Viv needs another day off so you’ve got me today.  Here is her usual round up of the front pages and below you will find excerpts of some of the stories.

Illegal migrants

Mail
Rishi Sunak tonight insisted the UK would ‘take back control’ of its borders on his watch as he vowed to halt the flow of small boats carrying migrants across the Channel.
The Prime Minister faced the cameras tonight after unveiling a new law designed to dissuade the thousands of people making the perilous journey every year.
The landmark Illegal Immigration Bill will bar arrivals from staying and applying on refugee, modern slavery or human rights grounds. They will also not be allowed to bring judicial reviews or get bail for at least 28 days.
Only children and the gravely ill will be allowed to remain in Britain while cases are considered.
To avoid creating a dash to reach Britain, the rules will be effective from now even though it could be months before they are on the statute book. They explicitly trump human rights laws and judges in Strasbourg.

Mirror
The Government has been accused of trying to “con” the public with new laws to clamp down on desperate migrants arriving in the UK in small boats.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman unveiled draconian plans to end Channel crossings after years of Tory failure which saw an estimated 45,000 people made the perilous journey last year.
Ms Braverman said those who enter the UK via illegal routes will be detained without bail or judicial review before being deported – and blocked from returning.
She said that the Government would announce safe and legal routes for people fleeing persecution – but only AFTER the crossings stop.
It has been widely condemned, with the UN branding it a clear breach of the Refugee Convention and saying it will prevent people fleeing war and persecution from being granted safe haven in the UK.

ITV News
Today Rishi Sunak has brought in a policy that Enver Solomon – CEO of the Refugee Council – told me was the toughest asylum policy ever brought in for the UK and across western Europe.
Vicky Tennant, from the UN’s refugee agency, told ITV News that it effectively bans asylum in the UK – something she says is in breach of our duties under the Refugee Convention.
But the PM was under huge pressure from Conservative MPs to tackle this problem. And while the UNCHR thinks it all goes too far – some of those politicians think it doesn’t go far enough.
Today a number of them – including Simon Clarke – raised the prospect of us leaving the European Convention on Human Rights after the home secretary made clear on the face of the bill that this policy may not comply with it.

Sun
RISHI Sunak threw down the gauntlet to left-wing lawyers and anti-borders campaigners last night insisting “I am up for the fight” over Small Boats.
As the pro-migration “blob” plotted to torpedo his new Illegal Migration Bill in the courts, the PM insisted “we will win”.
And he vowed to do “whatever is necessary” to end the Channel crisis with illegal arrivals detained for 28 days before being deported.
Mr Sunak insisted Britain will use “every tool at our disposal”, adding his new law “is tough but it is necessary and it is fair” and will end “spurious human rights claims” clogging up the system.
Addressing aspiring migrants directly at a No 10 press conference last night, the PM said: “If you come to the UK illegally, you can’t claim asylum.
“You can’t benefit from our modern slavery protections. You can’t make spurious human rights claims. You can’t stay.”

Independent
Rishi Sunak’s proposals to deport asylum seekers without considering their claims amount to a “clear breach” of international law, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said.
The government has already admitted that its Illegal Migration Bill may breach human rights law, with the prime minister saying he was “up for the fight” that is predicted to take place over the matter in British courts.
The bill would impose a legal duty on the home secretary to remove anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or another “safe third country”, without hearing their asylum claim.
In a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, the UNHCR said such legislation would “amount to an asylum ban … no matter how genuine and compelling” individual cases may be.
“The effect of the bill would be to deny protection to many asylum seekers in need of safety and protection, and even deny them the opportunity to put forward their case,” the agency added.
“This would be a clear breach of the Refugee Convention and would undermine a long-standing, humanitarian tradition of which the British people are rightly proud. We urge the government, and all MPs and peers, to reconsider the bill and instead pursue more humane and practical policy solutions.”

BBC News
The government’s proposed asylum law is “very concerning” and would block even those with a compelling claim, the United Nations refugee agency has said.
The UNHCR’s representative to the UK, Vicky Tennant, told the BBC the measure would break international law and was not needed to stop Channel crossings.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he is “up for the fight” to bring in the law and overcome any legal challenges.
Labour has said the plans risk “making the chaos worse”.

Telegraph
A Labour MP has claimed the Government’s illegal immigration crack down is fuelling “xenophobia and racism”, but the party is yet to say whether it will vote against the Bill.
Khalid Mahmood, a former shadow minister, alleged that the measures were simply designed to retain Tory support in the Red Wall.
He said: “Isn’t the truth this: this is purely to deal with the political agenda that she has, to try and get the Red Wall votes, Red Wall seats, but she’s trying to do that at the expense of xenophobia and racism, and that is not conducive to our constituents and the country.”
The Home Secretary hit back, telling him it was “irresponsible” to suggest that wanting to control our borders is “racist”.

