laboratory during a search. in the next hour: the legal victory for the self employed plumber which could affect thousands of workers. a firm of london plumbers loses its legal battle over whether to give freelance workers the same employment rights as full time staff. and, first it was beyonce and jay z, now the clooneys celebrate as well, as george and amal announce they re expecting twins. good afternoon, and welcome to bbc news. the health secretaryjeremy hunt says it s completely unacceptable that some patients in england are waiting up to 13 hours in a&e. figures show that waiting times in casualty units are worse than at any time in the last decade. mr hunt says he does have an improvement plan, but admits it will take time, and says there s no silver bullet. our health editor hugh pym reports. nhs england figures this winter show the worst waiting time performance since records began more than a decade ago. jeremy hunt paid tribute to the work of staff, but said tha
it ruins you. you don t. you re not a person any more, you just exist. three years ago, the prison was privatised. french company sodexo won the 15 year contract, promising the government it could save £130 million. when the initial shock of the privatisation came out, the staff were shocked that it had happened but then we thought well maybe it could be a good thing we might see a big change. you train as part of a team. jim reid was a dog handler and prison officer with more than 20 years experience. his optimism didn t last long. they got rid of 96 uniform staff over 200 in total. i myself was part of a dog team erm, and we were told, ‘you re gone . since 2011, around half a billion pounds has been taken from the prison budget in england and wales. as the prisoner population was rising, more than 6,000 officers were lost. jim reid took redundancy but colleagues who stayed at northumberland say they re overwhelmed. i ve seen experienced staff crying in the main street
and coming up in sportsday on bbc news a five match ban. bournemouth defender tyrone mings is given his punishment for stamping on zlatan ibrahimovic. good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. the chancellor has delivered his last spring budget and announced a few surprises, if no eye catching giveaways. the overall economic picture is little changed, giving him limited room to manoeuvre. but philip hammond told a packed house of commons he had managed to find an extra £2 billion for social care in england to be spent over the next three years. a more controversial pledge was his decision to increase national insurance contributions for almost 2.5 million people despite a conservative manifesto promise that national insurance wouldn t go up. mr hammond also tackled criticism of the government s plans to increase business rates in england and wales by promising an emergency relief fund for those businesses hit hardest and by capping the increase for most pubs. th
about the budget in ask this. in other news, suffolk police say they re confident they will find the body of a missing raf airman at a landfill site. he has been missing since last september. the mother of corrie mckeague says it s only a matter of time before her son is found. and the documents released by wikileaks that appear to reveal the cia s attempts to use household gadgets to eavesdrop on people s conversations. good evening and welcome to bbc news. the chancellor has delivered his last spring budget and announced a few surprises, if no eye catching giveaways. the overall economic picture is little changed, giving him limited room to manoeuvre. but philip hammond told a packed house of commons he had managed to find an extra £2 billion for social care in england, to be spent over the next three years. more controversial pledge was his decision to increase national insurance contributions for almost 2.5 million people despite a conservative manifesto promise that n