British cancer patients are being denied life-saving drugs and trials of revolutionary treatments are being derailed by the red tape and extra costs brought on by Brexit, a leaked report warns.

Soaring numbers are being diagnosed with the disease amid a growing and ageing population, improved diagnosis initiatives and wider public awareness – making global collaborations to find new medicines essential.

But five years after the UK’s exit from the EU, the most comprehensive analysis of its kind concludes that while patients across Europe are benefiting from a golden age of pioneering research and novel treatments, Britons with cancer have “lost out” thanks to rising prices and red tape.

Brexit has “damaged the practical ability” of doctors to offer NHS patients life-saving new drugs via international clinical trials, according to the 54-page report obtained by the Guardian.

In some cases, the cost of importing new cancer drugs for Britons has nearly quadrupled as a result of post-Brexit red tape. Some trials have had shipping costs alone increase to 10 times since Brexit.

The extra rules and costs have had a “significant negative impact” on UK cancer research, creating “new barriers” that are “holding back life-saving research” for Britons, the report says.

In some cases, the impact has been devastating. Children are among the NHS cancer patients whose tumours have returned or treatment has stopped working, leaving them in limbo and denied drugs that could extend or save their lives, senior doctors told the Guardian.

Sources said officials in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology were studying the findings of the review.

It cites evidence from a range of leading clinicians, scientists and researchers, and was compiled by experts from organisations including Cancer Research UK, the University of Southampton, and Hatch, a research consultancy.

In a statement, the government said clinical trials were vital to millions of Britons with long-term conditions for whom limited treatments were available in routine care, including cancer patients for whom routine therapies were ineffective.

Ministers were committed to “strengthening” the UK’s relationship with the EU on research, and the government offered “extensive support” for UK researchers to help them secure funding, a spokesperson added.

Three areas of UK cancer research have been hit particularly hard by its departure from the EU, according to the report. They are the regulatory environment for clinical trials, the mobility of the cancer research workforce and access to research funding and collaboration.

Clinical trial groups and universities are struggling to attract “global talent” in cancer research to come to Britain, with UK patients missing out on the expertise of the world’s top cancer scientists.

At the same time, UK researchers are finding it “more difficult” to attract grant funding to explore new ways to save the lives of patients “due to additional bureaucracy since the UK left the EU”.

The report also reveals the UK is needlessly duplicating drug testing in clinical trials involving the UK and EU, with extra checks causing potentially deadly delays.

In one case, the UK had to spend an extra £22,000 for an official to certify batches of aspirin for use in a cancer trial. Aspirin is one of the world’s most familiar drugs and the batches had already been checked in the EU.

Meanwhile, Brexit is having a wider, damaging effect on life-saving research in the EU, the report adds. “The exclusion of UK researchers from European cancer research activities has had, and will continue to have, negative consequences for the overall European cancer research effort,” it says.

Leading experts shown the report by the Guardian said the harm Brexit had inflicted on UK cancer research and NHS patients had been inevitable and predicted to occur.

“Those of us who understood the EU warned repeatedly about precisely these concerns,” said Dr Martin McKee, a professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “These findings are not just predictable, they were predicted.”

He added: “It was always inevitable that Brexit would lead to costly duplication and barriers to collaboration.”

Mark Dayan, the Brexit programme lead at the Nuffield Trust, a health thinktank, said the report highlighted “concrete examples” of “disruptions which many warned were inevitable from the moment that we left the EU with a relatively hard Brexit for health and research”.

The UK and EU are due to renew the trade and cooperation agreement this year, and discuss a wider reset which will shape the future UK-EU relationship.

Keir Starmer should make the case for “a new pact to protect health”, Dayan said, “cutting back pointless post-Brexit red tape on medicines testing and research approvals by being willing to cooperate and offer guarantees”.

The report recommends the creation of a mutual recognition agreement for testing medicines, to cut costs for researchers leading cross-border trials. Without it, patients will experience further delays to trials in future, denying them access to potentially life-saving treatments, it says.

A government spokesperson said: “We are strengthening our relationship with the EU on research and have been providing extensive support for researchers to help them secure funding from the £80bn Horizon Europe programme and get more vital treatments from the lab to patients.”

Last year, the Guardian revealed how hundreds of thousands of people in the UK were being forced to wait months to begin even basic cancer treatment, such as surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy, with deadly delays “routine” and even children denied timely care.

Children are among the NHS patients being denied access to revolutionary cancer drugs as a result of red tape and extra costs caused by Brexit, according to a report leaked to the Guardian.

Two examples illustrate how the UK’s departure from the EU is derailing UK cancer research, leaving patients in limbo and unable to access pioneering treatments.

eSMART is a trial of new targeted drugs and chemotherapy for children, teenagers and young adults whose cancer has returned or treatment has stopped working.

