Betfred says gambling tax rise in budget will force it to shut all its UK shops

Betfred has said it will close all 1,287 of its high street betting shops if Rachel Reeves raises taxes on the gambling industry in next month’s budget.The company’s threat comes amid speculation that the chancellor is considering a tax increase worth up to £3.2bn on sports betting to help to close a potential £30bn shortfall in the public finances.Betfred said such a tax increase would ultimately force all its shops to close, putting 7,500 jobs at risk.Fred Done, the billionaire chair who co-founded Betfred with his brother in 1967, told the BBC: “If [the tax rate] went up to anywhere like 40%, or even 35%, there is no profit in the business

Woman investigated over husband’s use of assisted dying clinic wanted to argue case in court

A woman who was under police investigation for accompanying her husband to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland said she wished her case had gone to trial so she could have proved her innocence in front of a jury.Louise Shackleton, 59, spent 10 months under investigation for assisting a suicide before North Yorkshire police announced this week that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute her.She handed herself in to police on legal advice after she returned to the UK from a Dignitas clinic in Zurich where her husband, Anthony, died last December.She said that while she was relieved her adult children would no longer have to worry about her, she wished she’d had a chance to make her case in open court.“It wasn’t a relief for me, I would have actually preferred to go to trial

Penalties for unpaid carers in benefits scandal must be halted, says Ed Davey

Penalties imposed on thousands of unpaid carers who fall foul of the discredited carer’s allowance benefit rules should be suspended until the government has fixed the system, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, has said.A Guardian investigation last year revealed hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers were landed with huge debts – and in some cases prosecuted for fraud – after being inadvertently trapped by chronic failures in the benefit’s design and administration.Although the government promised a year ago to reform carer’s allowance, there is increasing impatience among campaigners over the lack of progress and concern hundreds of unpaid carers are being hit with fresh repayment demands each week.“It cannot be right that the government is still hounding carers for repayments, long after this scandal was exposed and even after we secured an independent review, but before anything has been done to put things right,” Davey said.An independent inquiry into carer’s allowance headed by the disability policy expert Liz Sayce was ordered by the government in December

Campaigners urge CPS to reconsider charges against partner of woman who died by suicide

Domestic abuse charities and campaigners have urged police and prosecutors to reconsider criminal charges against a man who was found by a coroner to have driven his partner to suicide after an alleged decade of physical and mental abuse.At an inquest into the death of 32-year-old Georgia Barter in Walthamstow, east London earlier this month, assistant coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.“On or around 5 April 2020 [Georgia] had been assaulted by her long-term partner, who had been violent towards her on a number of occasions during their relationship,” Radcliffe said.“There was clear evidence of her being an individual with a psychiatric history of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression which had been exacerbated by her partner’s behaviour.”The inquest heard that although her former partner, Thomas Bignell, had previously been arrested on several occasions, and had contact with at least four different police forces, he was never charged with any violent offences against Georgia

Labour’s housing hypocrisy: councils serve almost 200 households with no-fault eviction notices

Labour-run councils in England have used a legal loophole to issue almost 200 households with no-fault eviction notices since the party was elected on a promise to ban the practice, a Guardian investigation has found.Scrapping these orders, known as section 21 evictions, was one of Keir Starmer’s main pledges before last July’s general election but, more than a year later, they remain lawful.Local authorities cannot normally carry out no-fault evictions. These are permitted if renters have an assured shorthold tenancy, a type of rental agreement offered by private landlords.However, some councils have been able to sidestep this through arm’s length companies set up to manage their housing stock

Chemical linked to low sperm count, obesity and cancer found in dummies, tests find

A chemical linked to impaired sexual development, obesity and cancer has been found in baby dummies manufactured by three big European brands.Dummies made by the Dutch multinational Philips, the Swiss oral health specialists Curaprox and the French toy brand Sophie la Girafe were found to contain bisphenol A (BPA), according to laboratory testing by dTest, a Czech consumer organisation. Philips said they had carried out subsequent testing and found no BPA, while Sophie la Girafe said the amount found was insignificant.All three dummies were marketed as either “BPA- free” or “natural rubber”.BPA is a synthetic chemical used in the production of plastics, but it has a structure similar to the female hormone, oestrogen, which it mimics in the bodies of humans and other animals