14 June 2011 Last updated at 11:19 ET Share this page More than half of councils now collect domestic rubbish once a fortnight The government has admitted it cannot force councils in England to provide weekly bin collections. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles had hoped to include the measure in a new waste strategy but it was watered down following a row with officials at Defra, the BBC understands. The strategy says collections should happen "more [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 17:47 ET Share this page HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland will all have to restructure their businesses Chancellor George Osborne is to force banks to ring-fence their retail operations from investment banking. In a speech on Wednesday he will say banks must be set up so that their branches and public savings and loans would not be damaged if their trading arms ran into trouble. The legal [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 07:49 ET Share this page mr Paterson said he had been riding horses since the age of three or four Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson has said he will spend part of the summer racing on horseback across the steppes of Mongolia. The north Shropshire MP will be taking part in the Mongol Derby with his wife Rose in August, during parliament's summer recess. The couple will try to [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 11:04 ET Share this page Mobile phone company bosses were being grilled by MPs Two leading mobile phone networks have admitted that they did not contact more than 80 of their customers to warn them their phones may have been hacked into. Vodafone and Orange/T-Mobile told MPs the police had not asked them to do so and they were worried about prejudicing the inquiry conducted at the time. They [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 19:04 ET Share this page by Rob Cave BBC News PFI is under scrutiny from two influential parliamentary committees HM Treasury is failing to monitor "excessive" profits from the selling-on of PFI (private finance initiative) equity, the BBC has been told. One industry analyst says its "inadequate" records do not reflect the billions of pounds made in the so-called secondary PFI market. Critics, including some MPs, say the taxpayer [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 07:16 ET Share this page Soon, it seems, our chicken farmers will have to face up to the threat from illegal imports. Robert Sturdy MEP: "Without a doubt, this will affect the egg industry" Yes, that's illegal egg imports, however unlikely an image that conjures up. You may find it hard to believe but these are the facts: 10 years ago the European Parliament decided to outlaw battery farming. [...]

13 June 2011 Last updated at 12:47 ET Share this page Visa cuts: Ministers say there are too many bogus students who are working in the UK Plans to cut the number of foreign students arriving in the UK could cost £2.4bn more than they save, according to Home Office estimates. The figures show the total costs could be £3.5bn, but that would be partially offset by savings of £1.1bn. Officials estimate the measures will [...]

12 June 2011 Last updated at 21:30 ET Share this page by Stephen Mulvey BBC News Yves Leterme: PM for nine months in 2008 and five months in 2009-10 – and now caretaker for a year For the year since a general election on 13 June 2010, Belgium has had no official government. As coalition negotiations have dragged on, the country has had to make do with a caretaker prime minister and cabinet. how long [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 14:16 ET Share this page by Iain Watson Political correspondent, BBC News Ed Miliband is promising to help the "hard-working families" of Britain In 1875, Karl Marx coined the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". The USSR modified this somewhat with the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work". So when backbench – and even some [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 06:10 ET Share this page By Laura Kuenssberg Chief political correspondent, BBC News channel Chris Mellor is the deputy chairman of health watchdog Monitor The deputy chair of a watchdog at the heart of controversial changes to the NHS in England is under fire after it emerged he was sacked from his old job. Chris Mellor, a board member of Monitor, was fired as Northern Ireland Water chairman after [...]