The cost of importing medicines for the study – a collaboration between Paris and Birmingham – almost quadrupled from €52,000 to €205,000 (£175,000) because of Brexit.

A range of factors were cited, including the expense of additional requirements in the paperwork for packaging, licensing and importation.

With the UK no longer a member of the EU, scientists in Birmingham also had to spend time arranging for a second qualified person (QP) to certify the drugs so that arms of the trial could open in Britain.

This caused major difficulties and delays, and companies sponsoring the trial were not prepared to release the relevant documents to greenlight the extra QP.

“New arms of the trial could open in the EU but not the UK, so patients across Europe have been able to access treatment as part of this trial, while patients in the UK lost out,” the report found.

Children in the UK will finally be able to join the trial this year, but only because a British charity, Cancer Research UK, provided £92,000 to help plug the funding gap.

The eSMART trial lead in the UK, Dr Lynley Marshall, told the Guardian that Brexit had made it harder to launch pioneering cancer trials in Britain.

She said: “Delaying QP release came at a cost of time and money – which could have been spent reaching more patients and offering them potentially transformative treatment. Children and young people with cancer cannot wait.”

Marshall, a consultant in paediatric and adolescent oncology and clinical research lead at the Royal Marsden hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research, said delays to UK arms of trials were also harming cancer patients in other countries.

“Data from these trials is used around the world to deliver better, kinder treatments. Delays anywhere affect every child and young person with cancer,” she added.

A second trial, Add Aspirin, is examining whether a daily dose of the drug can stop or delay cancer coming back. It is facing extra costs of up to £50,000 as a result of Brexit.

It has cost £22,000 for a second QP to certify batches of aspirin just for the UK arm of the trial, which is a partnership between the UK, Ireland and India.

The batches have already been checked in the EU (the manufacturer is in Germany and packaging is done in Spain).

Aspirin and placebo used to be sent to the UK to be shipped to trial sites around the country and in Ireland. Now, bespoke shipping is needed from Spain to Ireland to avoid sending items for Irish trials through the UK.

“This new shipping arrangement costs 10 times the pre-Brexit amount,” the report says. “Over the course of the trial, the extra shipping costs are anticipated to be £25,000.”

Children are among the NHS patients being denied access to revolutionary cancer drugs as a result of red tape and extra costs caused by Brexit, according to a report leaked to the Guardian.

Two examples illustrate how the UK’s departure from the EU is derailing UK cancer research, leaving patients in limbo and unable to access pioneering treatments.

eSMART is a trial of new targeted drugs and chemotherapy for children, teenagers and young adults whose cancer has returned or treatment has stopped working.

The cost of importing medicines for the study – a collaboration between Paris and Birmingham – almost quadrupled from €52,000 to €205,000 (£175,000) because of Brexit.

A range of factors were cited, including the expense of additional requirements in the paperwork for packaging, licensing and importation.

With the UK no longer a member of the EU, scientists in Birmingham also had to spend time arranging for a second qualified person (QP) to certify the drugs so that arms of the trial could open in Britain.

This caused major difficulties and delays, and companies sponsoring the trial were not prepared to release the relevant documents to greenlight the extra QP.

“New arms of the trial could open in the EU but not the UK, so patients across Europe have been able to access treatment as part of this trial, while patients in the UK lost out,” the report found.

Children in the UK will finally be able to join the trial this year, but only because a British charity, Cancer Research UK, provided £92,000 to help plug the funding gap.

The eSMART trial lead in the UK, Dr Lynley Marshall, told the Guardian that Brexit had made it harder to launch pioneering cancer trials in Britain.

She said: “Delaying QP release came at a cost of time and money – which could have been spent reaching more patients and offering them potentially transformative treatment. Children and young people with cancer cannot wait.”

Marshall, a consultant in paediatric and adolescent oncology and clinical research lead at the Royal Marsden hospital and the Institute of Cancer Research, said delays to UK arms of trials were also harming cancer patients in other countries.

“Data from these trials is used around the world to deliver better, kinder treatments. Delays anywhere affect every child and young person with cancer,” she added.

A second trial, Add Aspirin, is examining whether a daily dose of the drug can stop or delay cancer coming back. It is facing extra costs of up to £50,000 as a result of Brexit.

It has cost £22,000 for a second QP to certify batches of aspirin just for the UK arm of the trial, which is a partnership between the UK, Ireland and India.

The batches have already been checked in the EU (the manufacturer is in Germany and packaging is done in Spain).

Aspirin and placebo used to be sent to the UK to be shipped to trial sites around the country and in Ireland. Now, bespoke shipping is needed from Spain to Ireland to avoid sending items for Irish trials through the UK.

