Recently, the Pensions Commission said that 15 million people in the UK aren’t saving enough for an easy retirement. That figure could rise to 19 million over time, they added.
Up to 45% of working-age adults aren’t paying into a pension at all, they added, risking a financial “cliff edge” for ageing populations.
Scottish Widows found that just under a third of UK adults are at risk of “pension poverty”, too.
Here, we asked Brian Byrnes, director of personal finance at Moneybox, whar the term means, as well as how to lower your odds of “pension poverty” from your 20s up to your 60s.
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What is pension poverty?
Bynes said that it’s not always as easy to measure as you might imagine.
“Pension poverty is often associated with falling below a fixed income threshold in retirement, but in reality, it is broader than that. Charities such as Age UK define pension poverty as not having sufficient resources in later life to meet basic needs or participate fully in society,” he said.
He thinks the chances of Brits facing this in older age might be rising “with declining home ownership, lower pension participation and increasing financial pressure all contributing to poorer long-term retirement outcomes”.
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Still, he added, “there are simple steps people can take throughout their lives to improve their financial resilience later on”.
How can I lower my chances of “pension poverty”?
1) In your 20s
If you’re thinking about your pension in your 20s, Byrnes said, you’re already doing better than most.
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“If you’re in full-time employment, take the time to fully understand your workplace pension. You’ll usually be automatically enrolled when you start a job, where, at a minimum, you’ll contribute 5% and your employer 3% of your salary,” he explained.
“However, many people never check what they’re paying in, and whether their employer offers matching contributions above the minimum. Increasing your contributions can be one of the most effective ways to boost your retirement savings early on.”
He said it’s a good rule of thumb to contribute a double-digit percentage of your income as soon as it’s viable.
“Some people even like to target a total contribution percentage equivalent to roughly half your age when you start saving. Small increases in your 20s can make an enormous difference later in life due to the compounding potential.”
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2) In your 30s
This can be an expensive time of life, where you may be “buying a home, climbing the career ladder, starting a family or juggling rising monthly costs. Retirement can easily slip down the priority list, but this is often the decade when good habits start to really matter,” the financial expert said.
You can also experience a phenomenon called “lifestyle creep,” where any extra income gets swallowed up by day-to-day improvements, in this decade, too.
“A simple tactic to avoid some of this is to increase your pension contributions by 1% every time you receive a pay rise. You still take home more money overall, while also paying more towards your future self in the process,” he explained.
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“For those moving between jobs, make sure you are staying on top of old workplace pension pots. Many people build up multiple pots over their careers and can easily lose track of them.”
A Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) can consolidate pensions, making them easier to manage, cutting provider costs down to one service, and giving you a clearer view of your long-term savings.
3) In your 40s
You might be earning more in this decade, but demands might be higher too, said Brynes. Think: supporting children and older parents and covering mortgage and debt costs, while still saving for retirement.
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“These are the years to perform a proper financial ‘health check’. Make use of free online financial planning tools, like retirement calculators, to check if you are meeting your financial targets while there’s still time to meaningfully course correct if needed,” he said.
And yes, consolidating your pensions is “a key one in this decade as the better the understanding you have of the fees you’re paying across your retirement savings, the more easily and accurately you can get an understanding of where you are financially, and more importantly, where you are likely to end up.”
That way, he said, you can “amend any small mistakes that become expensive later on before it is too late in the career game”.
4) In your 50s
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Now’s the time to put the pedal to the metal. “Your 50s are for many, the final opportunity to meaningfully accelerate retirement savings before stepping back from full-time work,” the expert told us.
“While retirement may start to feel more real, it’s also the point where many people become far more engaged with their finances.”
You might want to do a pension audit in your 50s, too.
“Catch up on contributions, review your investment risk, and make sure your retirement plans still reflect the lifestyle you actually want. It is also important to check your National Insurance record and State Pension forecast to ensure you are on track to receive the State Pension, as gaps in contributions can materially impact retirement income later on,” said Byrnes.
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“Seeking guidance or regulated financial advice before accessing your pension can therefore be hugely valuable, particularly as decisions made in your 50s can shape your financial security for the rest of your life”.