Strikes

Mirror
A deal to settle the NHS industrial dispute for most workers could be reached by Thursday as intensive talks begin.
Sources told the Mirror there is optimism ministers can come up with a pay offer that unions are happy to take back to members by the end of three days of planned negotiations this week.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay and junior minister Will Quince head up the Government’s negotiating team which sat down with the NHS Staff Council from 11am today.
Unions are insisting “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” and have demanded that all involved refrain from leaking a “running commentary” of talks.
The unions now involved in talks are Unison, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, GMB, Unite, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Nursing.
The three days of talks could end with a new offer over improved pay for this year and next for the bulk of staff on the NHS’s main Agenda for Change contract.
If no agreement on a revised pay offer is reached, a decision will be made whether to continue negotiations next week.

ITV News
Planned strike action by thousands of rail workers has been suspended by the RMT union after it said it had received a new offer from the employer.
Members of the union at Network Rail had been due to walk out in the latest round of train strikes on Thursday, March 16, with a ban on overtime to follow.
RMT members are still slated to strike on March 16, 18 and 20, and April 1, at 14 train operators, represented by the Rail Delivery Group.
Plans for a Tube strike by London Underground workers on Wednesday, March 15 also remain unchanged.
In recent months, rail unions have been embroiled in a bitter dispute with the government over pay, conditions and jobs.

Sun
MICK Lynch has called off strikes across Network Rail after receiving a fresh offer from bosses.
Hopes of a breakthrough to months of industrial strife were raised as the RMT hardman blinked and suspended walkouts on the service.
His members had been due to strike on March 16 along with an overtime ban in the latest escalation of their pay row.
But a statement late last night said the RMT National Executive was pausing all strikes on Network Rail “following a receipt of a new offer from the employer”.
It said an update on the bitter dispute with ministers and rail bosses will be made in the coming days.
RMT workers are still due to strike on 14 operators represented by the Rail Delivery Group on March 16, 18, 30 and April 1.

Mirror
Thousands of firefighters will not go on strike after agreeing a new pay deal following months of deadlock.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) said members voted “overwhelmingly” to accept a pay settlement of 7% backdated to July 2022, plus an additional 5% from July 2023.
It said 96% of FBU members had voted to accept the deal on an 84% turnout.
In a statement, the union said: “The result makes the Fire and Rescue Service one of the only areas of the public sector to resolve its pay dispute without strike action.
“Collective bargaining was the key to this. Unlike workers in the NHS or teaching, pay is decided in direct negotiations rather than by a so-called ‘independent’ pay review body.”

Climate change

Guardian
Cabinet ministers have been warned by senior civil servants that they face court action because of their catastrophic failure to develop policies for tackling climate change, according to secret documents obtained by the Observer.
The leaked briefings from senior mandarins – marked “official sensitive” and dated 20 February this year – make clear the government as a whole is way behind in spelling out how it will reach its net zero targets and comply with legal duties to save the planet.
The restricted, highly sensitive documents are another severe embarrassment for Rishi Sunak, who originally planned to stay away from last November’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, but was shamed into attending after his predecessor but one, Boris Johnson, announced he was going.
Sunak then declared that acting to cut carbon emissions was a moral duty “because if we do not act today, we will risk leaving an ever more desperate inheritance for our children”.

Council tax

Mail
Most English councils plan to use maximum tax hikes alongside cuts in ‘desperate measures’ to avoid bankruptcy.
A report found that nine in ten local authorities will increase council tax, or hike charges on waste or parking.
The majority of councils surveyed will cut spending on services, while 1 in 12 said money troubles risked them going bankrupt.
The report, by the Local Government Information Unit, reveals how families struggling with the cost of living will bear the brunt.
Most councils said they will increase council tax by the largest permissible amount without a referendum – between 2.5 and 3 per cent – and almost every council providing social care will use powers to demand a further 2 per cent increase from April.
Taken together, households living in an average Band D home could face a hike of £98 from April to £2,064.

Covid

Telegraph
The Chief Medical Officer said a Covid vaccine could not be fast-tracked because the virus had a “low mortality rate” in the early days of the pandemic, messages reveal
Prof Sir Chris Whitty told Matt Hancock and others that diseases with a mortality rate in the range of one per cent would need a “very safe” vaccine and that the necessary clinical trials would be a “rate limiting step”.
He was responding to a WhatsApp message from Dominic Cummings, the then chief adviser to Boris Johnson, in February 2020 about a report saying Israeli scientists were weeks away from developing a vaccine.
How quickly vaccine trials could be completed was one of the most important arguments happening in Government during the first months of the pandemic.
Mr Cummings would later claim the Government could “definitely” have started vaccinating the population in September 2020 – three months before the first jabs were given – if it had adopted a bolder approach to vaccine trials.

