The lack of tangible information about her son Oscar – one of 238 Venezuelans deported by the US to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador – has driven Gertrudis Pineda to despair and left her at the brink of a breakdown.

She bursts into tears the instant we start to talk about Oscar.

“My son only went to seek the American Dream and now he’s trapped in a nightmare,” she sobs.

Oscar lived in Dallas, Texas. Gertrudis explains he laid carpets in apartments for a living: “He helped me by sending money for the family and to buy medicines for his father, who has diabetes.”

Gertrudis is 1,800km away from Oscar, speaking to me from the stifling heat of Zulia state, in western Venezuela.

Mother and son are separated by six borders and the impenetrable walls of the Cecot, El Salvador’s notorious “Terrorism Confinement Centre” – a maximum-security prison built to house violent members of the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.

The US government accuses the Venezuelans detained at the Cecot of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

The Trump Administration removed them from US soil under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, without due legal process, putting the US Justice Department in conflict with a federal judge who had ordered the planes carrying the migrants to turn around.

Gertrudis knew her son had been picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents but understood he was in Texas and most likely on his way to Venezuela.

She only found out he had been taken to the Salvadoran prison when her other son, who lives in Colombia, saw his name on a list shown on television.

Soon after, images of the 238 Venezuelans having their heads shaved were broadcast as they were being processed upon their arrival at the maximum-security Cecot.

Gertrudis could make out her son from a tattoo of a rose he has on his forearm.

“There are so many innocent boys in there,” alleges Gertrudis.

“They didn’t do anything wrong but they’re treating them like animals. Where are their human rights?” she implores.

The White House insists those deported to the Cecot were properly vetted. Trump Administration officials say they are all dangerous gang members – even though they have acknowledged in court documents that many do not have US criminal records.

While the Cecot is heralded as the solution to the region’s gang problem by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, and his supporters, it has long been described by activists as “a black hole of human rights”.

Gertrudis is finding it is also a black hole of information.

She has had no word as to her son’s wellbeing. The last time she saw him, he was shaven-headed, shackled and dressed in a white prison T-shirt and shorts.

She does not know if he is being kept in the same conditions as the Salvadoran prisoners who receive “not one ray of sunlight” as President Bukele put it when he first unveiled the controversial facility with its windowless cells and corridors.

Criticism of the deportation of the Venezuelans to the supermax prison has been growing not just in the US and in their homeland but also in El Salvador.

Salvadoran immigration expert Napoleon Campos thinks the move is unconstitutional and that the constitutional chamber of El Salvador’s Supreme Court “should act”.

“It should declare that bringing these people to El Salvador without them having committed any crime in this country exceeds our constitutional limits.”

He says that “anecdotal evidence” is stacking up that a significant portion of the 238 had no criminal records “not in Venezuela nor in the United States and much less in El Salvador”.

Mr Campos believes the idea of a black hole of rights in El Salvador applies beyond the confines of the Cecot – to the nation as a whole.

“El Salvador today is a deep black hole of illegalities, of violations of the fundamental freedoms and liberties enshrined under our constitution and under the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights,” Mr Campos insists. “There’s no other way to put it.”

The job of negotiating the country’s legal system in the name of the incarcerated Venezuelans has fallen to Jaime Ortega, who says he has been hired by the Venezuelan vice-president to secure their release.

“This case is very sad, and unheard of in our country,” he explains.

“We’ve only seen this in times of slavery, when people were moved between place and place for money. It’s unprecedented.”

He remains confident he can secure the Venezuelans’ release given the lack of clarity over the terms under which they were brought to the Central American nation: “There appears to be some form of agreement between El Salvador and the United States, the documents of which we can’t find, and we don’t have.”

He lays out how if El Salvador had been declared a “safe third country” for immigration purposes, he and others challenging the deportation could work under that clear legal definition. However, that is not the case.

He believes that, at the very least, the men should be placed in some kind of immigration centre ahead of an eventual return to Venezuela rather than in a supermax facility designed for hardened Salvadoran gang members.

President Nayib Bukele meanwhile has roundly rejected all criticism of both the Cecot and his wider crackdown on gangs in El Salvador.

He instead points to the changes his measures have ushered in to Salvadoran society.

It was three years ago this week that he declared a “state of exception” in the country, under which certain constitutional norms and rights have been suspended.

The measure, originally imposed for a month, has now been extended 35 times by a loyalist congress and there is no sign of an end in sight.

The crackdown continues to enjoy overwhelming support among Salvadorans, who re-elected the hugely popular president by a landslide last year.

In part, the reason can be found in neighbourhoods of San Salvador like 10 de Octubre.

Formerly controlled by the MS-13 gang, it was a stronghold of one of El Salvador’s most powerful criminals – Elmer Canales Rivera, aka “Crook”, who is now in prison in the US.

Simply entering the winding collection of backstreets at the base of a jungled hillside was impossible without the gang’s prior approval.