“This new shipping arrangement costs 10 times the pre-Brexit amount,” the report says. “Over the course of the trial, the extra shipping costs are anticipated to be £25,000.”

Israel’s military has admitted to several “professional failures” and a breach of orders in the killing of 15 rescue workers in Gaza last month, and said that it was dismissing a deputy commander responsible.

The deadly shooting of eight Red Crescent paramedics, six civil defence workers and a UN staffer by Israeli troops, as they carried out a rescue mission in southern Gaza at dawn on 23 March, had prompted international outcry and calls for a war crimes investigation.

Their bodies were uncovered days after the shooting, buried in a sandy mass grave alongside their crushed vehicles. The UN said they had been killed “one by one”. Israel at first claimed that the medics’ vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire but later backtracked after phone video recovered from one of the medics contradicted the account.

On Sunday, the military said an investigation had “identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident”.

As a result, the deputy commander of the IDF’s Golani Brigade “will be dismissed from his position due to his responsibilities as the field commander … and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”.

Another commander, whose unit was in operation in the southern city of Rafah, where the killings took place, would be censured for “his overall responsibility for the incident”, the military said.

Despite admitting mistakes, the report does not recommend any criminal action to be taken against the military units responsible for the incident and found no violation of the IDF’s code of ethics. The findings of the report will now be passed along to the military advocate general. Israel’s extreme-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, called the army chief’s decision to dismiss the responsible deputy commander “a grave mistake”.

The Palestine Red Crescent rejected the findings.

“The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.

Human rights lawyers also called the inquiry into question, pointing out that it had been done by Israel’s military itself and alleging it lacked independence.

Sawsan Zaher, a Palestinian human rights lawyer based in Israel, said: “There is nothing objective or neutral about this inquiry. The severity of this case should have led to an immediate criminal investigation. Instead we see the Israeli military inquiring into itself and yet again evidence of violations of international law and war crimes are swept under the carpet.”

The report maintains, without providing further evidence, that six of the 15 Palestinians killed were Hamas militants. Previous claims by Israel along the same lines have been denied by the Red Crescent.

The investigation provided the most thorough account from Israel’s forces about what they alleged took place that night. According to the report, it was an “operational misunderstanding” by Israeli forces that led them to fire on the ambulances. They denied that there had been any “indiscriminate fire” and claimed troops were simply alert to “real threats” from Hamas on the ground, accusing the militant group of regularly using ambulances to transport weapons and terrorists.

The investigation claimed that “poor night visibility” was to blame for the deputy battalion commander’s conclusion that the ambulances belonged to Hamas militants and the decision to fire on them. Video footage that emerged from the scene showed that the ambulances were clearly moving with flashing emergency lights.

The investigation also found that the shooting of a UN vehicle, which drove past 15 minutes later, was carried out in violation of orders.

Daniel Machover, a human rights lawyer who co-founded Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, said the admission of the circumstances of the killing of the UN worker, who was in a clearly marked UN vehicle, “alone should be grounds for a court martial and a war crimes investigation, not simply a dismissal”.

After uncovering the bodies from a sandy grave in Gaza days after the attack, a UN official said the workers had been killed “one by one”, while the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said the men were “targeted at close range”.

Some witnesses and relatives have also alleged there was evidence that at least one of the victims had had their hands bound.

The military’s report said there was “no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting”. Ahmed Dhair, the forensic pathologist in Gaza who carried out the postmortems on the victims, said last week that he had not seen visible signs of restraint.

The Israeli military also defended the decision by soldiers to “evacuate” the bodies the next morning and claimed that while the decision to crush their vehicles was wrong, “there was no attempt to hide the incident”.

Dhair told the Guardian last week that the postmortems showed the victims were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives. Dhair alleged evidence of “explosive bullets” in the bodies he had examined.

The Israeli statement on the findings concluded by saying that Israel’s military “regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians”. Asked if he thought the incident represented a pervasive issue within the Israeli military, Maj Gen Yoav Har-Even, who headed the inquiry, told journalists: “We’re saying it was a mistake, we don’t think it’s a daily mistake.”

Last week, Palestinian Red Crescent said that one of the two Palestinian paramedics who had survived the shooting, Assad al-Nsasrah, remained in Israeli detention.

Palestinians and international human rights groups have repeatedly accused Israel’s military of failing to properly investigate or whitewashing misconduct by its troops. A recent report by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organisation, concluded that Israel “did not take appropriate action to investigate suspected violations of international law that occurred as part of its war in Gaza”.

Ziv Stahl, the executive director of Yesh Din, said: “It’s another example of the almost full impunity given to soldiers for events in Gaza. In this case, I think they were quick to handle it because of the international pressure they are facing. By taking this small disciplinary action against one commander, it undermines any chance of a wider criminal investigation.”