5) In your 60s
Now’s the time to protect your wealth, Byrnes advised.
“Here, it’s important to think realistically about future spending – such as household costs, outstanding mortgage payments, or healthcare costs. Tools such as Pensions UK’s Retirement Living Standards can provide a helpful overview of what average costs look like in retirement, and can give a good basis to work from for your planning.
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“At this stage, you may want to consider gradually starting to shift your portfolio into safer, lower-volatility investments to prevent all your hard work over the years from being wiped out by a sudden market downturn.”
If anyone can write a great breakup album, it’s Ben Gibbard. For almost 30 years, the Death Cab for Cutie frontman has channelled misery into such emotionally ruinous songs as 2003’s “Tiny Vessels”, with its cool and cruel detached lover, to “The Sound of Settling”, a lesson in unending, unrequited pining.
Today, though, Gibbard is reluctant to call the band’s new project a “divorce record”, despite the fact that, yes, it was written in the aftermath of his marriage ending. “Oftentimes those records are someone saying, ‘I’m going to bring this into the court of public opinion and tell my one-sided story about how this went down,’” he says. “You know the phrase, only a fool goes to court thinking the jury are bound to see it their way?”
Gibbard is the first to admit he’s played the fool before. “I’ve certainly taken that tactic before, when I was younger,” he says, citing 2015’s Kintsugi, written in the wake of his split from actor and musician Zooey Deschanel – to whom he was married for three years – as the most obvious example. “I’ve long since realised that painting yourself as the aggrieved narrator… well, there is a time and place for that, but at a certain moment in life, you’ve got to grow out of it.” Anyway, he adds wryly, “Does anyone really think the biggest pop star in the world is always the innocent bystander in their own life? I don’t think so.”
Nearing 50, Gibbard has grown out of it and then some. Released last week, the band’s 11th album, I Built You a Tower, opens with mellow, melancholic guitar and the line: “Please forgive me.” It’s as much a plea to himself as it is to the person he’s speaking to. Later, on the jittery “Punching the Flowers”, Gibbard sings of words “sharpened like axes” that a man swings around “blindly”. Lyrically, Gibbard appears ready to look inward, to hold his hands up and own his mistakes. It’s not you, it’s me, he seems to be saying. Or at the very least, it’s both of us.
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Death Cab for Cutie have released their 11th album, ‘I Built You a Tower’ (Provided by label)
The songs are no less potent for their maturity; age has given them a hard-won patina. Even after they aged out of it, Death Cab have always tuned into that high frequency of youth, when everything is either the end or the beginning of the world. The confessional lyricism and assured sound of their Grammy-nominated fifth studio album Plans, released in 2005, proved to be their breakthrough from the Pacific Northwest music scene. It was also the first record they released on a major label (Atlantic), and the first time they’d recorded outside of their hometown.
“I felt less comfortable in my own skin in the world,” Gibbard says of their cultural “peak”, a time when their music was inescapable thanks to relentless syncing by hit shows such as The OC, Grey’s Anatomy, and One Tree Hill. “Trying to go about my life the way I’d gone about it before, I felt that more people were staring at me in places I was not used to being stared at. It’s kind of a headf*** when you feel like your presence is a topic of conversation whereas before nobody gave a s***.” Increasingly, celebrity felt like anathema to Gibbard, both living his life, and later, making music.
Those feelings were amplified when he began dating Deschanel. Pre-New Girl but post-500 Days of Summer, she was considerably more famous than Gibbard, who had to adapt.
Gibbard with Zooey Deschanel in 2009 (Getty)
“Without going into detail, there were some scary people around, and that changed how I had to live my life,” he says. “I felt like I was living my life in public like a Secret Service agent.” When they went out on dates, Gibbard would locate the exits by second nature; he and Deschanel had code words for emergencies.
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That feeling of being surveilled 24/7 invariably had an impact on Gibbard’s songwriting: “When you’re with someone who’s recognisable, you start taking on some of that reticence as well. I found myself deferring to her level of reticence because, well, it was different for her than it was for me. I think I retreated as a writer as a result of that.”