Even with their go-ahead, it would be an unwise move. Extortion, violence and intimidation were rife in this community, whose members were in constant fear for their children, their lives and their livelihoods.

The contrast with the quiet calm of a now-ordinary neighbourhood could not be starker.

Many walls and even trees have been painted bright pink and green, covering the MS-13’s menacing graffiti, and three soldiers stand in the shade holding automatic weapons, a sign of Bukele’s security strategy in action.

“We opened this store after [the state of exception came into force],” explains Roxana, who runs a small shop selling sodas, food and cheap clothes out of her front room.

“Things have changed a lot. We feel calmer having a business and we can stay open late.” The constant demands by gang members for extortion payments have dried up too, she says.

Yet there remains a pervasive culture of silence in former gang neighbourhoods.

Few residents were prepared to give anything more than monosyllabic answers about life under the gangs, and Roxana did not want to give her last name or have her photo taken.

“A lot of innocent people were rounded up too,” she says of President Bukele’s crackdown. “We know of quite a few cases from around here. There are still people in prison who we know shouldn’t be there. It’s unjust.”

At Cecot, thousands of prisoners have been held for years, many without trial. For Oscar, it has only been 13 days, yet for his mother, Gertrudis, it may as well have been a decade.

She is looking after his eight-year-old son in Venezuela as his father languishes in El Salvador.

She says she identifies with the mothers of Salvadorans who are locked up in the Cecot even though they have any discernible gang links, a situation she was unaware of before her own son was detained there with no apparent prior links to the Tren de Aragua gang he is accused of working for.

“My son is Venezuelan, not Salvadoran. So, what that president has done is kidnap our children,” says Gertrudis between heaving sobs.

“If they have carried out any crimes, then they should answer for them here in Venezuela.

“They must send them home.”

A high-powered delegation of US officials will spend Friday at a remote military base on Greenland in what is being viewed as the latest manifestation of American designs on the sparsely populated semi-autonomous Danish territory.

The US group includes Vice-President JD Vance and his wife Usha, White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah.

The trip marks the latest twist in what has become a tangled diplomatic journey that began with what was originally billed as a private tour by the US second lady.

Usha Vance was only supposed to travel to Greenland with her son to attend cultural events, like a dog-sledding race, and to spend some time visiting the capital of Nuuk.

The planned visit raised eyebrows, however, in light of President Donald Trump’s repeated comments that he would like to annex mineral-rich Greenland, which he says is critical for US security.

When it was then announced that Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor, would join the delegation visiting the island, the people of Greenland and Denmark appeared to grow uncomfortable. The American visits began to look less like a cultural interaction and more like an effort to meddle in the island’s internal politics by rallying support for closer ties to the US among the local population – at the expense of Danish sovereignty.

Greenland’s Acting Prime Minister Mute B Egede said it was a “provocation” and “demonstration of power”, and asked the international community to step up.

“Just for the record, the government of Greenland has not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official,” Egede said.

Ordinary Greenlanders also made their displeasure known, promising that the American delegation would not receive a warm welcome.

In Sisimiut, where the annual dog race is held, the mayor declined to set up a meeting with the second lady, citing next week’s municipal elections as a reason. A silent protest had been planned too, which would have seen locals turn their back on the American visitors – a potentially publicly awkward situation and poor optics for Mrs Vance.

“The US administration could see they were heading for PR catastrophe,” political analyst Noa Redington said.

“They were heading for a charm offensive without charm,” he said. “With people absolutely not happy to see Usha Vance or any other American politicians.”

A mere two days after Usha Vance’s trip was announced, the cultural itinerary was dropped, replaced by a single visit to a remote US military installation – Pituffik Space Base. And now, Vice-President Vance would be joining his wife.

Waltz was no longer listed on the itinerary, though he was added again later.

“Leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long,” JD Vance said, announcing his visit. “That’s been bad for Greenland. It’s also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction.”

Despite his comments, political leaders in Denmark cautiously welcomed the change of plan, and especially the limiting of the itinerary to just the US base.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said that while the vice-president’s presence may increase the formality of the visit, it was actually “masterful spin” which made the US “look like they’re escalating when they’re actually deescalating.”

“I actually think it is very positive that the Americans are cancelling their visit to the Greenlandic community. Then they will instead make a visit to their own base, Pituffik, and we have nothing against that,” he said.

Vance is the highest-ranking US official to ever visit Greenland and while the limited scope of the trip has pleased Denmark, the fact that he is going at all underscores the high level of interest the Trump administration has in the island.

The US president himself has continued to reiterate his desire to acquire Greenland for national security reasons, saying on Wednesday that the US will “go as far as we have to go” to accomplish that goal.

According to Michael Williams, a professor of international politics at Ottawa University, Trump’s focus on Greenland appears to reflect a larger international strategy that involves exerting US influence over key territories within its sphere of geographic influence.

Canada and Greenland, both early targets of interest for the administration, occupy key Arctic waterways that are being contested by other global powers, like Russia and China.

Recent US moves could be viewed as an attempt to gain the upper hand in these strategic North Americans regions.