The international criminal court, established by the international community as a court of last resort, has accused the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes. Israel, which is not a member of the court, has long asserted that its legal system is capable of investigating the army, and Netanyahu has accused the ICC of antisemitism.

Before the US launched military strikes on Yemen in March, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about the planned attacks to a private Signal group chat that he created himself, which included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.

According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.

The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, was made public last month by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who had been accidentally added to the group by Waltz.

The fact that Hegseth also shared the plans in a second Signal group chat, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Times, is likely to add to growing criticism of the former Fox weekend anchor’s ability to manage the Pentagon, a massive organization which operates in matters of life and death around the globe.

According to the Times, the private chat also included two senior advisers to Hegseth – Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick – who were fired last week after being accused of leaking unauthorized information.

Hegseth has previously been criticized for including his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, in sensitive meetings with foreign leaders, including a discussion of the war in Ukraine with British military leaders. Phil Hegseth, the secretary’s younger brother, was hired as a senior Pentagon adviser and is the defense department’s liaison to the Department of Homeland Security. It is unclear why either would need to know about the details of strikes plans in advance.

According to the Times, Hegseth used his private phone, rather than a government device, to access the Signal chat with his family and friends.

CNN reported later on Sunday that three sources familiar with Hegseth’s private Signal group confirmed to the broadcaster that he had used it to share Yemen attack plans before the strikes were launched.

A person familiar with the contents and those who received the messages, confirmed the second chat to the Associated Press ands said that it included 13 people.

Shortly after the news of the second Signal chat broke, Politico published an opinion article by Hegseth’s former press secretary, John Ullyot, who wrote: “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership”.

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth is in the spotlight for a communications blunder in which he reportedly created his own Signal group chat that included his wife and brother, in which he shared confidential details of a US strike on Yemen this March.

The chat on Signal, a commercially available app not authorized as a means to communicate sensitive or classified national defense information, allegedly included more than a dozen people.

The revelations come weeks after national security advisor Mike Waltz created a separate Signal chat to discuss the Yemen strikes, which included top officials from the Trump administration, and inadvertently, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic.

President Trump downplayed the first incident, describing it as “glitch”.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened 19 April 2025.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s Easter ceasefire as a fake “PR” exercise and said Russian troops had continued their drone and artillery attacks across many parts of the frontline.

Citing a report from Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zelenskyy said Russia was still using heavy weapons and since 10am on Sunday an increase in Russian shelling had been observed.

He said that, as of 6pm UK time, the Russian army had violated the ceasefire “more than two thousand times”, adding that there had been 67 Russian assaults against Ukrainian positions in various directions.

“In practice, across all main frontline directions, Russia has failed to uphold its own promise of ceasefire,” he wrote on social media.

He also said he had received no response from Russia to his proposal for a full ceasefire for 30 days, adding: “If Russia does not agree to such a step, it will be proof that it intends to continue doing only those things which destroy human lives and prolong the war”.

The current 30-hour truce announced by Putin on Friday is scheduled to end at midnight on Sunday (2100 GMT).

The US state department said it would welcome a ceasefire extension, though the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told Russian media no such order had been given by Putin.

Earlier Zelenskyy wrote on social media: “We are documenting every Russian violation of its self-declared commitment to a full ceasefire for the Easter period and are prepared to provide the necessary information to our partners.

“In practice, either Putin does not have full control over his army, or the situation proves that in Russia they have no intention of making a genuine move toward ending the war, and are only interested in favourable PR coverage. The Russian army is attempting to create the general impression of a ceasefire, while in some areas still continuing isolated attempts to advance.”

Zelenskyy later said Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in an ambush in Toretsk in Donetsk oblast. Video footage from the battlefield appeared to confirm his claim that the east of the country was under Russian fire. White puffs of smoke could be seen above the village of Uspenivka, in the Pokrovsk area of Donetsk.

The Russians also reportedly attacked an evacuation convoy in the village of Zoria, near the city of Kostiantynivka. At least two civilians and a rescue worker from the Proliska aid agency were hurt when Russian drones targeted their cars.

“For us, it’s just another day of war – with shelling from various types of weapons and even one attempt to assault our positions,” Denys Bobkov, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s 37th separate marine brigade, told the Guardian in a message from the front.

Bobkov said that by 2pm on Sunday his brigade had recorded 16 drone attacks and two artillery strikes. It is fighting near the village of Novopavlivka, south-west of Pokrovsk and on the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.

The 66th brigade, based in the city of Lyman, also reported infantry attacks and attempts to repair damaged crossings. “The Russians are using the so-called ‘lull’ to improve their tactical position – to regroup in order to deliver another blow,” it said.

In Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry claimed Ukraine had broken the ceasefire more than 1,000 times. It said there had been more than 900 drone strikes, with damage to infrastructure and civilian casualties. It did not give further details.

After a bloody week, during which Russia killed 35 people in a missile attack in the centre of Sumy, Ukrainian cities were relatively calm on Sunday. Worshippers gathered at St Volodymyr’s cathedral in Kyiv, where priests blessed their Easter baskets with Holy water.

“They’ve already broken their promise. Unfortunately, we cannot trust Russia today,” Olga Grachova, 38, who works in marketing, told the news agency Agence France-Presse.

The US has signalled it is losing patience with both sides. On Friday, Donald Trump said he was ready to walk away from his attempt to broker a peace settlement, declaring: “We want to get it done.”

“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘You’re foolish. You’re fools. You’re horrible people’ – and we’re going to just take a pass,” he said. The US president denied claims that Putin was “playing” him.

Late last night, Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he hoped Ukraine and Russia would make a deal this week and that both would “then start to do big business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a fortune”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met European leaders in Paris last week to discuss how to end the war. Leaks suggest the White House is pushing for a Kremlin-friendly deal that would freeze the conflict along the existing 1000km-long frontline.

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has suggested that Crimea and four other Ukrainian provinces could be given to Russia. The US is considering recognising Crimea as Russian and offering Moscow other incentives such as sanctions relief, Bloomberg reported.

The Kremlin insists its original war goals must be achieved. They include the removal of Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s president, as well as the country’s “demilitarisation” and a guarantee of its non-Nato “neutral” status.

Since their disastrous meeting in February in the Oval Office, Zelenskyy has been seeking to improve relations with Washington. Last month, Ukraine accepted a 30-day US ceasefire proposal and it is poised to sign an agreement on Thursday giving the US access to its minerals.

There are hints, however, that Zelenskyy is growing frustrated at the White House’s pro-Putin rhetoric. Trump has piled pressure on Ukraine – in effect cutting off military aid and temporarily pausing intelligence sharing – while taking no corresponding measures against Russia.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy appeared to take a swipe at Fox Television Stations after its Live Now network broadcast live coverage of Putin attending an Orthodox Easter service in Moscow with Russia’s patriarch, while incorrectly labelling Kyiv as part of Russia.

“Instead of broadcasting religious service from Moscow, the focus should be on pressuring Moscow to genuinely commit to a full ceasefire and to maintain it for at least 30 days after Easter – to give diplomacy a real chance,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said it had asked for an explanation. “If this was a mistake rather than a deliberate political statement, there should be an apology and an investigation into who made the mistake,” a ministry spokesperson said.

RAF fighter jets have intercepted two Russian aircraft flying close to Nato airspace over the Baltic Sea.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said two RAF Typhoons were scrambled from Malbork airbase in Poland on Tuesday to intercept a Russian Ilyushin Il-20M “Coot-A” intelligence aircraft.

On Thursday, another two Typhoons were scrambled from the base to intercept an unknown aircraft leaving Kaliningrad airspace close to Nato airspace.

The MoD said on Sunday that the intercepts marked the RAF’s first scramble as part of Operation Chessman and come weeks after the aircraft arrived in eastern Poland to begin deployment alongside Sweden in defence of Nato’s eastern flank.

The armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, said the UK was “unshakeable” in its commitment to Nato.

He added: “With Russian aggression growing and security threats on the rise, we are stepping up to reassure our allies, deter adversaries and protect our national security through our plan for change.

“This mission shows our ability to operate side by side with Nato’s newest member, Sweden, and to defend the alliance’s airspace wherever and whenever needed, keeping us safe at home and strong abroad.”

The UK’s deployment of six Typhoon jets and nearly 200 personnel from 140 Expeditionary Air Wing is the UK’s latest contribution to Nato’s air policing efforts, coming after operations in Romania and Iceland last year.

The MoD said it represented a “landmark in Nato integration” with jets from RAF Lossiemouth operating alongside Swedish Gripen fighter jets, the first time Sweden has contributed such aircraft to an ally’s air policing since joining Nato in 2024.

The intercepts come after the defence secretary, John Healey, attended Nato’s Ukraine defence contact group in Brussels last week, where he co-led a meeting in which more than 50 nations pledged £21bn of support to Ukraine, the department said.

In April 2024, six Typhoon fighter jets with more than 200 personnel were stationed in Romania to defend Nato’s eastern border. This was followed in August 2024 with the deployment of four F-35B jets to Iceland, defending Nato airspace in the north.

The RAF’s quick reaction alert forces are based at RAF Coningsby, Lossiemouth, and Brize Norton.

Britain is set to significantly increase its weapons production in order to no longer rely on importing from the US and France.

