the prime minister is expected to give the go ahead to financial support for firms struggling with the soaring cost of energy. the number of vacancies in the uk hits a record high as the jobs market continues to recover from the pandemic. efforts to recruit young black people are failing to have an impact on racial injustice at work, according to a new report. good afternoon. one of the most important public health failures in uk history that s the damning verdict of mps on the government s early response to the pandemic. a joint report by two commons committees says both ministers and scientists waited too long to lock down last year,
obviously, any support is helpful. but we are just at a point where businesses are starting to pay back covid loans, they have got really depleted resources from covid, and loans really are not the right way to go, they absolutely need grant support and measures like reducing vat and green levies on fuel. labour says the government should have seen this crisis coming. this problem has been a long time coming. for years, the government has been warned about this energy crisis. they haven t planned, they have not got a plan now to respond. any relief will be welcome for businesses at this acute phase of the crisis. but if energy costs don t come down soon, there is only one way they will be able to live with it, and that is bypassing those costs onto their customers, and ultimately that means us. ben king, bbc news. the headlines on bbc news. a damning report from mps who call
throughout, we protected the nhs from the surge of pressure that we saw in other countries such as italy. as you say, we got the vaccine deployed extremely quickly. but also, what we know about the pandemic now is very different to what the level of knowledge was at the start. labour, though, said the report showed monumental errors had been made. this was one of the worst public health failures in the uk. that is a damning indictment. and my thoughts are with the families who have lost people because of these failures by the government. the last year has seen the country come together in support of the nhs. this report is just the first study of its kind to look back at what mps call the biggest health crisis of the last century. next spring, a full, public inquiry will examine in detail what lessons should be learned from the pandemic. jim reed, bbc news. our political correspondent
we have outlined some of the problems but what are the particular barriers that you find people face? there are quite a few. as the report highlighted, a lot of black students come from diverse areas and they find themselves in a workplace that doesn t look like them and nobody understands the challenges they face because they are feeling like somebody who doesn t really belong. then within that there is people undermining them because there is nobody else that looks like them in the organisation solely already think they might not be good enough for the role or they have to micromanage them even though that s not the case. a lot of black students or professionals have to outperform or over perform to be seen but would least feel like they
pete saulljoins us now from westminster. many people say they now need much more detail, this isjust a preliminary report. more detail, this is ust a preliminary reporth more detail, this is ust a preliminary report. this report is 150 “aes preliminary report. this report is 150 pages long. preliminary report. this report is 150 pages long, the preliminary report. this report is 150 pages long, the first - preliminary report. this report is 150 pages long, the first bit - preliminary report. this report is 150 pages long, the first bit of i 150 pages long, the first bit of detailed analysis we have had it since the pandemic and the two committees of mps heard a lot of evidence over recent months, some of the seniorfigures at evidence over recent months, some of the senior figures at the heart of the senior figures at the heart of the decision making process for the government, the most famous session was with the former top adviser, dominic cummings, perhaps, in which he really