“You want to amp up the American presence in the north and its control over those northern reaches,” Williams said.

“If you can do that, then you can actually potentially control those northern waters in a much, much more direct way than has ever been necessary before.”

Attempts by superpowers to exert influence on less powerful nations echo the Cold War, when the US and Soviet Union faced off in global ideological competition.

But the focus of these efforts were typically non-aligned nations, not America’s closest allies and neighbours.

While the Vances’ trip to Greenland may be scaled back, America’s larger designs on the island do not appear to have diminished. Any sigh of relief in Copenhagen may be short-lived.

Vance’s visit to the Pituffik Space Base suggests a narrower focus on American security and military matters. The shortest route for Russian nuclear missiles to reach the US runs through Greenland, and Pituffik plays a crucial role in US missile defence.

“I’m sure he’ll say the security of Greenland is not safe in the hands of Denmark,” Redington said, adding this would “put even more pressure on the Danish government”.

“This is absolutely not the end of anything. It’s the beginning of something even more complicated than before.”

The healthcare watchdog has apologised over delays to the publication of its report into maternity services in Nottingham, which is subject of the largest inquiry of its kind in the NHS.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections – in June and July – found seven breaches of regulation in safe care and treatment at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust’s two main hospitals.

Overall, maternity services have been rated as requires improvement for being safe and well-led.

Following criticism from Donna Ockenden, who is leading the review into maternity deaths and injuries at the trust, the CQC has admitted the report was not published “as soon after the inspection as it should have done”.

The CQC ask five key questions – are services safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs, and are they well-led?

Following an inspection carried out on 18 June, 19 June and 3 July, the CQC’s rating for maternity services at both hospitals – the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) and City Hospital – being effective improved from requires improvement to good.

Caring was re-rated as good, while a responsive rating was not included in the inspection and remains good.

Following publication of its report, the CQC apologised for the delays, which senior midwife Ms Ockenden labelled “unacceptable” last month.

“Due to a large-scale transformation programme at CQC, this report [was] not published as soon after the inspection as it should have done,” a CQC spokesperson said.

“The programme involved changes to the technology CQC uses but resulted in problems with the systems and processes rather than the intended benefits. The amount of time taken to publish this report falls far short of what people using services and the trust should be able to expect and the CQC apologises for this.”

The CQC said last year’s inspection of the trust was prompted by concern from staff.

The watchdog said the regulation breaches at the City Hospital related to infection control procedures, equipment safety, medicines and expressed milk storage.

Breaches at the QMC concerned infection control procedures, equipment safety, and medicines management and storage.

Inspectors noted learning opportunities were not always shared consistently with staff to promote good practice, and that low numbers of sufficiently qualified staff meant suitable resources were not always possible.

Other issues were that people were not always confident about raising concerns, medicine storage was put at risk by inconsistent temperature regulation, and checks on emergency equipment were not always completed.

An action plan focusing on these concerns has already been submitted by the trust, inspectors said.

However, the CQC also found most people felt the environment was safe and could mostly access care when they needed it.

Helen Rawlings, interim director of network operations in the Midlands at the CQC, said: “It’s clear that staff and leaders had worked hard to make some improvements, and since the inspection last year, leaders have assured us that further improvements have been made.

“We’ll continue to monitor the trust to ensure that more changes are made and embedded so women, people using the service and their babies receive the safe care they have a right to expect.”

Anthony May, chief executive at the trust, added: “I recognise that these inspections took place after colleagues in maternity services contacted the CQC directly. I want to thank them for their courage in speaking up.

“Importantly, the CQC found that women and families are treated with kindness and compassion, and that our environments are predominantly safe and deliver good outcomes.

“All breaches of regulation raised during the inspection have been addressed and we have provided the CQC with an action plan to assure them of compliance.

“We know that more must be done to improve the quality of care that women and families receive, but our communities can be assured that we are moving in the right direction.”

By the end of May this year, it is expected the maternity review of the trust will be examining 2,500 cases in which mothers or babies have died or been injured – the bulk of them between 2012 and the present day.

The increased caseload now means the inquiry is working to a new timeline. Instead of the final report being published in September 2025, it is now due to be delivered in June 2026.

Last month, the trust was handed the largest ever fine for failings in maternity care, connected to the deaths of three babies – all within 14 weeks of each other – in 2021.

By Rob Sissons, BBC East Midlands health correspondent

There is a question as to how valuable this latest snapshot into Nottingham’s pressured maternity units really is.

It is a snapshot but a somewhat historic one.

The CQC has apologised for the delay, blaming new computer systems.

It nevertheless offers an evidenced snapshot from outside the hospital trust. The latest report acknowledges some progress but demonstrates a service still short of where it needs to be.

It underlines what Donna Ockenden has always stressed – that turning around the troubled service was “always going to be a marathon – not a sprint”. That will not come as a surprise to campaigning harmed families, who continue to push for more accountability.

