A 16-year-old boy was shot by a man dressed as a food delivery driver on a moped, an eyewitness to the killing has told the BBC.

They said two boys came down the stairs at a block of flats when the man on the moped took out a gun and shot the boy dead. The other boy ran away, and the moped driver sped off, they added.

Police continue to look for those involved in the fatal shooting of the teenager in Stockwell on Tuesday afternoon.

The Metropolitan Police said the teenager died after being shot in an “enormously shocking incident” on Paradise Road at about 14:30 GMT. Police said inquiries were still ongoing.

No arrests have been made.

The eyewitness added the teenager who died was well known in the area and was involved in gangs.

Those living in the area have been shocked by the incident.

Patricia, who has lived in Stockwell for 21 years, said: “The situation is really bad now. I don’t go out anymore. In the night, I don’t feel safe.

“I feel so bad for the boy. It’s too much for me.”

Sandra, who also lives nearby, told BBC London on Wednesday: “It’s very sad; we know the family. The dad is very well known round here, who brought up our kids in youth clubs.

“It is awful, really sad, and really horrible.”

Roisin and Niamh said: “It feels quite unsafe; we are five girls living in a flat, and to have that on your doorstep is scary.”

They added: “We’re very upset for the whole community, and it’s a big shock to the system arriving home from work and having to sign in and out to get into your flat, with police constant over the last 24 hours.”

Florence Eshalomi, Labour (Co-op) MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, told BBC London she wants people to feel safe within their community.

“Stockwell is a vibrant, diverse, close-knit community. We are going to make sure that there is a visible police presence to reassure people,” she said.

The MP added: “We will not tolerate this level of violence in Stockwell, Vauxhall or Camberwell Green, or anywhere across London.

“This is a sad, wasted life; this boy could have had so much potential. His future has been robbed.

“The family and community will continue to grieve; you can never get over this shock.”

Councillor Dr Mahamed Hashi, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Safer Communities, said: “We are shocked at this tragic violence in our borough in which a teenager has so cruelly been taken from us.

“As a council, we are committed to making Lambeth one of the safest boroughs in London and are working incredibly hard to play our role in ensuring the kind of violence that has so sadly claimed this young person’s life ends, and that all our young people have a secure future here.”

The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, said: “This abhorrent violence has absolutely no place in our city.”

Sir Sadiq added: “My thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community in Stockwell.”

On Tuesday, Supt Gabriel Cameron said: “Our thoughts are with the young boy’s family at this devastating time.”

He added: “This is an enormously shocking incident, which I imagine will cause huge distress to the local community.

“Local officers are on the scene gathering CCTV and speaking to witnesses to piece together what has happened.”

A police cordon and road closures remain in place following the third homicide in the capital of someone aged under 25 this year.

Additional reporting by Gem O’Reilly and Barry Caffrey

The chancellor has earmarked several billion pounds in draft spending cuts to welfare and other government departments ahead of the Spring Statement.

The Treasury will put the proposed cuts to the government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), on Wednesday amid expectations the chancellor’s financial buffer has been wiped out.

Sources said “the world has changed” since Rachel Reeves’s Budget last October, when the OBR indicated she had £9.9bn available to spend against her self-imposed borrowing rules.

The OBR’s forecast is likely to see that disappear because of global factors such as trade tariffs, as well as higher inflation and borrowing costs in the UK.

The Treasury will on Wednesday inform the OBR of its “major measures” -essentially changes to tax and spending in order to meet the chancellor’s self-imposed rules on borrowing money.

The government has committed to get debt falling as a share of the economy during the course of this Parliament, and to only borrow to fund investment, not to cover day-to-day spending.

Such rules are put in place by most governments in wealthy nations and are designed to maintain credibility with financial markets. Reeves has repeatedly said her rules are “non-negotiable”.

The spending cuts drafted by the Treasury will help plug the gap that has emerged in recent months, ahead of the OBR publishing its forecast and Reeves giving a statement on 26 March.

Insiders expect “politically painful” new welfare cuts that are designed to reduce the huge growth in health-related benefits, which will be outlined in a forthcoming speech from Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.

The Treasury has blamed global economic policy and geopolitical uncertainty for hiking up government borrowing costs.

Asked on Wednesday if welfare cuts were the right approach, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there had been a “huge rise in the welfare budget” and there were “too many” young people not in work, education or training.

“There’s a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work and there’s a practical point here as well, because our current situation is unsustainable,” he added.

Mahmood declined to comment on whether the justice department would face cuts, saying she was “not going to get ahead” of Treasury announcements.

Reeves has previously pledged “fundamental” reform of the welfare system, with concerns over rising spending on health-related benefits.

Last year, the government spent £65bn on sickness benefits – a 25% increase from the year before the Covid pandemic.

That figure is forecast to increase to around £100bn before the next general election.

Some of that is a legacy of Covid, but ministers have complained about incentives in the system.

People on universal credit must show evidence they have applied for jobs, or face sanctions – but people out of work who also qualify for sickness benefits both get more money and are not necessarily required to seek work.

Ministers believe that this encourages some people to “game the system”.

But Fire Brigades Union general secretary Steve Wright said welfare cuts “would be an outrageous attack on the poorest and most vulnerable”.

The chancellor is set to argue that the government was always going to “fix welfare to get people back to work” and “make the NHS more productive”.

An insider told the BBC: “Headroom or no headroom, the chancellor is determined to push through the change we need to make Britain more secure and prosperous, with the whole government making that argument in the coming weeks.”