We’re speaking over a video call, but Gibbard’s screen is dark. “I’m a pacer when I talk,” he explains, and I get the sense that he is more open because of it. The absence of video, though, does mean I have to rely on recent photographs to know that he is no longer sporting that age-old emo signifier: the side fringe. Instead, the hairs sweep up, optimistic and hopeful.
Without going into detail, there were some scary people around, and that changed how I had to live my life
As we get older, we find new ways of coping. I Built You a Tower refers to Gibbard’s penchant for compartmentalisation, a process in which he assigns the memories and people in his life – whether wonderful or painful – a place in his psychological skyline. Death Cab, for example, looms large on the horizon, like a skyscraper. The tower was erected after his last marriage: “But sometimes the memories, the people, find their way out of the structures. You hear a song, or smell something, and all of a sudden you’re back in that time of your life,” he says. The album’s title track explores exactly this: “’Cause I needed you/ I needed you contained.”
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But nothing stays contained for ever. His second divorce, from tour manager and photographer Rachel Demy, spilled over into a 2023 anniversary tour for both Death Cab and Gibbard’s other longtime band, Postal Service. In some ways, performing became a salve, he says. “To be back in my 26-year-old self, so to speak, for two hours a night, and play these songs from a very different time in my life…” Other times, the clashing of his two lives felt disorientating: “One moment you’re emailing with a lawyer, dealing with the ugly elements of divorce – I wouldn’t recommend it, of course – and then, all of a sudden, it’s time to go on stage.’”
It helped that everyone – from his bandmates to the crew – knew what was going on. “Everyone understood the pressure that was on me,” he says. “The timing of it was not ideal, but at the same time, there really couldn’t have been a better group of people to be around.”
In truth, playing anniversary shows is weird even without the divorce element, says Gibbard. Coming face-to-face with your 20-year-old self isn’t always flattering. But it can also be funny. “I’ll be listening to songs on the first record about some girl I dated for two months, and it’ll be like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe this happened!’ and then you get older and it’s like, yeah, s*** happens. Life is a series of s*** happening. That’s how life works.”
Gibbard: ‘The girl I wrote “Tiny Vessels” about… We laugh about it now’ (Getty)
Gibbard sees the gulf between himself now and himself back then as a sign of emotional growth, reassurance that he isn’t the same mercenary lover who whined “you are beautiful but you don’t mean a thing to me” on “Tiny Vessels” more than 20 years ago. “The girl I wrote that song about… We laugh about it now,” he says. “ I just think, ‘Oh my God. I was really being such a little b**** about this.’”
On I Built You a Tower, he’s as candid as he was when the band first started. It’s their first release since going independent again – the original plan was one more album with Atlantic, until a personnel change prompted them to leave. “It was like an episode of Succession,” says Gibbard, recalling how former CEO Julie Greenwald left in 2024. “This nepo baby [Elliot Grainge, son of Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grange] was given the label,” he says critically. “We took one look at this guy’s picture and we were like, ‘This guy didn’t have a Transatlanticism phase in college. This guy didn’t rock with Plans. I think we can safely say that this isn’t our guy.” And so they left.
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At Anti, Death Cab are in good company with fellow artists MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Fleet Foxes, Slow Pulp, The Beths. “I mean, f***ing Tom Waits,” continues Gibbard. “It felt like the perfect place for us. We’re not being put out to pasture on a retirement label.”
He has no interest in giving in to the pull of Noughties nostalgia; beyond the lyrical evolutions, I Built You a Tower is expansive and diverse in sound, too. That said, he knows what it means to fans to hear their old stuff live, because he is a fan first and foremost himself. “What’s the point of playing a show if you’re not going to honour the connection that people have with that music?” he asks. It’s further evidence of how Gibbard has matured. He cares how the other side feels.
Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes has reportedly urged the club to sign one target after the departing Casemiro had a hand in advising the club’s transfer recruitment
Manchester United appear willing to continue taking counsel from their players as they look to bolster their squad this summer. Bruno Fernandes could be the next star to steer the club towards a signing, following in the footsteps of Casemiro’s recommendation.