Sarah Everard’s parents are campaigning for tougher sentencing for serious violent and sexual criminals as part of a new campaign group being launched in Parliament.

Ms Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens as she walked home in London in 2021 – he was later sentenced to a whole life order.

Jeremy and Susan Everard said it was “important that sentences truly reflect the seriousness of the crime”.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said it has launched a review into sentencing to help ensure sentences are punishing offenders and protecting the public.

Mr and Mrs Everard said “although nothing can alleviate the sense of loss, it is a relief to us that our daughter’s murderer received a whole life order”.

They added: “It made us feel that the enormity of his crime was recognised and that our daughter’s life was valued.

“We know of other families in similar circumstances who have not had this small comfort.”

Another member of Justice for Victims is Paula Hudgell, the adoptive mother of double amputee Tony Hudgell, who lost his legs from injuries caused by his birth parents.

Tony was just 41 days old when he was assaulted in Whitstable, Kent, an attack which caused multiple fractures and dislocations, and blunt trauma to the face, leading to organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis.

He was left untreated and in agony for 10 days and because of the extent of his injuries both his legs had to be amputated.

Jody Simpson and her partner Anthony Smith were jailed for 10 years in 2018.

Ms Hudgell said: “When criminals abuse children they are creating a devastating impact for the rest of that child’s life.

“Many decades can be spent wrestling with the aftermath. Yet perpetrators can be out of prison living a free life whilst the suffering for the victim goes on for decades.

“We need a justice system that reflects that properly. I have seen so many cases of child abusers that don’t get a punishment that fits the crime. Let alone child murderers – they shouldn’t get out of prison in my view.”

The group includes the parents of four-year-old Violet-Grace Youens, who was killed by a motorist driving at more than 80mph in a 30mph zone in 2017, in St Helens, Merseyside.

And Ayse Hussein, whose cousin Mihrican Mustafa – known as Jan – was murdered by a convicted paedophile in 2018, has also joined.

Ms Mustafa’s body was found in a freezer in the killer’s flat in Canning Town, east London, a year after she went missing.

Katie Brett, whose 16-year-old sister Sasha Marsden, from Blackpool, was stabbed to death in 2013, said: “You hear about people getting a life sentence.

“The people who really get the life sentence are families like mine. In the end most murderers end up getting out of prison – sometimes as after as little 15 or 20 years.

“My sister had decades of life ahead of her.”

She added: “Surely if you take a life the starting point should be spending the rest of your life in prison? That’s what we wanted as a family and what would have been respectful of my sister’s memory.

“I think that’s what most families would want and I think most people would support that.”

An MoJ spokesperson said “delivering for victims must always be a priority” for the criminal justice system.

They added that the Lord Chancellor has also asked the Law Commission to consider whether homicide law and sentencing guidelines are working effectively.

The group was formed amid ongoing public concern about serious criminals escaping proper punishment, Justice for Victims said.

They will meet with cross party MPs and the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch on Wednesday.

Thousands of people in Turkey have turned out for a seventh night of protests which have so far seen more than 1,400 people detained, including students, journalists and lawyers.

The nightly unrest began last Wednesday when the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu – who is seen as the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival – was arrested on corruption charges.

Rights groups and the UN have condemned the arrests and the use of force by police on the protesters.

Imamoglu said the allegations against him were politically motivated, a claim the Turkish president has denied.

Speaking to a group of young people at a Ramadan fast-breaking meal in Ankara on Tuesday, President Erdogan urged patience and common sense amid what he described as “very sensitive days.”

He added that people who want “to turn this country into a place of chaos have nowhere to go”, and the path protesters have taken is “a dead end”.

On Tuesday evening, thousands of students from many universities in Istanbul met in Maçka Park and then marched towards Şişli.

Authorities in Istanbul banned protests and closed some roads “in order to maintain public order” and “prevent any provocative actions that may occur”.

As students marched through the Nisantasi district they chanted “government, resign!” and waved flags and banners as they were watched by a large deployment of riot police.

Many students had their faces covered with scarves or masks, and acknowledged they feared being identified by the police.

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said that Tuesday’s rally outside Istanbul’s City Hall would be its last in a run of nightly gatherings – and that it is planning a rally in the city on Saturday.

“Are you ready for a big rally in a large square in Istanbul on Saturday?” Ozgur Ozel told crowds.

“To support Imamoglu, to object to his arrest, to object to the detention of each of our mayors. To demand transparent, open, live broadcast trials, to say that we have had enough and we want early elections.”

Since last Wednesday, Turkey’s interior minister said 1,418 protesters have been detained following the days of demonstrations that the government has deemed “illegal.”

Posting on social media Ali Yerlikaya wrote: “While there are currently 979 suspects in custody, 478 people will be brought to court today.

“No concessions will be made to those who attempt to terrorise the streets, to attack our national and moral values, and to our police officers.”

Elsewhere on Tuesday, seven journalists appeared in court including AFP news agency photographer Yasin Akgül who had been covering the demonstrations.

