The fact that Keir Starmer’s government have promised to put women and girls “at the heart of everything we do” in our international work is right and proper, recognising the growing threats of violence and of essential rights undermined everywhere.

However with dramatic cuts to our international development budget already underway there will be competition for what shrunken resources remain. We need to ensure that one of the key building blocks to fulfilling that ambition to empower women and girls – access to clean water and sanitation does not suffer.

WASH services – Water, Sanitation and Hygiene – are incredibly important if we are to reduce the almost 400,000 deaths of young children every year from diseases including cholera and diarrhoea. One in four people globally still lack safe drinking water.

But that is only part of the story. The United Nations has drawn a direct line between a lack of safe water and sanitation and much wider problems including food and supply chain shortages that can spark conflicts.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on WASH I chair, backed by the wisdom of charity Water Aid, has previously highlighted in a landmark report how previous cuts to UK aid spending on WASH “put our national health security at risk” – because they raised the risks of infectious diseases and antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” spreading across the world.

It’s something that the great British public “gets” too. Significantly, 54 per cent of the British public put clean water and toilets in their top priorities for spending development aid. MPs and government should take heed.

A failure to provide clean water and sanitation makes it impossible to achieve the aim of giving women and girls more control over their lives – because it is they who disproportionately carry the burden of collecting water. That means dragging them away from school and from work and putting them in greater danger from gender-based violence.

In addition, as Evelyn Mere, the country director in Nigeria WaterAid, put it so powerfully when describing the impact of WASH cuts to MPs recently: “The number one thing is that girls are unable to stay in school because they have no decent toilets and no place to manage their menstruation in dignity and privacy. Once menstruation starts, they stay away from school. That negatively impacts their educational performance in school and begins the journey of disadvantaging them in life.”

For all these reasons, it is alarming that WASH services are likely to be targeted in the aid cuts that will strip £6.5 billion from our aid budget by 2028 – some 40 per cent of the money available.

Ministers have admitted the UK will be “moving away from the direct delivery of WASH services”, arguing developing countries can step in with our help to “strengthen” their capabilities. Closer partnerships are welcome, of course – but not if that is a cover for cuts. Alarm bells are ringing.

This government must not repeat the mistakes of previous Conservative administration who slashed WASH spending by 78 per cent at the turn of this decade – making a mockery our commitment to the UN goal of universal WASH access for all by 2030.

Consider also how, just 15 months ago, the UK and Nigeria signed a pioneering strategic partnership, naming economic growth, jobs and reducing aid dependency among its aims. All of this is undermined by failing to fund WASH services, because people must take sick days and spend money to treat diseases caused by unsafe water and lack of sanitation. That is a drag anchor on the Nigerian economy.

WaterAid has highlighted evidence that Nigeria could benefit from a $26 billion (£19bn) “sanitation economy” by 2030, where small businesses sell toilets, people find jobs building them, and young women train as plumbers – just as India provided 100 million toilets in less than a decade – if the UK invests in WASH services. It would help to deliver the very economic boost the partnership seeks.

I was proud when Labour’s former interim leader Harriet Harman was appointed as the UK’s special envoy for women and girls, to in her words “play a key role in standing up for the rights of all women and girls at a critical time”.

However, that noble promise cannot be met if the UK shrinks back from playing its part in ensuring the most basic rights of all, to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Rupa Huq is the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton

This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project

Indonesia has freed and deported an American man after he spent 11 years in jail for the premeditated murder of his then-girlfriend’s mother, in a case known as the Bali “suitcase murder”.

Tommy Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the 2014 murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, the mother of Heather Mack, during a holiday on the island.

The battered body of the Chicago socialite was found in a suitcase in the boot of a taxi at a luxury resort.

The couple were trying to gain access to a $1.5m (£1.1m) trust fund, prosecutors have said.

Mack, who was a few weeks pregnant at the time of the attack, told the court in 2015 her mother objected to her relationship with Schaefer.

She covered her 62-year-old mother’s mouth while Schaefer used a fruit bowl for the assault.

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Police in Bali arrested Mack, nearly 19 at the time, and the then-21-year-old Schaefer a day later.

Schaefer was deported back to the US from Bali International Airport on Tuesday after serving his sentence and receiving a number of remissions for good behaviour, said Felucia Sengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the directorate general of immigration.