Casemiro, 34, is said to have pointed United in the direction of his international team-mate when suggesting a potential successor. Now Fernandes could also have a significant say in reshaping his own midfield this summer.
The Telegraph revealed in May that Bruno had urged the club to pursue his namesake, Mateus Fernandes. The Portugal star, who has not been included in his nation’s World Cup squad, is widely expected to depart West Ham following their Premier League relegation.
Much like Casemiro, he has benefited from spending additional time alongside his compatriot on international duty. Reports suggest Fernandes has spoken glowingly of his namesake to United’s hierarchy and is keen to see the club secure his signature during the transfer window.
West Ham’s Fernandes, 21, has shone since first arriving in England with Southampton in 2024. The former Sporting CP prospect was subsequently snapped up by West Ham late in last summer’s transfer window for a fee understood to be just over £40m.
Well aware the Portuguese playmaker ranks among their most prized assets, the Hammers are determined to extract maximum profit from his sale. A figure of £80m has been mooted for the player, though his eventual transfer fee could fall considerably short of that.
The Times has reported Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is also an admirer of the player and could mount his own bid for his signature. This could leave Bruno with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.
When Declan Rice completed his £100m switch to the Emirates in 2023, it was reported Fernandes had wanted the England star at Old Trafford. He later confessed he was “really sad” that Rice opted for north London instead, and the Gunners would once again be considered formidable rivals in the race.
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Having just clinched their first Premier League title since 2004, Arsenal remain one of the most attractive destinations in world football. That is not to suggest United will be easily dismissed, however, particularly after Michael Carrick secured Champions League football for the coming season.
It’s conceivable the club did indeed heed Casemiro’s counsel by pressing ahead with their pursuit of Ederson. And the weeks ahead will reveal just how much weight they place on captain Fernandes’ opinion as they look to bring in his preferred transfer target.
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For 46 years, maintenance teams at the Metro depot in Gosforth have kept the distinctive trains running since they first began service in 1980.
The last remaining old carriages are close to being phased out completely, marking the end of an era for the network and the wider region.
Paul Patrick (Image: Nexus)
Paul Patrick, who began his career at the depot as an apprentice fitter in 1995 and is now head of region for Stadler, said: “The old trains have been great workhorses for so many years.
“They have been the life blood of our region, taking people to work, to appointments, and on nights out.
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“Metro is the beating heart of the North East and not many other UK cities have a railway quite like it.
“The trains we are about to say goodbye to have pride of place in Metro’s story.
“I worked on them when I became an apprentice aged 16.
Ben Stafford & James Hind (Image: Nexus)
“It’s a bittersweet feeling to see them go. Everyone recognises they are life expired now.
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“They have done their job.”
Known as the Metro Class 599s and initially promoted as the ‘supertram’, the carriages arrived in the region in 1975 and entered service on August 11, 1980, during the phased opening of the Metro system.
Since then, they have carried 1.7 billion customer journeys and travelled half a billion kilometres.
Their final journeys are scheduled to take place between June 22 and June 26.
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Carlene and Gemma (Image: Nexus)
Carlene Tindale, a trainer and assessor who has worked at the depot since 2014, said: “They’re iconic trains.
“I joined when they were getting their three-quarter life refurbishment, so it’s sad to see them go, but we did really need new ones.
“There is a sense of emotion and pride they have managed to run for 46 years.
“Getting as far as they have is down to the expertise and commitment of everyone at the depot.
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“The fact we have kept them going is something to be proud of.”
Adam Cairns (Image: Nexus)
Adam Cairns, production manager, said working on the trains had always brought a sense of satisfaction.
He said: “The fault finding and the repairs were something I’ve enjoyed.
“There was always great job satisfaction when we got one fixed.”
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But in recent years, he said, the trains had become more difficult to maintain.
He said: “They’ve experienced more issues in recent years and parts have become hard to come by.
“That said, they have been great for the North East, and such a huge part of everyday life for so many years.”