AFP chairman Fabrice Fries has written a letter addressed to the Turkish presidency urging Erdogan to “intervene” in Akgul’s imprisonment which he described as “unacceptable”.

“Yasin Akgül was not part of the protest,” Fries said. “As a journalist, he was covering one of the many demonstrations that have been organized in the country since Wednesday 19 March.

“He has taken exactly 187 photographs since the start of the protests, each one a witness to his work as a journalist.”

In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced “concerns” following a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the US State Department said in a statement.

Imamoglu was one of more than 100 people detained last week as part of an investigation. Others arrested included politicians, journalists and businessmen.

His arrest does not prevent his candidacy or election as president, but he will not be able to run if he is convicted of any of the charges against him.

The opposition mayor is seen as one of the most formidable rivals of Erdogan, who has held office in Turkey for 22 years as both prime minister and president.

Erdogan’s term in office is due to expire in 2028, and under the current rules, he cannot stand again – but he could call an early election or try to change the constitution to allow him to remain in power for longer.

Turkey’s Ministry of Justice has criticised those connecting Erdogan to the arrests, and insisted on its judicial independence.

Two childhood sweethearts have been reunited after more than 85 years thanks to an old school photograph.

Jim Dougal and Betty Davidson (nee Dougal) used to walk to school together hand in hand in Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders in the 1930s.

They lost touch after Jim’s family moved away in about 1939, but his son Alistair’s efforts to trace all the members of a class photo from 1936 brought them back together.

The old friends met again recently in North Yorkshire and Alistair said: “To describe it as a magical moment would be a gross understatement.”

Jim is 96 years old and now lives in Rayne in Essex – but he was born in Eyemouth in 1928.

His son was researching the family ancestry when he was made aware of a class photo at Eyemouth Primary taken in 1936, when his father was probably eight years old.

In total there are 32 children in the photo – including Betty.

Jim left the town a few years later and never returned after getting conscripted and meeting his wife, Iris Gibbs, while in an army camp in Essex.

Meanwhile, Betty remained in Eyemouth until about 1950 when she met her husband Alfred “Ivor” Davidson and then moved, first, to Tweedmouth and then to North Yorkshire, where she still lives near Northallerton.

Alistair said he became fascinated by the school photograph after a visit to Eyemouth last year and set out – with the help of his father’s “astonishing long-term memory” – to find out what had happened to the other children in the image.

He found they had gone all across the globe – including Australia, Canada and New Zealand – but most of them had died.

The first living person he traced in the picture was Margaret MacCauley (nee Duggie), who still lives in the Eyemouth area.

The second was Betty, who is also 96.

“I couldn’t be quite sure although I was almost certain I had traced her to North Yorkshire up to a few years ago,” said Alistair.

“In a final slightly desperate push, I posted a copy of the photo on the Eyemouth Past Facebook group and asked if anyone could help.

“Within an hour, Betty’s niece Maureen Stevenson posted and said, ‘That’s my aunt Betty and, yes, she is alive and well, and in North Yorkshire’.”

“I wrote to Betty and, as soon as she received the letter, she rang me,” said Alistair, who lives about 70 miles from his father in Mendham in Suffolk.

“Not only that, then she sent me a photo she had, after all those years, of her and my father together, along with her sister Wilhelmina (Elma), taken in about 1936 too.

“They each have an arm around the others shoulder. My father was completely overwhelmed.”

The story ended with the reunion nearly 90 years after that photo was taken.

“Before we left her, they re-posed that photo she had retained all that time and they looked as happy and comfortable together as they did way back when,” said Alistair.

“What a thing to see.

“Ultimately, of the 32, just three remain; Margaret, my father and Betty.

“That Betty should be one of those feels – as my father has said – like destiny.”

Betty remembered growing up across the road from Jim.

“I used to knock on the door for him in the morning or he knocked on mine and we used to walk up to school together,” she said.

She also recalled getting the picture taken together in her back garden with her sister Elma.

Their reunion was prompted by the photo of their class appearing in the local paper, the Berwickshire News.

“Jim and I were both on that school photograph and I think the others had all died,” said Betty.

“I was the only one that was left and he was anxious to get in touch with me. I was quite surprised actually.”

She said it had been lovely to see him again.

“I spoke to him a couple of times on the phone and then he said they would like to come and see me, which they did – with his son,” she said.

“It was nice to get in touch after all these years with my childhood sweetheart.

“I think he was quite shy, Jim, but we were good pals.”

Jim described the reunion, thanks to his son’s research, as “fantastic” and he remembered Betty well.

“We lived on opposite sides of the road in Eyemouth,” he explained.

“Right opposite there was a baker’s shop and Betty lived behind it.

“We used to go to school together, we used to play together – everything.

“It is something that she is the last one standing and so am I.

“It is just incredible really.”

He had no regrets about travelling north to meet up with her once again.

“It was terrific, it really was,” Jim said.

“It was a tiring couple of days but it was well worth it.

“She was fantastic – she has still got that glint in her eye and a touch of the fair hair that I remember her by.”

