“The scale and pace of implementation of the final strategy will depend on the level of resources available”

Implementation of proposed childcare reform plans will depend on the level of resources available and the capacity of the sector to deliver, says Education Minister Paul Givan.

On Thursday, the Minister published the results of the Early Learning and Childcare Strategy consultation, showing “strong public support” for ambitious plans to cut childcare costs and expand access to pre-school education.

The draft strategy sets out the Minister’s ambitions to make childcare more affordable for working parents, ensuring more children can access full-time pre-school education.

It aims to support early years programmes targeting children facing disadvantage, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. It also commits to strengthening the early years workforce.

Education Minister Paul Givan said: “This consultation sends a clear and positive message as there is strong support for transforming early learning and childcare in Northern Ireland.

“Parents, providers and stakeholders want a system that is more affordable, more accessible and delivers high-quality outcomes for children.

“This strategy represents a significant opportunity to reshape how we support children and families, including reducing childcare costs, expanding access to pre-school education and strengthening the early years workforce. It is about making a real difference to parents, helping them to work and balance family life, while ensuring every child has the best possible start.”

The Department received 469 responses through an online survey and written submissions.

A series of public events, both online and in person, supported engagement across the sector. Agreement rates for the strategy’s objectives were high, ranging from 77% to 86%.

According to the Department, the consultation responses indicated strong support for the standardisation of the pre-school education programme, the proposed increase to the Northern Ireland Childcare Subsidy Scheme, and the focus on children facing disadvantage, including those with SEND.

Support for workforce measures was also strong, with respondents highlighting that a skilled, valued and well-supported workforce is essential to high-quality provision.

While the overall response was positive, respondents also called for faster progress and detail on implementation.

Paul Givan added: “I acknowledge some of the feedback in the consultation called for faster progress and a detailed implementation plan.

“However, the scale and pace of implementation of the final strategy will depend on the level of resources available and the capacity of the sector to deliver.

“I will continue to press for the continued support and transformation of early learning and childcare across Northern Ireland.”

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The North Esst has the highest rate in England of 16 to 24-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) – 21 per cent, totalling more than 64,000 young people, according to latest Government figures for 2025.

A landmark report from former health secretary Alan Milburn warned last month that the UK was at risk of a “lost generation” who are victims of a “perfect storm” of  issues – including a shortage of entry-level jobs and apprenticeships, the long-term impacts of the Covid pandemic, loneliness and mental health problems exacerbated by social media, and a lack of adequate careers support in schools.

Mayor Kim McGuinness has now unveiled a vision to help combat the crisis in the North East, which she plans to put on the desk of the next Prime Minister – a role which Mr Burnham looks set to take, following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation.

She told employers this week that the next occupant of Number 10 must “roll up his sleeves and force change through a reluctant civil service” in order to bring about the radical shift needed to put inactive young people into work or training.

Her proposal would see the North East mayoral authority given greater funding and responsibility over the whole 16 to 24 system, managing the transition from school to work, including to design and deliver employment support and skills programmes.

She also wants the region to get early release of cash for retrofitting under the Government’s £15 billion Warm Homes Plan, in order to provide a clear pathway of work for young people who can be trained to go into the construction and housing trade.

It is hoped that such a model could support up to 3,500 jobs by 2030, reduce energy bills for struggling families living in households with poor energy efficiency, and cut harmful emissions.

Speaking at the Shine conference in Sunderland on Wednesday, celebrating the mayor’s employer accreditation programme, Ms McGuinness said: “Employers often tell me they can’t find the workers they need, yet we have thousands of young people unable to find a route into work. In the North East, that’s a problem we want to solve together.

“Nationally, there is a huge growth challenge facing the new PM, a growth problem which covers low productivity, economic inactivity and the future of our young people.

“But these are not three problems, they are really one – access to opportunity – and the North East has a strong solution ready to go. Right now too many of those young people don’t feel they have a future and can’t even see the path to a career. We need radical change, and the powers to deliver it.

“When it comes to that horrible acronym NEETS – those not in education, employment or training – the North East has the worst record of the English regions. Around 20% of our young people are without purpose.

“If we’re going to change that, if we’re going to give hope and a career, we need to be able to take much more direct action. Because, clearly, waiting for Government to act isn’t working.”

The North East mayor’s office already has some responsibilities over services for young people aged 19 and over who are NEET, as well as a £50 million Connect to Work programme aimed at getting thousands of people with disabilities and health conditions get into jobs by 2030.