Weight loss

BBC News
A weight loss jab that has gained popularity in the US has been approved for use by the NHS in England.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) concluded semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, is safe, effective and affordable.
Delivered via an injection into the skin, the drug makes people feel fuller and more satisfied, so they eat less.
Famous personalities such Elon Musk claim to have used it – with a “craze” allegedly developing in Hollywood.
Based on evidence from clinical trials, NICE says semaglutide could help people reduce their weight by over 10%, if implemented alongside nutrition and lifestyle changes.
It will be recommended for use by people with at least one weight-related health condition, as well as those who have a body mass index (BMI) which puts them near the top of the obese range.

Independent
A “game changer” weight loss injection said to be popular among celebrities is to be made available through the NHS in England for certain people living with obesity, health officials have announced.
Thousands are expected to be offered the appetite suppressant Wegovy on prescription after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) gave it the green light for NHS use.
Experts described the decision as a “pivotal moment” for the treatment of people living with obesity but others warned that the drug is not a “quick fix”.
A previous study found that people who are given the drug, which comes as a weekly injection, saw their weight drop by 12% on average after 68 weeks.
Nice has issued final guidance recommending semaglutide (also known as Wegovy and made by Novo Nordisk) for adults with at least one weight-related condition and a body mass index (BMI) score of at least 35.
The weight-related conditions that make obese people eligible include type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, high blood pressure, dyslipidaemia (unbalanced or unhealthy cholesterol levels), obstructive sleep apnoea and heart disease.
In some cases, people with a BMI of 30 and over may be able to access the drug, which is given via a pen injector.

Telegraph
Weight loss jabs will be offered to tens of thousands of people a year on the NHS as part of efforts to combat obesity.
Researchers described the drug semaglutide as “game-changing” after studies found that one-third of those put on the treatment lost a fifth of their body weight.
The drug, also known as Wegovy, works by taking over the body’s own appetite-regulating system in the brain, leading to reduced hunger and calorie intake, with experts saying it is able to achieve what was previously only possible through weight-loss surgery.
The recommendation from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence means the weekly jabs can be prescribed to around 35,000 people a year.
Those eligible for the drugs include those with a BMI of at least 35 and an obesity-related health problem, and some with a BMI of at least 30, where they meet the criteria for specialist treatment.

Mail
Tens of thousands of people will be helped to lose weight with a ‘game-changing’ drug in Britain’s battle against the bulge.
Watchdog NICE has given the green light to the weekly jab in what experts have hailed as a ‘pivotal moment’ in the fight against obesity.
Semaglutide – sold under the brand name Wegovy – works by hijacking the brain to suppress appetite and reduce calorie intake, resulting in substantial weight loss.
Trials found those on it lost around 12 per cent of their body weight – and slashed their chances of type 2 diabetes by more than half.
The drug, which costs £73 a month, has now been given the green light for use on the NHS.
It means patients could be referred for the DIY jabs instead of gastric band or other weight loss surgery, reducing the burden on hospitals and saving the NHS millions.

ITV News
A “game changer” weight loss injection said to be popular among celebrities is to be made available through the NHS in England for certain people living with obesity, health officials have announced.
Thousands are expected to be offered the appetite suppressant Wegovy on prescription after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) gave it the green light for NHS use.
Experts described the decision as a “pivotal moment” for the treatment of people living with obesity but others warned that the drug is not a “quick fix”.
A previous study found that people who are given the drug, which comes as a weekly injection, saw their weight drop by 12% on average after 68 weeks.
Nice has issued final guidance recommending semaglutide (also known as Wegovy and made by Novo Nordisk) for adults with at least one weight-related condition and a body mass index (BMI) score of at least 35.
BMI is calculated by dividing an adult’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters.

Energy

Telegraph
The race to develop cleaner energy has sent engineers in several directions: out to sea to plant wind turbines, to the desert to plant solar panels, and into the laboratory to try and develop nuclear fusion.
At an industrial site in Cornwall, however, they are looking in another direction: deep underground.
Private company Geothermal Engineering has drilled more than three miles underground near Redruth, tapping into water at temperatures of up to 180 degrees centigrade.
It plans to harness that heat to generate electricity for the national electricity grid and warmth for nearby homes.
It would be the first deep geothermal power plant in the UK, when up and running as planned in 2024.

‘Woman’

Express
NHS staff have demanded the health body brings back the word “woman” on its web pages about cancer and pregnancy. Over 1,000 staff have called for the “disrespectful” censorship of the word to end in an open letter to NHS chiefs. At least 19 female health pages on the NHS.uk website no longer use the word. These pages consist of guidance pages about female-only issues, including ovarian cancer and menopause.
Rather than using the word “woman”, the NHS uses phrases like “anyone with a cervix”, according to the staff.
The letter, seen by Express.co.uk, said: “We call for the reinstatement of sex-based, respectful communication that meets the healthcare needs of women.
“Specifically, the NHS must use women’s words for women’s bodies and women’s health problems.