An NHS trust criticised over the avoidable death of a newborn baby was paid £2m for providing good maternity care, the BBC can reveal.

A senior coroner ruled on Friday that University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay (UHMB) NHS trust contributed to Ida Lock’s death and had failed to learn lessons from previous maternity failures.

Despite this, the trust claimed it had met all 10 standards under an NHS scheme aimed at promoting safe treatment.

Ida’s mother Sarah Robinson said the behaviour of the trust – which has declined to comment – was “another kick in the teeth” while her father Ryan Lock labelled it “disgusting”.

Senior coroner for Lancashire James Adeley concluded that Ida had died due to the gross failure of three midwives to provide basic medical care.

Ida, who was born at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI) on 9 November 2019, died a week later after suffering a serious brain injury due to a lack of oxygen.

Dr Adeley ruled her death had been caused by the midwives’ failure to deliver the infant “urgently when it was apparent she was in distress” and contributed to by the lead midwife’s “wholly incompetent failure to provide basic neonatal resuscitation”.

He said eight opportunities had been missed “to alter Ida’s clinical course”.

Her five-week inquest at Preston County Hall heard that many of the issues identified in a 2015 independent review of UHMB’s maternity services were still evident in November 2019.

The RLI is run by the UHMB trust.

Under the Maternity Incentive Scheme run by NHS Resolution, the health service’s insurance arm, maternity departments in England are encouraged to provide good care by meeting 10 safety standards, including properly investigating deaths and listening to parents’ concerns.

Trusts which certify they have met these standards receive a rebate on their insurance premiums, in addition to a share of money paid by NHS trusts which do not.

In the five years that the scheme has been running, UHMB said it had met the 10 standards four times.

In 2018, the first year of the programme, the trust’s self-certification led to it being paid £1,288,241.

In 2019, the year of Ida’s death, it received £734,112 after again claiming to have hit all of the criteria.

The UHMB trust also claimed a perfect 10-out-of-10 record in 2020 but their submission was reviewed by NHS Resolution following a critical inspection of maternity services by the Care Quality Commission.

The regulator’s report rated maternity services as “inadequate”, with UHMB’s score downgraded to three out of 10.

Consequently, UHMB was not given any money that year by NHS Resolution, and the trust was made to repay most of the amount it had received in 2019.

When told about the payments scheme and how the trust had benefitted from it, Mr Lock said it was “disgusting”.

He said: “It’s painting a false picture so they can receive money.”

A former maternity risk manager at the trust, Rox-Anne Hetherington, said Morecambe Bay’s actions were in keeping with her experience.

“I can, hand-on-heart, say that it wasn’t a case of ‘What have we done to [make things better]?’

“It was a case of ‘What are we going to say we’ve done?'”

Dr Bill Kirkup, whose 2015 inquiry exposed widespread failings in maternity care, including the preventable deaths of 11 babies and a mother at the trust’s Furness General Hospital in Cumbria, also said he wasn’t surprised.

“Some trusts put a lot of effort into how they can present the best picture of themselves, and much less effort into whether they’re actually making improvements underneath,” he said.

UHMB’s claims are in line with other struggling trusts which have also made similar erroneous submissions under the Maternity Incentive Scheme.

The Shrewsbury and Telford NHS trust was forced to repay almost £1m after it similarly claimed to have met all of the safety standards.

A review of its maternity care, published in 2022, found more than 200 babies and mothers could have survived with proper care.

The East Kent University Hospitals trust, where an inquiry found at least 45 babies could have survived, was also forced to repay £2m after falsely claiming it had met the safety criteria.

In a statement, NHS Resolution said “University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS trust initially self-reported full compliance with the Maternity Incentive Scheme in years 1, 2, 3 and 5.

“However subsequent NHS Resolution reviews of the Trust’s evidence for years 2 and 3 following the publication of their CQC report demonstrated that they were not fully compliant for those years.

“The Trust was required to repay any funds for those years. The previously granted rebate was returned to NHS Resolution and was redistributed to all compliant Trusts.”

The UHMB, which has previously apologised for its failings in Ida Lock’s death, declined to comment about its participation in the Maternity Incentive Scheme.

On Wednesday the chancellor will give an update on her plans for the economy.

The government has promised to boost growth, which should mean higher pay and more jobs, but so far the economy has been sluggish.

Rachel Reeves will share the latest official forecasts and explain how she intends to tackle the big challenges facing her when she delivers her Spring Statement.

Those challenges are also being felt on the ground, in people’s everyday lives.

People have contacted the BBC through our Your Voice, Your BBC News to tell us how they are feeling about the months ahead and what plans they have to tackle the hurdles they face.

Radhika Gupta thinks whatever Rachel Reeves does on Wednesday she shouldn’t cut spending on health or education.

The student from Derry in Northern Ireland is in the third year of a five-year medical degree at Queen’s University in Belfast.

“One thing that worries me is how many doctors want to leave,” she says.