But regional leaders fear those powers are too narrow to tackle the systemic problems at the heart of the NEET crisis and that a serious overhaul is needed to join together housing, retrofit, construction, skills, careers, and employment support and create a clear pipeline of new opportunities.

While metro mayors now have the ability to ask for new powers directly from the Government under a Right to Request process, Ms McGuinness wants to mirror the landmark devolution of health and social care to Mr Burnham’s former mayoral authority in Greater Manchester with a 10-year deal from the Government to boost employment. 

Ms McGuinness said it was “time to take a risk” in order to “ turn around the lives of struggling young people”.

She added: “The North East can deliver better results. And we can deliver for less. Our NEET pitch is essentially this: let us take on the risk, and if we succeed let us pocket the money you save in benefits and reinvest it in the North East.

“Give the North East 10 years, give us more responsibility, give us the risk, judge us on the results.”

The Home Office has announced it is expanding the use of military bases to house asylum seekers, with three new sites set to open up in England.

Barracks are considered a less problematic alternative to hotels for accommodating those who have arrived in the UK to seek asylum, while their claims are assessed.

However, they are not without controversy, with questions over cost and their suitability from people on both sides of the immigration debate.

A plan to house asylum seekers at Cameron Barracks in Inverness has been shelved, the local MP confirmed on Thursday, after outcry from locals and politicians.

Now, the Home Office has confirmed it is seeking planning permission for MOD Bicester in Oxfordshire; MOD Barnham in Suffolk; and MOD Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire.

In addition, the use of Crowborough in East Sussex and Wethersfield in Essex is being extended until 2030 and beyond 2027 respectively.

Wethersfield is also being expanded to allow 1,200 more bedspaces for people awaiting a decision on their asylum claim.

The expansion in the use of military facilities across the country was announced alongside the closure of 20 asylum hotels, including the Bell Hotel in Epping which became a focal point for protests last year.

Border Security and Asylum Minister Alex Norris said the number of hotels used for this purpose had ‘more than halved’ from its peak of 400, with just under 170 currently active.

He said: ‘Instead, we’re moving asylum seekers into ex-military sites that are a far cry from the hotels the last government left us with.

‘This is a system being brought back under control – and we will not stop until the job is done.’

According to the Home Office, the closure of these hotels – alongside a further 11 announced in April – will save taxpayers £170 million this financial year.

Asylum costs as a whole have fallen by almost £1 billion, the department said.

The total number of people claiming asylum in the UK is also down 12% compared to last year, following the sharp rise that came with the end of the Covid pandemic lockdowns.

However, the use of military sites has been criticised by groups including the Refugee Council, which said the new announcement was ‘storing up problems for the next Prime Minister by repeating policies that failed in the recent past’.

The Council’s Director of External Affairs Imran Hussein argued the government could lower costs by ‘housing people in communities and improving Home Office decision-making’.

There are currently around 7,000 more asylum seekers living in dispersal accommodation – meaning flats or houses in communities around the country – than at the time of the 2024 general election.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp, meanwhile, said the Labour government ‘should be putting illegal immigrants on a plane home rather than messing around with military camps and hotels’.

He said: ‘Only the Conservatives have the backbone and the plan to leave the ECHR and end the lawfare that blocks removals, so every illegal immigrant can be deported.’

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Firefighters are tackling a huge blaze that has broken out in south-east London.

The fire is reported to be coming from Copeland Park, an events venue in Peckham, although its location has not yet been confirmed by London Fire Brigade.

Images posted on X show thick plumes of smoke in the sky as firefighters work to put out the fire.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Roksana Lecka, who abused babies at two nurseries in the UK, has been living as a free woman since landing back in Poland following a deportation error

A nursery worker who was sentenced to eight years behind bars for abusing 21 babies while on drugs is now living free in her native Poland after serving just 14 months in jail in Britain, authorities have confirmed.

Roksana Lecka, 23, was jailed last September for abusing children aged as young as ten months at two nurseries in west London by pinching, punching and kicking them over a period of seven months. She was deported to Poland in February as part of the Government’s Early Removal Scheme.

But officials in her home country have claimed they did not have the powers to detain her when she landed back in the former Eastern Bloc.

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Major Dagmara Bielec, of the Nadwislanski Border Guard Unit, reportedly told local media: “A Polish citizen expelled from Great Britain has returned to the country, but her arrival did not take place under any of the formal international co-operation procedures in force between Poland and Great Britain.”