This comes as British and European defence companies move away from buying US-made weaponry and equipment due to concerns over president Donald Trump making the country an unreliable military partner.

First reported by The Times, BAE Systems, the UK defence company, has been developing new methods to make sufficient explosives and propellants in the UK to meet the Ministry of Defence and export requirements.

One of the ways the company, the largest defence contractor in Europe, is doing this is by creating sites across the UK to produce RDX explosives, which are used in 155mm rounds in British Army guns and weapons. It will also be seeking to build three new sites to add “resilience and support our ramp-up of critical munitions production”.

According to John Healey, the defence secretary, the defence industry “is the foundation of our ability to fight and win on the battlefield”.

He said: “Strengthening homegrown artillery production is an important step in learning the lessons from Ukraine, boosting our industrial resilience and making defence an engine for growth.”

BAE Systems said it has developed new methods to create the new weapons, describing it as an “innovative” way to keep up with demand while removing the need for nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, which are high in demand across global supply chains.

Previously, the company imported RDX explosives from two main sources, the US and France. However, it wants to be in a place where its munitions are deemed to be “Itar-free”, meaning it can be bought and sold on without any restrictions from the US.

Steve Cardew, the business development director at BAE Systems’ maritime and land defence solutions, said: “Our leap forward in synthetic energetics and propellant manufacture will strengthen the UK’s supply chain resilience and support our ramp up of critical munitions production to meet growing demand in response to the increasingly uncertain world we’re living in.

“It also supports economic growth through high-skilled jobs and potential export opportunities.”

Britain is set to significantly increase its weapons production in order to no longer rely on importing from the US and France.

This comes as British and European defence companies move away from buying US-made weaponry and equipment due to concerns over president Donald Trump making the country an unreliable military partner.

First reported by The Times, BAE Systems, the UK defence company, has been developing new methods to make sufficient explosives and propellants in the UK to meet the Ministry of Defence and export requirements.

One of the ways the company, the largest defence contractor in Europe, is doing this is by creating sites across the UK to produce RDX explosives, which are used in 155mm rounds in British Army guns and weapons. It will also be seeking to build three new sites to add “resilience and support our ramp-up of critical munitions production”.

According to John Healey, the defence secretary, the defence industry “is the foundation of our ability to fight and win on the battlefield”.

He said: “Strengthening homegrown artillery production is an important step in learning the lessons from Ukraine, boosting our industrial resilience and making defence an engine for growth.”

BAE Systems said it has developed new methods to create the new weapons, describing it as an “innovative” way to keep up with demand while removing the need for nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, which are high in demand across global supply chains.

Previously, the company imported RDX explosives from two main sources, the US and France. However, it wants to be in a place where its munitions are deemed to be “Itar-free”, meaning it can be bought and sold on without any restrictions from the US.

Steve Cardew, the business development director at BAE Systems’ maritime and land defence solutions, said: “Our leap forward in synthetic energetics and propellant manufacture will strengthen the UK’s supply chain resilience and support our ramp up of critical munitions production to meet growing demand in response to the increasingly uncertain world we’re living in.

“It also supports economic growth through high-skilled jobs and potential export opportunities.”

About 49,000 A&E visits last year resulted in patients waiting 24 hours or more for a hospital bed, with people aged 65 or over making up almost 70% of cases.

According to a freedom of information request by the Liberal Democrats, some patients went 10 days before getting a space on a ward.

The analysis, which used data from 54 trusts in England, showed that of the 48,830 “trolley waits” of 24 hours or longer in 2024, 33,413 were experienced by people aged 65 or over.

The term “trolley wait” refers to the time between a patient being transferred to a ward after a decision has been taken to admit them to hospital.

The Lib Dems said East Kent’s NHS trust had the highest number of day or longer trolley waits last year at 8,916, up from 30 in 2019 – pre-pandemic – followed by Liverpool University hospitals trust with 4,315, up from 10 in 2019. However, the party estimated that the real number of 24-hour cases was likely to be far higher because only 54 out of 141 trusts had provided full data.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the figures “only begin to scratch the surface” of a “crisis in corridor care” – after reports of patients being seen in the corridors of hospitals due to a lack of beds. The RCN said the declining recruitment in nursing was adding to the problem.

“The NHS and the UK government must begin to disclose the true scale of the problem if they’re serious about eradicating it,” general secretary and chief executive of the RCN Prof Nicola Ranger said. “A single patient waiting for more than 24 hours is unacceptable, tens of thousands waiting shows why corridor care must be eradicated. It is undignified and unsafe, and now a year-round crisis.

The Lib Dems want the government to make a new team of “super-heads”, composed of experienced NHS bosses who would go into struggling trusts and bring them up to standard.

“The least patients deserve is the dignity to be treated in an appropriate area,” Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson Helen Morgan said. “Not the ramshackle waiting rooms and corridors that far too many have to suffer through for hours.