“The consensus is it is not worth practising medicine in the UK because of how little you are paid. And you are left with a lot of student debt.

“I don’t think the government really understands the challenges.”

Despite what she sees as underfunded services and staff burnout she wants to work in England after she graduates.

But more needs to be done to fund and improve medical training, she says.

The other thing she would like to see more money spent on is transport, which is one of her biggest expenses at around £75 a month, partly because unreliable public transport sometimes means she takes a cab to the hospital.

Her parents and maintenance loan give her about £800 a month, which she supplements with tutoring and casual work in hospitality. Her rent is £600. There are extra costs like her scrubs – she needs several sets – at £35 a set.

“Things are quite tight,” she says.

“I’m working paycheque to paycheque,” says Dylan Caulkin. “If I have a tyre that pops, I rely on credit.”

The teaching assistant, who lives with his parents near Truro, Cornwall, is about to start a new job as a support worker for people with learning difficulties.

At £12.24 an hour, his pay will be only just above the level the minimum wage is rising to in April. But it is more than he is getting in his current role.

“I’m very excited,” he says. The opportunity for doing overtime, too, means the change will have a “massive impact” on his finances.

He pays his parents £160 a month rent and contributes to food costs, which are higher for him as he is on a gluten-free diet. His car – a necessity, he says – costs about £500 a month to run. And he has a small amount of credit card debt he is currently trying to clear.

He sometimes has £100 left over at the end of the month for spending on himself.

“I’m very lucky to have family around me,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to survive without them.”

He would like to see the government provide more help for young people like him.

“In the near-future I’m looking to move in with my partner but it is just so expensive.”

What happens next with interest rates is what matters most to Ellie Richardson and Billy Taylor.

They found their dream home for £350,000 last year, but the sale has been delayed and now won’t be completed before stamp duty rises at the end of this month, costing them an extra £2,500.

“You have to roll with the punches,” says Ellie, who works in sports PR. But they hope mortgage rates aren’t also about to go up.

She and Billy, a builder, have been shuttling between his parents’ and her parents’ houses in Essex for the past three years.

“We’ve worked really hard to save as much as we can for this house,” she says. “We’re pretty set on it.”

They have a joint income of around £80,000 and they have a mortgage offer that would see them pay around £1,200 a month.

But if the house purchase is delayed too long, they may end up having to apply for a new mortgage.

“The silver lining is, if we do complete later in the year, then hopefully mortgage rates could be lower,” she says.

The student from Worcester has a combination of health conditions including PoTS, which causes her heart rate to increase very quickly when she stands up and can lead to loss of balance and consciousness.

“I faint multiple times a day, I’m in immense pain constantly. I dislocate my fingers, elbows, shoulders and knees a lot.

“Most students work part-time,” she says. “I’ve been deemed unfit to work.”

Elspeth receives a total of about £1,200 a month through a student maintenance loan and incapacity and disability benefits.

She is dropping out of her current course – nursing – because she can’t manage the hospital shifts. She wants to start a new course, in astrophysics, in the autumn.

But she says her parents can’t support her financially, so if her benefits are cut, she will have to abandon that ambition.

“I’ve got more outgoings than the average student,” she says.

Currently, she has nothing left at the end of the month, after spending around £800 on rent and another good chunk on her cardiac support dog, Podge.

His food costs £90 a month, there are vet’s bills, and recently he needed a new harness that helps him to communicate to her, including when she is about to faint. It cost £1,200.

“Currently all my money goes on him,” she says.

Businessman Lincoln Smith reckons consumer confidence is the lowest it has been for 15 years.

He owns and runs Custom Heat, a plumbing firm based in Rugby. The rising cost of living has meant his customers have cut back on annual boiler services and other things. On top of that, taxes for businesses go up in April.

“That makes you shrink your ambitions, makes you think, ‘Let’s not replace people who are leaving.'”

The company is not taking on apprentices this year, and has even got rid of the office cleaner.

Lincoln himself is taking a 20% pay cut to help balance the books for the forthcoming financial year.

He’ll be earning £125,000, while his wife, who also works for the business, earns £45,000.

“It sounds like a lot,” he admits, but the cut will still mean lifestyle changes. “When you are earning any salary, you set your outgoings based on it.”

With a mortgage of £3,000 a month they are already at “breakeven point”, he says.

“We haven’t booked a holiday this year. We are definitely not going away,” he says.

But if that is not enough he will look at moving house to reduce the mortgage.

It’s a bit upsetting, he says, because it’s the only house his sons, aged seven and four, have known.

“I know it’s ‘first world problems’,” he says. “You’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything good on the horizon,” says Malcolm Hindley, a retired window cleaner from Liverpool.

A widower, he lives with his daughter, who “does everything round the house” and cares for him and her disabled daughter.

He owns his own house, but finds it hard to get by on his £200-a-week state pension, plus attendance allowance of around £80 a week.

He needs a car to get to the shops and medical appointments, and has just been in a car accident that has left him with a neck brace, on top of existing mobility issues.