According to reports in Poland, Lecka was not entered into the relevant criminal databases or international alert systems in a way that would have allowed officers to detain her. Officials claimed that because there was no official documentation from the UK regarding her expulsion, and no corresponding entries in national or international law-enforcement systems, border guards had to process her under normal entry procedures.

Lecka is understood to have landed in Warsaw on February 5, but her current whereabouts are unknown. Her crimes, which included her kicking a tot in the face repeatedly during nine months of “gratuitous” and “sadistic” violence, took place between 2023 and 2024.

Lecka, who is banned from returning to the UK, was jailed for eight years in September after admitting seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16. She was convicted after a trial of another 14 counts, the Mirror reports.

At her sentencing last year, Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC said Lecka “pinched, slapped, punched, smacked and kicked” children, “pulled their ears, hair and their toes”, and toppled them “headfirst into cots” causing bruising and lingering red marks.

Describing the crimes, she said: “Often the child would be quietly and happily minding its own business before you deliberately inflicted pain, causing the child to cry, arch, try to get away or writhe in distress. Time after time you calmly watched the pain and suffering you have caused. Your criminal conduct can properly be characterised as sadistic.”

Lecka was caught after parents and staff spotted children in her care had been bruised and scratched and police then found CCTV footage of her scratching and pinching children under their clothes, on their arms, legs and stomachs.

Parents of her victims later told a court of their feelings of heartbreak, guilt and distrust and described Lecka as the “worst kind of human”. She attempted to defend her actions, carried out at Riverside Nursery in Twickenham, which is now closed, and Little Munchkins in Hounslow, by claiming she was sleep-deprived and hooked on cannabis and vapes.

At the time of her deportation, it appeared unclear whether Lecka would continue her jail sentence in Poland. But some parents spoke at the time of their horror at media reports she would immediately be allowed to go free in her homeland.

One father whose son was physically abused by Lecka said at the time her deportation after serving just 14 months, which included time on remand, was “completely inappropriate” and “really hard to swallow”.

He told the BBC: “We felt it undermined all that time and emotion that had gone into the trial. Preparing our witness statements and our victim-impact statements, going through the trauma of that whole investigation and trial, to get a sentence brought a sense of closure and we could all move on from it. But then for that sentence not to be served, it was a bit of a hollow feeling.”

The victim’s father claimed there is “too much focus on cost savings, rather than upholding the principles of the system”.

At the time of Lecka’s deportation, Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson told the House of Commons victims’ parents had not been told whether Lecka would continue to serve the rest of her eight-year sentence or go free. She called for information regarding Lecka’s release terms.

After raising the matter in parliament and writing to the Home Office, Wilson was told by ministers that, due to time on remand before her trial, Lecka had become eligible for deportation on 7 October 2025 – less than a fortnight after receiving her eight-year sentence.

Alex Norris, minister for border security and asylum said in a letter to the MP: “Whilst Lecka is not required to serve the remainder of her sentence in Poland, we have made Polish law enforcement aware of her convictions so that appropriate safeguarding actions can be taken by the Polish authorities.”

However, according to reports in Poland, the authorities there are unable to monitor her movements or warn childcare institutions about her past convictions and there are even fears she could find a new job working with children.

Last month, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “These were appalling crimes, and our thoughts remain with the victims and their families. This Government is deporting foreign national offenders at pace, with more than 5,000 deported last year – a 14 per cent increase on the previous year.”

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said three fire engines from Farnworth and Wigan fire stations were called to Pelham Street.

A GMFRS spokesperson said: “Just before 7pm on Thursday 25 June, three fire engines from Farnworth and Wigan fire stations were called to attend a fire involving three vehicles at Pelham Street in Bolton.

“Crews quickly arrived at the scene, where the fire had spread to a nearby building.

“Firefighters remain at the scene and are working alongside Greater Manchester Police to make the area safe.”

There are no recorded casualties at this stage.

The incident is the second fire attended by crews in Bolton today.

Earlier in the day, at around 3.20pm, two fire engines from Farnworth attended an outbuilding fire on Derwent Road.

Firefighters used specialist equipment to extinguish the blaze and bring the incident to a close.

Matthew King punched, kicked, and throttled his victim after accusing her of cheating on him with a relative

A man brutally beat his partner in front of their daughter during a weekend away in a Welsh hotel, a court has heard. Matthew King punched, kicked, and throttled his victim after accusing her of being unfaith before fleeing the hotel when his bruised and distressed partner went for help.

The 47-year-old defendant was tracked down by police the following day to a pub where he was found to be carrying a knife.

