UK has high rate of teenagers missing meals due to poverty, OECD says – as it happpened

A food bank in Inverclyde. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

5.04pm GMT

Afternoon summary

• British taxpayers will bear extra costs after the signing of a treaty with the Rwandan government, James Cleverly, the home secretary, has said, as he asserted that the government was not pursuing “cheap and quick popularity”.

• The UK has suffered a sharp decline in its performance in international academic tests, wiping out recent progress, as the widespread disruption caused by Covid continued to take its toll on education, according to an OECD report.

• The UK has a relatively high rate of teenagers missing at least one meal per week because of poverty, the OEC report says. (See 4.13pm.)

• Thousands of junior doctors are to stage new strike action in England after failing to reach a deal with the government in talks over pay.

• Chris Huhne, the former energy and climate change secretary, has received a substantial six-figure sum from News UK. He is one of several figures who have received payments from the Murdoch-owned company as it settled historic phone-hacking cases.

• The UK government is likely to miss its targets under the Paris climate agreement by a wide margin, analysis shows, dealing a devastating blow to Britain’s standing on the international stage.

James Cleverly at his press conference in Kigali today. Photograph: Reuters

Updated at 5.09pm GMT

4.38pm GMT

The University and College Union says the government’s plans to toughen immigration qualifications by raising minimum salary requirements are a “massive own goal” that will hurt the higher education sector.

Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary, said:

By raising the [pay] threshold, ministers are sacrificing the ability of UK universities to attract talent, particularly among the early-career researchers who will become the pioneers of the future.

At their current salary levels, many postdoctoral positions will now be closed off to international talent. We are already hearing reports of people in established careers whose visas are coming up for renewal being told that, under these new rules, they won’t be able to stay in their jobs.

Worse still, the near doubling of the threshold for family visas is a callous move that threatens to tear families apart. It will have a disruptive effect on universities, but even more importantly it is just wrong that people’s lives can be turned upside down because ministers feel they have to appease their backbenchers.

Updated at 4.49pm GMT