He will be listening out on Wednesday for further details around cuts to benefits for the long-term sick and disabled.

Losing the winter fuel payment was hard, he says, because he feels the cold more as he gets older. Now he is worried what else might go.

“The way this government’s working, it just seems to be hitting the poorer more. What else are they going to take off us?”

He doesn’t have much left at the end of the month, but what he does have goes on ice creams and sweets for the grandchildren.

“When you see their faces it’s brilliant,” he says.

Additional reporting by Kris Bramwell & Emma Pengelly.

“Definitely not a Budget” is the basic message emerging from the Treasury about the chancellor’s upcoming economic statement.

There will not just be no red box outside Number 11, there will only be a “thin book” of new policies with a “light scorecard” of measures with no further tax rises.

So what is the point of this Spring Statement?

It is principally a spring forecast from the government’s official forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). In that process it has had to take into account a slower economy than expected, and higher government borrowing costs.

This OBR forecast has wiped out the room for manoeuvre against the “non-negotiable” rules Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set on government borrowing in the future. She has made a number of further adjustments to keep the numbers on track.

Essentially low growth and higher borrowing costs have blown the budgetary numbers off course.

We will hear a lot from the chancellor about how “the world has changed”.

The reality is this course correction is likely to have been required even before US President Donald Trump transformed global diplomacy and trade.

When Reeves begins her statement at the despatch box, we will find out whether the chancellor can continue to rule out having to resort to tax rises, even in this “changed world”.

And if there is no return to spending austerity, then where does the money come from?

While no significant tax measures are expected, the chancellor may nonetheless leave the option on the table for the autumn Budget.

Some economists do expect tax rises in the autumn, in particular to meet rising defence spending. There is talk of a “conversation with the public” on this matter.

At her first Budget the chancellor rejected, for example, extending the Conservative freeze to income tax thresholds by another two years. The public could get a clear idea around this Spring Statement if that is back as an option.

The £5bn cut to welfare spending already announced is the biggest single welfare cut for a decade. That is likely to be the biggest saving. The chancellor is now set to expand the cuts after being told reforms to the system would save less than planned.

Later on Wednesday, the number of people losing Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and Universal Credit, how much on average, and the split between current or future recipients should be revealed. Hundreds of thousands will lose thousands of pounds worth of health-related benefits.

There is a £2.2bn cut to civil service admin costs, including staffing by 2029-30. A 15% cut is a significant chunk of what is spent by central government on wages and consultants.

However, the chancellor suggested a loss of 10,000 roles, which is only a pruning of a workforce of over half a million – especially as it sees 30-40,000 leavers every year.

The unions say this cannot be done without harming front line services. There is a lot riding here on deployment of automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

A further fractional trim to the rise in departmental budgets, a crackdown on tax avoidance, and the switch from aid to defence spending should all help restore the chancellor’s room for manoeuvre by another few billion pounds.

It will be difficult to characterise this as “austerity” given the early injection of significant upfront sums into public spending at the Budget.

Divvying up the increase in defence spending will be a key feature of the Spring Statement.

Defence spending (for example, on jets and tanks) is more capital intensive than aid spending, so more of it is exempted from the chancellor’s self-imposed borrowing rules to limit day-to-day spending only to what is raised in taxes.

Understandably there will be a lot of focus on a chunky downgrade to the OBR forecast for the economy in 2025.

The real question for the chancellor has been the extent to which that has carried through to the end of the forecast period, and so permanently dented the economy and tax revenues. It may have not, and therefore not impact the Budget numbers quite so much.

The Treasury has also been trying to get the OBR to give it credit for growth-enhancing reforms such as planning changes.

In theory, higher growth means lower forecast borrowing and more room for manoeuvre – a win-win. But the OBR may have become stricter on this after a recent external review of its methods.

There is a bigger picture here about growth and the government’s strategy. Investors and business are still awaiting the infrastructure, industrial and trade strategies of this government eight months since it took power.

The new global reality means further uncertainty, but also creates a potential significant upside for a stable, rules-based advanced economy with cutting-edge frontier science, research and financial services.

This is particularly the case for a nation that can simultaneously keep its trade and investment connections with the US, Europe, China and the Gulf, even amid the tariff tumult. In Cabinet they call it “the most connected economy in the world”.

Is the world hearing this? UK Government borrowing costs have risen again as markets await the new calendar of bond sales on Wednesday.

UK bond yields went up with the US in January, but when that stopped they also rose in line with Europe after massive debt-fuelled rearmament plans. It’s the worst of both worlds for the borrowing forecast.

The Spring Statement might be an opportunity to project the opposite case – that the UK is uniquely placed to be the best of both worlds. Some sort of economic deal with the US is imminent, and talks over the Brexit reset are also progressing.

There are some small signs of the economy breaking out of its recent rut, especially in the service sector. Small businesses in retail and hospitality fearing the rises to National Insurance and the National Living Wage are holding out for some sort of alleviation of the pain.

So Wednesday, while definitely not a Budget, will answer some important questions about the economy.