Materials manager Gemma Bousfield, who started as a fitter 12 years ago, compared them to “looking after a fleet of really old cars.”
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She said: “It was good old fashioned mechanical engineering with them trains.
“I’ll miss them, but they’ve definitely had their day.”
Eldon Tams (Image: Nexus)
Eldon Tams, depot controller, said: “It’s sad to see them go but we have to look to the future with the new trains.
“The old trains used to be really reliable but less so in recent years due to their age.
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“The new trains are going to be much better for the passengers.”
James Hind, a commissioning and warranty support technician, said: “People here have worked on these trains their whole lives.
“We’re looking to the future with the new trains, but the old ones are iconic and everybody knows them.
“It’s sad to see them go, however, rolling out new trains is exciting and historic for the Metro.”
A national scandal is unfolding in breast cancer care, and there is a litany of regular bad news stories like last week’s A&E patient who waited 18 hours on a trolley. Now comes a Quality Care Commission report that downgrades the Darlington and Durham trust’s management from “good” to “requires improvement”.
That is damning, as is the phrase in the report that some people felt there was a culture of “turning a blind eye” to issues which enabled “pockets” of individuals with poor behaviour to remain.
There is no explanation about how our local services – the Memorial is the hospital that most people in Darlington and south Durham rely upon – were allowed to deteriorate in this way and who was responsible, although, as ever in the health service, we have a new management telling us that its new broom is sweeping clean and improvements are being made.
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We accept that the chief executive, Steve Russell, only started at the end of September so he needs time to turn his oil tanker around.
But still there is no real way for local people to get answers about the progress. There are no councillors or commissioners to call to account, and the trust itself seems distant from town life.
So we have to appeal to our MPs to really get under the skin of the hospital and the trust, to find out what is going on and to reassure us that improvements are being made and that when our loved ones need care, they are getting the best the NHS can offer.
In an update provided by LFB, they confirmed that two floors of the warehouse are fully engulfed by flames.
They warned firefighting operations will continue overnight.
A spokesperson for LFB said: “Four of the Brigade’s turntable ladders are deployed to the fire on Oxgate Lane, Brent. A multi-use warehouse of two floors is fully engulfed by flames.
“This will be a protracted incident, with crews carrying out firefighting operations over night.”
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LFB tackle the warehouse fire in Brent through the night(Image: LFB)
Adam Hencek, 23, died unexpectedly at the couple’s home in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary, on Tuesday evening – and just days later, his husband Tomas Feuller, 25, also sadly passed away at their home
Shannon Miller and Peter Hennessy UK & World News Editor
05:25, 12 Jun 2026
A young newlywed couple have been laid to rest together following their heartbreaking deaths within days of each other.
Adam Hencek, 23, passed away unexpectedly at the couple’s residence on Tuesday evening. Mere days afterwards, his husband Tomas Feuller, 25, also died at their home, reports the Mirror.
A death notice published for the pair stated they would be deeply mourned by their devoted families, amongst them Adam’s parents Peter and Lubica and Tomas’ grandparents Jozefa and Milan. A GoFundMe appeal was established on June 9 by Adam’s aunt, Mirka Kohutovičová, in the wake of the tragedy to assist with funeral expenses.
She stated: “I am fundraising for the joint funeral of my nephew Adam Hencek and his husband Tomas Feuller, who tragically passed away on the 02.06.2026 and 05.06.2026 respectively. We would greatly appreciate any donations to help fund the wake and the cremation of the newlyweds.”
Mirka expressed gratitude to supporters and revealed the family’s profound appreciation after donations flooded in for the newlyweds, amassing €12,070 (£10,352) on the very day of its launch. She remarked: “We really appreciate all of the donations. We reached our goal thanks to all of your help which we are so grateful for. Thank you all for supporting our family at this time.”
The couple were positioned for public repose on Tuesday evening at Condons Funeral Parlour, Clonmel, prior to their transfer on Wednesday to the Island Crematorium, Cork, for a private cremation service. The pair, both originally from Slovakia, had made their home in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary.
