls are being made for an urgent independent inquiry after thousands of families were stripped of child benefit due to flawed Home Office travel data that claimed to show parents going on holidays and not returning.Andrew Snowden, the Conservative MP for Fylde and the party’s assistant whip, said the government “must take immediate and transparent action” to address the failures of the anti-fraud benefits crackdown.“Thousands of families have had essential child benefit payments wrongly suspended because of unreliable or incomplete data,” he said.Snowden called for “a full, independent review of how this system was authorised, including how such unreliable travel data was used to make decisions on family benefits”. He said the findings must be published in full

‘I was scared’: parents reveal stress of HMRC’s child benefit errors

Demands to pay back thousands of pounds in child benefit, claims of emigration after a serious case of sepsis and a complaints unit that is indifferent to the emotional impact of its errors.Here parents tell of their experiences of being caught up in the HMRC anti-fraud debacle.Tetiana fled the war in Ukraine in 2022 with some of her family including her brother, Roman, who is paraplegic, for whom she is now a full-time carer, and baby who was born in 2021.In October, she was shocked to receive a letter telling her she could be liable to pay back £3,706.35 in child benefit because she had “moved to Ukraine permanently”

‘It was the last time Mum smiled at me’: the choirs singing to the dying in three-part harmony

A worldwide movement to sing gentle songs to the dying provides comfort, peace and release to both the suffering and the singersIt’s a warm morning in suburban Ballina, in northern New South Wales, and Joy Hurnall is lying in a recliner in her lounge room, wearing a pale blue dressing gown and a woollen shawl made by her daughter Cheryl.Having been discharged from the palliative care unit of a local hospital the previous day, the 92-year-old is relieved to be back home, surrounded by people she loves: her cousin and best friend since childhood, three of her six adult children, and dozens of long-gone relatives smiling down from framed black-and-white photographs in the bookcase behind her.The small room is full but quiet, the air infused with the gentle voices of three women from Ballina’s Threshold Choir who have come to sing to Joy. She closes her eyes and rests her hands on her lap, listening.For the next 20 minutes, the women sing four lullaby-like songs with names as soothing as they sound: You Are Not Alone, Love Transcends, Healing Light and You Are So Loved

‘There is a gap where Alex should be’: the young woman who lost her life in a neglectful prison system

“There is a gap or a space where Alex should be,” Stacie Davies said. “Wherever I am, she’s not there.”At just 25 years old, her daughter, Alex Davies, was found dead in her segregation cell at Styal prison in Cheshire on Christmas Eve last year.She had been sent to prison after pleading guilty to offences including criminal damage and possession of a knife, which she had committed while in mental health crisis.The expectation was that when Alex was sentenced, she would receive a hospital order, and four separate psychiatrists had supported a recommendation that she be transferred to hospital before sentence

AI, Covid and taxes: what is behind steep rise in youth unemployment?

Youth unemployment is at the highest level since the Covid pandemic, as younger people bear the brunt of a worsening slowdown in the UK jobs market.Excluding the peak recorded during the autumn of 2020, when the country was entering the second pandemic lockdown, the jobless rate for 16 to 24-year-olds – running at 15.3% – is at the highest level in a decade.There are a multitude of reasons why young people are struggling to find work – including the lasting scars of the Covid pandemic, rising mental health issues, the rise of artificial intelligence and tax increases. Here we dive into the details

‘It’s so demoralising’: UK graduates exasperated by high unemployment

It has been more than six months since Leah Savage, 24, started job hunting and despite applying for almost 100 jobs, she has had just two interviews in that time.“It’s so demoralising. All I do is wake up and apply for jobs. I reach out to different people and everyone says the same thing – they’re not hiring at the moment,” she said. “It’s a real struggle