He was in custody and arrived in Illinois on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service, which transports federal prisoners, confirmed.

Schaefer was scheduled to make an initial court appearance in Chicago on Thursday morning on federal charges of conspiracy to kill someone in a foreign country, conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with a victim.

Mack served seven years of a 10-year prison sentence in Bali for helping with the murder and was deported in October 2021.

She was also sentenced to 26 years in prison in Chicago in January 2024, after she pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase.

A radical new structure for English rugby is expected to be rubber-stamped at a Rugby Football Union council meeting on Friday.

The Prem would separate from the rest of the pyramid, with traditional promotion and relegation immediately scrapped.

Instead the Prem will look to expand from 10 teams to 12 teams by 2030, with further expansion possible if ambitious clubs meet criteria on and off the field.

This could mean clubs like Wasps, Worcester and London Irish – who all went bust in the 2022-23 season – return to the top flight in the future.

As it stands, there is a mechanism for promotion and relegation to and from the Prem via a play-off with the top-placed side in the Champ.

However Ealing Trailfinders, consistently the best team in the second tier, have failed to meet the existing standards – especially around stadium size.

There has been no relegation from the Prem since Saracens went down in 2020 after a heavy points deduction for salary cap breaches. Sarries were also the last team to gain promotion after winning the Championship in 2021.

Under the new plans, ambitious clubs would still be able to apply for a place in the Prem, but would need to meet a variety of revamped criteria – potentially financial and commercial as well as on-pitch performance and potential.

English rugby insiders expect the new structure to collectively raise standards across the clubs and make the game more attractive to investors.

“We are lifting the bar on what we want clubs to do across various areas,” said one leading executive.

According to sources, any club would be able to apply for a place in an expanded Prem.

They could be ambitious Champ sides such as Coventry, dormant former powerhouses like Wasps – who plan to relaunch in Kent in the coming seasons – or brand-new entities.

The Champ clubs had previously rejected plans for a franchise-type model, but leading figures in the club game insist their board has been consulted throughout the process and have endorsed the recommendation.

“It could be transformational for aspirational Champ clubs,” a senior source told the BBC.

“We are looking at a range of different options to make the Premiership thriving, exciting and a really interesting place to invest in,” RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney told BBC Sport last year.

“Part of that will be a model whereby you qualify for an expansion league in the Premiership, but based on criteria around financial sustainability, fanbase and stadium, not just performance on the field of play.”

He was allegedly found lying in a pool of blood

Soham murderer Ian Huntley is reported to be fighting for his life after an attack at high-security HMP Frankland. According to reports from The Sun, he was left lying in a puddle of blood on his prison wing and was taken to hospital this morning (February 26).

The former caretaker, 52, is serving a life sentence at the County Durham prison for murdering Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham in 2002. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice said: “A prisoner is receiving treatment after an incident at HMP Frankland on Thursday morning. It would be inappropriate to comment further while police investigate.”

A North East Ambulance Service spokesperson added: “We received a call at 9.23am on Thursday 26 February 2026 to reports of an incident at HM Prison Frankland in County Durham. We dispatched two ambulance crews to the scene and requested support from the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS). One patient was transported to hospital by road.”

Jessica and Holly, both aged 10, went missing when they left a family barbecue to go and buy sweets. They never returned home and their bodies were found a week later.

Huntley had lured the girls to his home, murdered them and disposed of their bodies in a ditch. After efforts from police and the local community, their bodies were found near an airbase, 12 miles from Soham.

He returned to the site where he dumped the bodies and cut off their closed and burned them, his trial heard. The remains of Manchester United shirts that the girls were wearing were found later in a bin by police.

Suspicions were raised when he gave a chillingly detailed interview to the press about the girls, who attended St Andrew’s Primary School. It appeared that he took an unusual interest in the case.

Huntley denied the murders but was ultimately convicted in 2003 following a trial. Huntley has previously been attacked in the same prison, when a prisoner slit his throat in 2010.

A spokesman for Durham Constabulary said: “Police were alerted to an assault which had taken place within HMP Frankland in Durham this morning.

“A male prisoner suffered serious injuries during the incident and was transported to hospital. A police investigation is now underway into the circumstances of the incident and detectives are liaising with staff at the prison.”