Watchdog raises concern over DWP plan to deduct benefit overpayments

A government watchdog has criticised ministers for understating the impact on the poorest of plans to directly deduct benefit overpayments from people’s bank accounts.The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is legislating to require banks to withdraw cash from the accounts of claimants who have been overpaid due to fraud or error.Banks will be able to charge claimants for “reasonable” administration costs prior to making deductions. The government is yet to specify the value of the charges.After a review of the public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill, the Regulatory Policy Committee, an independent legislative watchdog, has said the impact on the most vulnerable has been understated in an impact assessment of the bill

New daily weight-loss pill shows success at clinical trial

A significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes.People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday.The trial, which enrolled 559 obese people with type 2 diabetes from the US, China, India, Japan and Mexico, also found that the daily pill reduced blood sugar levels, in some cases bringing them below the formal threshold for diabetes.Results from the trial have been eagerly awaited by health researchers

GPs in England will be able to claim £20 per new patient for seeking specialist advice

GPs in England will be paid £20 each time they decide not to send a patient to hospital under a government scheme to help reduce the NHS waiting list.Family doctors will be able to claim the money if they instead seek advice from a hospital doctor or specialist before a decision is taken about referring patients for tests and treatment in an out-of-hospital setting, such as a health clinic, or to see a community-based specialist.An estimated 2 million patients a year, many with common conditions such as ear wax, tinnitus and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), could get faster care because of the initiative, ministers say.It could also help women with menopausal symptoms avoid joining the already 580,000-strong waiting list for care from overloaded NHS gynaecological services.NHS England has allocated £80m to fund an expansion of the existing “advice and guidance” scheme so that it covers all of England from this month onwards

Judicial ruling on legal definition of ‘woman’ will have UK politicians sighing with relief

For all the negative stereotypes, many politicians are thoughtful, diligent and caring. But they are also human, and it is their more self-serving instincts that may have caused some to breathe a sigh of relief at the supreme court ruling on gender recognition.After a challenge by the gender-critical group For Women Scotland – which started out as a dispute over Scottish government legislation about female representation on public boards – judges ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to biological women and biological sex.The verdict will be heavily contested, and could bring serious and perhaps unforeseen repercussions for transgender women. But such an unexpectedly definitive view allows leaders in Scotland and Westminster to (and there is no gentle way of putting this) dodge responsibility over one of the most contentious and toxic debates of our age

Manchester Arena bomb plotter ‘moved to Belmarsh prison’ after attack on guards

The brother of the Manchester Arena bomber is reported to have been moved to the high security prison at Belmarsh in south London after an attack on three prison officers.Hashem Abedi, who plotted the 2017 bombing, is alleged to have attacked three prison officers with hot cooking oil at a high-security prison on Saturday at Durham’s HMP Frankland.Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation into the attack, which has left prison staff fearing copycat incidents, while the Ministry of Justice has said it will carry out a review.Mark Fairhurst, the national chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, said he would be meeting next Wednesday with Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, to discuss the incident.Speaking after a visit to Frankland, which is also a high security prison, he said the separation unit where the attack had taken place had been “decanted” because “it’s a crime scene”

‘A huge reset’: gender-critical activists and trans rights campaigners react to supreme court ruling

For gender-critical campaigners, the supreme court’s ruling on the legal definition of a woman was a “huge reset” that left them feeling “vindicated and relieved”.For transgender rights campaigners, it was a “damaging attack on their rights”, signalling the start of “real issues” in their fight for legal recognition.“I think this will be the kicking-off point for a very enhanced push for overt restrictions on the rights of trans people,” said Victoria McCloud, who changed her legal sex more than two decades ago.The UK’s first trans judge, she applied to intervene in the supreme court appeal but was refused. Last year she quit her job as a judge, saying her position had become “untenable” because her trans identity was viewed as a “lifestyle choice or an ideology”