The local community has been plunged into grief, with heartfelt tributes flooding in for the couple.
Josephine, a close friend of Tomas, expressed: “To my darling friend, my condolences on your passing to your family at this sad time. Especially to your beloved Tomas. You were the brightest light on this earth and I know you’ll be the brightest star. You will be beyond missed”.
Daisy Wn, a former piano pupil of Adam’s, remarked: “So sad… Adam taught me piano briefly, he was a brilliant teacher and a gentleman.. My thoughts are with Adam’s family and friends at this awfully sad time, may he rest in peace”.
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Karen Douglas commented: “Very sad to hear this. We met Adam and Tomas last year through work and their energy and love of life was infectious.”
Have you been watching closely this week? (Picture: Shutterstock/ Metro)
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Add to that the quite astonishing coincidence of the US, Canada and Mexico, the three co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, being in the midst of an epic trade war. Indeed, in the period in between the opening ceremony at the Estadio Azteca, and the final in New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the three will be renegotiating the USMCA, the North American free trade area.
For Mr Healey, who resigned as defence secretary on Thursday (June 11), it was sport that would consume his years at Lady Lumley’s School in Pickering, then St Peter’s School in York for sixth form.
“I didn’t try hard enough in my work; I coasted, but I played every sport I could,” he told PoliticsHome in 2020, recalling his school days.
He said rugby, cricket and football were his favourite sports, but he did “anything that was going”.
Wakefield-born Mr Healey, who now lives in Rotherham, is the son of Aidan Healey OBE, a former deputy chief physical education officer of HM Prison Service.
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He grew up in rural North Yorkshire, telling PoliticsHome he would “ride motorbikes and mopeds on the roads in the Yorkshire Moors with no crash helmets” and had learned to drive a tractor in fields aged 12.
Mr Healey, during a visit to Lady Lumley’s School in 2004, said: “I have really fond memories of my time in Ryedale.”
After leaving York, Mr Healey, now 66, studied social and political science at Christ’s College in Cambridge, receiving a BA in 1982.
He worked as a journalist and the deputy editor of the House, an internal magazine of Westminster, for a year in 1983.
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He became a full-time disability rights campaigner in 1984 and was later campaigns director at the Trades Union Congress.
Road to government
It was in 1992 that Mr Healey first attempted to enter politics, standing an unsuccessful candidacy for Ryedale at the general election.
Mr Healey was elected as MP for Wentworth in 1997, going on to serve as a junior minister under Tony Blair and as local government minister then housing secretary under Gordon Brown.
Then economic secretary to the treasury John Healey chats to Katherine Turner, left, Ben Slater, Rhys Carlyle and Ben McCauley from Archbishop of York Junior School, Bishopthorpe, about the school website they worked on in the early 2000s (Image: Newsquest)
He was appointed as the shadow health secretary under Ed Miliband in 2010 but stood down from the role the following year and returned to the backbenches.
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He returned to the shadow cabinet as housing secretary under Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020, then became shadow defence secretary.
He was appointed defence secretary by Sir Keir Starmer after Labour came to power in 2024.
He resigned from the role on Thursday, accusing Sir Keir of failing to properly fund the Defence Investment Plan (Dip).
Bolton Council has granted planning permission for a first-floor side extension at 22 Newstead Drive, Hulton, which will increase the property’s size from three bedrooms to four.
Planning officers acknowledged that a four-bedroom house would typically be expected to provide up to three off-road parking spaces.
However, the application only demonstrated two spaces on site.
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Despite the shortfall, officers concluded the proposal was acceptable because the property is located within a sustainable area, just a short walk from bus services, and benefits from available on-street parking nearby.
A report prepared for the council said parking standards are considered a maximum requirement and noted there are no parking restrictions in the immediate vicinity.
The extension, measuring around 2.7 metres wide and 8.2 metres long, was also judged to be in keeping with the character of the detached property and surrounding area.
Officers found it would not have an unacceptable impact on neighbouring homes in terms of outlook, light or privacy.
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No objections were received during the consultation period and permission was granted subject to standard planning conditions.
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