Sending King down, a judge at Cardiff Crown Court said he had subjected his partner to a “merciless assault”, and he noted in the pre-sentence report the defendant had engaged “victim blaming”. For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter

Sol Hartley, prosecuting, told the court the incident happened in a hotel in Cardiff on the night of November 30 last year. He said King, his partner, and their daughter had travelled to Cardiff from their home in Norfolk so the defendant could attend a work event with colleagues in the city.

The court heard that King and his partner went to a restaurant in Cardiff Bay where an argument broke out between them with the defendant accusing his partner of cheating on him with a relative. The row continued when the couple returned to their hotel room, a family room they were sharing with their daughter.

The prosecutor said once in the room King “lunged” at his partner and subjected her to an “onslaught” which saw him punching her to the head and face “multiple times”, grabbing a clump of her hair, and kicking her in the stomach and lower back while she was on the floor.

At one point the woman tried to hide under the bed to get away from him. King then took hold of his partner by the throat “leaving her breathless”.

The court heard that during the physical assault the defendant was also verbally abusive to his victim calling her “a leech”, “a slag”, and “a slut”.

The prosecutor said the woman managed to calm the defendant and he then asked her for a cuddle. After cuddling for a little while the victim said she needed to use the toilet but instead fled the room and went to the hotel reception where she raised the alarm. The prosecutor said hotel staff could see the woman’s “very visible injuries” and her distressed state, and they called the police.

The court heard the woman was taken to Heath hospital where medics found bruising around both eyes, marks on her neck, and tenderness to her lower back. CT scans showed no bones had been broken.

The prosecutor said King was located by police the following day in a pub in Cardiff Bay and was arrested. When searched he was found to be carrying a folding knife. In his subsequent interview the defendant gave officers a prepared statement in which denied any wrong doing.

In an impact statement which was read to the court by the prosecution barrister, the victim said she had been struggling to sleep since the attack and said she had to support her daughter who had witnessed the incident. She said she and daughter were seeking counselling.

Matthew King, of Chestnut Avenue, Spixworth, Norwich, Norfolk, had previously pleaded guilty on the day of trial to strangulation, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and possession of a knife when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has three previous convictions for three offences including a previous assault on the same victim.

Jenny Yeo said the relationship between the defendant and complainant had been one “characterised by jealousy and arguments”, and said her client realises that the relationship has ended and he now wants to move forward. She said her client – a qualified welder and pipework engineer – understands that alcohol is an issue for him, and she said he wants to rebuild his life away from Norwich and has already taken positive steps to rehabilitate himself. She added that the knife King had been found in possession of in the pub was a work tool and that in the future he would be “more prudent” about carrying it.

Reorder Hughes Hughes told King he had subjected his partner to a “merciless assault” in front of their daughter, and he noted in the pre-sentence report “there is a degree of offence minimisation and victim blaming”.

With discounts for his guilty pleas King was sentenced to 38 months in prison comprising 35 months for the assault and strangulation offences and three months for the knife offence to run consecutively. He will serve 40 per cent of the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.

King was also made subject to a 10-year restraining order banning him from contacting his victim.

“This is an extremely worrying situation.”

A councillor has called for an urgent response from all relevant agencies after four drug overdoses occurred within five days on the streets of Belfast.

Independent councillor Paul McCusker, who also founded The People’s Kitchen homeless outreach charity, said all four incidents required an emergency response from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and hospital treatment.

However, he said it is particularly concerning that naloxone, the medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, did not appear to be effective in some of these cases, raising fears about the substances currently circulating in the city.

Cllr McCusker said: “This is an extremely worrying situation. To see four overdoses in such a short space of time is deeply concerning, particularly given that in some instances Naloxone did not have the expected effect. This raises serious questions about the substances currently being used and the risks they pose.”

He has also highlighted ongoing concerns regarding housing pressures in the city, with many vulnerable individuals spending their days on the streets without certainty of accommodation for the night ahead.

“I continue to raise concerns with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive regarding the urgent need for suitable temporary accommodation. Too many individuals are left in limbo, placed on ‘continue to search’ lists, and facing uncertainty about where they will sleep each night,” the councillor added.

Cllr McCusker has further warned that drug use and street activity have significantly increased across Belfast city centre, exacerbating risks to both vulnerable individuals and the wider community.

He is now calling for an urgent, coordinated response from all relevant agencies, including health services and statutory partners, to address the current escalation and provide immediate support.

Cllr McCusker said drug dealing in the city continues to have “a significant impact on daily life” for families and residents “who live in fear and do not feel safe in their communities.