“That is why the government must ensure that this is the last winter crisis anyone will experience and end corridor care by the end of this parliament.

“The Conservatives’ beyond-shameful neglect brought us to this point, but the Labour government’s approach of sitting on its hands and hoping it all gets better has not survived contact with reality.”

The current Labour government has made cutting NHS waiting lists one of its key missions.

“We have taken action to protect A&E departments, introducing the new RSV vaccine, delivering more than 27m Covid and flu vaccines and ending the strikes so staff were on the frontline not the picket line for the first winter in three years,” a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said.

“This work continues to ensure patients are treated quickly. We are fundamentally reforming the NHS as part of our Plan for Change, providing more care in the community, so fewer patients have to go to A&E, and those who do are treated faster and with dignity.”

A spokesperson for East Kent hospitals trust said: “We have seen increased attendances across our three main hospitals and we are sorry that patients are waiting longer than we would like in our emergency departments.”

University Hospitals of Liverpool group has been contacted for comment.

Scottish Water staff will strike for two days from the early hours of Tuesday as a standoff over pay continues at the state-owned company.

The striking workers’ union warned that emergency repairs and quality checks to water supplied to 5 million people across Scotland would not be carried out during the action on Tuesday and Wednesday.

More than 1,000 workers in the Unison union will go on strike for the second time in a month in the pay dispute, after rejecting a deal that the union said was 2.6% and followed years of real-terms cuts to wages.

The Unison Scottish Water branch secretary, Tricia McArthur, said: “Scottish Water workers are simply asking to be paid fairly for the essential services upon which everyone in Scotland relies.

“Things are meant to be different in a publicly owned service like this. But senior managers are behaving no differently to those running private water companies south of the border.”

Scottish Water said it “did not recognise” the figures cited by Unison and said that the offer of 3.4% with a guaranteed increase of £1,400 would spell a 5.5% rise for the lowest-paid.

It said contingency plans were in place to enable it to maintain normal services during the strikes and advised customers to report any problems with the water as usual.

Peter Farrer, Scottish Water’s chief operating officer, said the offer was “fair and progressive”, adding: “No one benefits from industrial action, and our focus is on continuing to deliver for our millions of customers across Scotland. We urge the unions to get back round the negotiating table as soon as possible.”

Unlike in England, the water boards in Scotland were never privatised, and Scottish Water has said that it reinvests all profits, currently about £800m a year, directly back into its infrastructure, a network of 30,000 miles of pipes and about 2,000 treatment works.

Although Scotland has not experienced the scandals around financial and environmental mismanagement seen at English privatised water companies such as Thames Water, agencies have still warned that its sewage pollution could be far more widespread than realised.

Environmental Standards Scotland last year said that there had been thousands of sewage overflow incidents in the previous 12 months, with some Scottish storm overflows releasing sewage more than 500 times. The agency said that sites were spilling more frequently than should be expected, with risks to health and the environment, and that only a fraction were fully monitored.

A Boeing jet intended for a Chinese airline landed back at the planemaker’s US production hub on Sunday, a victim of the tit-for-tat bilateral tariffs launched by Donald Trump.

The 737 MAX, which was meant for China’s Xiamen Airlines, landed at Seattle’s Boeing Field at 6.11pm, according to a Reuters witness. It was painted with Xiamen livery.

The jet, which made refuelling stops in Guam and Hawaii on its 5,000-mile (8,000-km) return journey, was one of several 737 MAX jets – Boeing’s bestselling model – that had been waiting at Boeing’s Zhoushan completion centre for final work and delivery.

Trump this month raised baseline tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%. In retaliation, China imposed a 125% tariff on US goods.

A Chinese airline taking delivery of a Boeing jet could be crippled by the tariffs, given that a new 737 MAX has a market value of around $55m, according to IBA, an aviation consultancy.

It was not clear which party made the decision for the aircraft to return to the US. Boeing and Xiamen had not responded to Reuters requests for comment at time of publication.

Confusion over changing tariffs could leave many aircraft deliveries in limbo, with some airline CEOs saying they would defer delivery of planes rather than pay duties, analysts say.

A nine-year-old boy has died after becoming trapped between rocks at a popular holiday spot on the New South Wales mid-north coast, amid a spate of drowning deaths over Easter.

Police and other emergency services tried to free the boy from the site at South West Rocks on Sunday afternoon but he died at the scene.

The Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive, Steven Pearce, said crews had also taken part in countless rescues as hordes of holidaymakers made their way to the coast, as powerful swells pounded beaches.

“It’s extremely tragic, it’s the worst drownings we’ve seen on the Easter long weekend,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.

