unpaid work from five o clock today unless ordered to do so, amid a pay dispute. xijinping defends china s model of ruling hong kong during a visit to mark 25 years since britain handed over control but the territory s final governor, chris patten, labels the comments absurd . cheering in sport, britain s heather watson is through to the last 16 of wimbledon after beating kaja juvan in straight sets. and coming up on the film review later, if you want some comedy the minions are back. find out why marco made loves them so much. that s coming up at 5:45pm mark kermode. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news. downing street has insisted that boris johnson was not aware of specific allegations against chris pincher before he appointed him as the conservative party s deputy chief whip. the prime minister is also facing calls to suspend the mp who s alleged to have groped two men. chris pincher resigned as deputy chief whip after admitting he had drunk far too much a
his comments come ahead of tonight s penultimate conservative hustings with rishi sunak and liz truss facing tory votes in norwich. gcse results are out today for pupils in england, wales and northern ireland the pass rate is down on last year but higher than it was before the pandemic. good afternoon. pressure is growing on the government to help households and businesses cope with soaring energy costs. a think tank has called for a universal 30% cut in bills and businesses want covid style emergency grants to help companies that are struggling. the upper limit of what suppliers can charge per unit of energy in england, scotland and wales the energy price cap is set to be announced tomorrow. less than a year ago, a typical annual home energy bill was about £1,200, it s now about £2,000 and it s forecast tomorrow to reach £3,500 per year, payable from this october. there are further increases expected in january. back in may, the government promised a £15 billion support
of grain from occupied areas of ukraine as some countries grapple with shortages. one woman has died and a man is in hospital with life threatening injuries following a gas explosion that destroyed a house in birmingham and damaged at least three others. former prime minister sirjohn major is giving evidence at a public inquiry looking into how thousands of people were infected with hiv or hepatitis c through contaminated blood in the 70s and 80s. suffered incredibly bad luck. and in sport we ll be live at wimbledon as the first day of the tournament is under way. novak djokovic is on centre court now and he ll be followed by emma raducanu. and then andy murray. welcome to the programme. good afternoon and welcome. the leaders of the g7 group of nations have promised they will stand with ukraine for as long as it takes as they announced they would step up sanctions on russia. president zelenskyjoined the summit remotely, and told the leaders he needed more weapons and air