This week, US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on its three biggest trading partners: Canada, Mexico and China.

Trump has indicated that the UK could avoid border taxes, but Reeves told the BBC on Tuesday that even if the UK is not hit by tariffs, a global trade war would lower growth and raise inflation.

Meanwhile, uncertainty over the war in Ukraine also remains, with the UK deciding to boost defence spending by cutting international aid.

One government insider told the BBC: “Clearly the world has changed a lot since the autumn Budget. People are watching that change happen before their eyes.

“The Office for Budget Responsibility will reflect that changing world in its forecasts later this month and a changing world will be a core feature of the chancellor’s response later this month.”

It is understood that the euro area economy stagnating and lower UK productivity numbers have affected the OBR’s forecast.

But there have also been concerns raised about the impact of Reeves’s previously announced tax rises on businesses, which are set to take effect in April, on the UK economy.

Some firms have warned the higher tax will likely be passed on through increased prices for customers.

Inflation, which is a measure used to give a general picture of how living costs have changed over a year, is expect to rise in the coming months as households are hit with increases to energy, water and council tax bills, among others.

In the run-up to the Spring Statement, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden and Health Secretary Wes Streeting will also outline a significant efficiency drive within the civil service, which they hope will lead to significant headcount and cost savings.

Hannah Howie was a year away from getting married when a revelation from the past turned her life upside down.

Through research into her ancestry and family tree, her brother-in-law made an alarming discovery.

Luke Emerton found that a number of women on the paternal side had died from breast cancer at a young age – including Hannah’s grandmother.

This led to the 34-year-old having genetic testing and finding out she had a faulty gene, which dramatically increases the risk of certain cancers.

The BRCA genes are present in every person, both men and women, but when a fault occurs in one of them it can result in DNA damage and lead to cells becoming cancerous.

People with a genetic variant have a 50% chance of passing it on to their children.

Luke told BBC Scotland News how he stumbled upon the discovery.

He said: “We were trying to pull together a family tree for Hannah’s dad for his birthday and we found there was a line of female relatives on her dad’s side who had died of breast cancer at a young age.

“We clocked it with her gran, Agnes, who died at 33.

“Then we started noticing a pattern.”

He said the enormity of his discovery had yet to hit home.

Luke said: “Looking back, it’s so strange how all of this has come from that one gift.

“I’m so glad we found out this way and that Hannah knows about it and can act on decreasing the risk.

“The fact she has been able to pre-empt all of this is incredible.”

Prof Zosia Miedzybrodska, of the University of Aberdeen, decsribed BRCA 2 as a “huge gene” and said it could mutate and go wrong “in many ways”.

And she said the percentage difference between male and female cancers was “quite significant”.

“The risk increase for a woman with breast cancer is anywhere up to 85%,” she said.

“For prostate cancer it’s 27% and for male breast cancer it’s 10%.

“The only way you know if you have the faulty BRCA 2 gene is if there is a history of breast, prostate or ovarian cancer in the family.”

Cruise ship entertainer Hannah booked an appointment to discover if she had the gene, which also dramatically increases the risk of ovarian cancer.

She told BBC Scotland News: “I had to find out if I had the faulty BRCA 2 gene.

“Some people don’t want to know but for my sanity, I really had to know.”

A few weeks later, in November 2023, it was confirmed that Hannah had the BRCA 2 gene.

She immediately switched to survivor mode.

Hannah added: “When I heard the news, there were so many treatment options available.

“I knew I had to pick the one that would give me the most longevity in my life.

“The life I lead is too good to let it go.”

The entertainer said she had little doubt about what to do.

She said: “The doctor explained the biggest risk averter would be going for a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

“If I go for this option, the breast cancer risk drops from 85% to 5%.

“It was a no-brainer for me. It was what I had to do.”

Hannah is due to go for a double mastectomy next week to remove the breast tissue and reduce her risk of breast cancer.

This will be followed by reconstructive surgery in the next few months.

Breast cancer surgeon Dr Liz O’Riordan said: “The reason we can’t say the percentage of BRCA 2 is 0% after the surgery is because it’s impossible to know if we have removed all breast tissue.

“It’s like removing seeds from an orange. You can’t be certain you’ve got them all.

“Even after surgery, our patients are told to be hypervigilant in checking themselves.

“You can’t be too careful when checking your body for any lumps or bumps.”

Hannah, who is just a year older than her late gran was when she died, is receiving her treatment through the NHS.

She is being supported by her husband, Graeme McLean, who she married in December last year.

Hannah said: “I had started thinking about children.

“If I have them, I run the risk of passing the gene onto them.

“Did I really want the possibility of my future children having to go through the same as me?”

Hannah, who is from Edinburgh but now lives in Motherwell, said she was overwhelmed at the thought of that happening.

She added: “That’s when I decided I would start taking my life day-by-day, hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute.

“I had to for my sanity.”

To cope with the life-altering development Hannah has written and starred in a cabaret called A Funeral for My Boobs.

She said: “I know it’s something many would look at negatively.

“Looking at it positively has really helped me come to terms with it.

“I call it A Fun-eral for My Boobs because to me it just feels like I’m welcoming the next chapter of my life.”

In the meantime, she said she is thankful for the “geekiness” of her brother-in-law whose research changed everything.

She said: “Mentally and physically, knowing has been a huge game-changer.

“I’ve had to rethink my entire future but knowing this has allowed me to pre-empt and prepare for it.

“That’s a luxury not a lot of people have.”