Meanwhile, rescue crews in NSW and Victoria have resumed their search for two men missing since Friday.

The men, a 24-year-old who was swept off the rocks by a large wave at Little Bay in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and a 41-year-old man exploring the beach near San Remo in Victoria, haven’t been spotted after the incidents.

The older man was with a group of fellow Chinese nationals living in Pakenham when three of the friends were knocked into the water by a wave.

One woman was rescued but the missing man’s wife drowned.

Victoria police said the search was continuing on Monday.

Emergency services were also called to Wattamolla in Sydney’s Royal national park at 11am on Sunday after reports that two people were swept off the rocks while fishing.

Two men were found floating face down in the water and were winched to safety, but one was unable to be revived and died at the scene.

A 58-year-old fisherman also died after being swept into water at Wollongong harbour on Friday morning.

Another man drowned at Mosman on Sydney’s north shore on Friday morning.

Crews were also called to Green Cape near Eden on the NSW south coast about 3pm on Friday after reports of a fisher being swept off rocks into the water.

Authorities later found a body in the water.

Australians have been urged to take care on the water during the remainder of the long weekend.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said his thoughts were with those who had lost loved ones.

“Australians love the water, we love the surf,” he said from the southern NSW coastal town of Bateman’s Bay.

“Please, everyone, be careful. Families in particular, be careful of your kids.”

The Royal Life Saving Australia chief executive, Justin Carr, said the tragic events happened in extreme weather conditions when people had often put themselves in danger.

Those activities included walking along rocky shelves, getting too close to the water to take pictures of the storm swell and rock fishing when it wasn’t safe to do so.

An average of six people have drowned each Easter long weekend over the past 20 years, according to the organisation.

It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world’s stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.

Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app.

There were more than 13bn views of videos tagged #ElectronicMusic worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023, representing faster growth than the “indie and alternative” and “rap and hip-hop” genres. Videos created with the electronic music tag grew by more than 100% over the same period.

TikTok said creators were turning to electronic music in particular as a soundtrack for specific types of video clips, such as sport, fitness and fashion. It has also proved popular with travel content and summer holiday recaps.

TikTok’s head of music partnerships for the UK and Ireland, Toyin Mustapha, said the success of British artists such as Disclosure and Joel Corry had underlined electronic music’s entry into the mainstream.

“Dance music has become more accessible and big in the commercial sphere,” he said. “We are seeing the breaking down of boundaries for artists, and TikTok is part of that.”

TikTok, which has more than 1 billion users worldwide, has become a major platform for breaking and supporting music artists. One of the biggest summer anthems of last year, Adam Port’s Move, established its appeal on the app before becoming a streaming hit. It reached the top 10 in the UK and across Europe. Another hit on TikTok and streaming platforms last year was Pawsa’s Dirty Cash (Money Talks), which reached No 17 in the UK charts.

Fred Again’s headlining sets at the Reading and Leeds festivals have underlined the ascent of electronic artists in major markets, but Mustapha also points to mainstream chart success. Jazzy become the first female Irish act to reach No 1 in Ireland in more than a decade in 2023.

“It’s not just reflected in festival bookings, you can see it in the official charts as well,” he said.

Two British DJs have also taken off on TikTok in recent years. Hannah Laing, a former dental nurse from Dundee known as the queen of “doof”, has launched her own festival and label after building a steady music career on the app. Billy Gillies, a Belfast DJ whose hits include DNA (Loving You) has also built a strong following on the platform.

UK views of videos with the #ElectronicMusic hashtag grew 22%, while the number of videos created with the same hashtag rose by more than 50%.

“TikTok users tend to tag the genres of music, especially genres like electronic music. It shows the community they are trying to build and are part of, and electronic music is very much a community-led thing,” Mustapha said.

Spotify said streams of dance and electronic music had increased by an average of 18% a year since 2000, while streams of drum’n’bass had risen 94% since 2021.

Indie and alternative, as well as rap and hip-hop, remain bigger genres overall among TikTok users, with indie in particular likely to get a boost when Oasis return in the summer despite the electronic music surge. Last year, TikTok flagged a trend called “Britishcore”, which celebrated the more mundane aspects of UK life but also captured excitement over the Gallagher brothers’ reunion. The hashtag #OasisReunion received more than 100m video views in the fortnight after their comeback tour was announced.

As well as a boom in electronic music, British TikTok users also embraced the music industry’s back catalogue last year. TikTokers set a new high for use of old tracks on British posts, with tunes more than five years old accounting for 19 out of the 50 top tracks in 2024. Popular back catalogue tunes included Sade’s Kiss of Life and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor.

As with electronic music, the trend was also global. Twenty of the top 50 tracks worldwide came from back catalogues, led by the 1980s hit Forever Young by the German synth-pop band Alphaville.