Newspaper headlines: 'Hospitals at home' plan and 'asylum hotel racism'

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By BBC News
Staff
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Support for Conservative Party chair Nadhim Zahawi among cabinet colleagues is said to be waning

A variety of stories lead Sunday's papers. The Observer reports that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was warned of a reputational risk to the government when he appointed Nadhim Zahawi as Conservative Party Chairman last October.

Sources have told the paper that senior government officials gave Mr Sunak informal advice when he was drawing up his Cabinet and raised the HMRC investigation into Mr Zahawi's tax affairs. It's claimed Mr Sunak was told that the tax issue involved a significant sum of money and was "not a trivial accounting error." Number Ten has strongly denied that the prime minister was given any warning - formal or informal - about Mr Zahawi's finances.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, support for Mr Zahawi among senior Tories is "rapidly draining away". One unnamed cabinet colleague is calling for him to resign, telling the paper "I think he's got to go". Another former Cabinet minister is quoted saying it's crucial he steps down and that, given he's not volunteering to leave, he "ought to be told". Mr Zahawi has insisted he acted properly.

The Sunday Times leads on an interview with Housing Secretary Michael Gove, who tells the paper that government guidance on building materials was partly to blame for the Grenfell Tower disaster. The paper says it's the first such concession by a minister. Mr Gove also says "unscrupulous" cladding firms were able to exploit a "broken system."

An analysis of official figures by the Independent reveals that, on average, a person is killed every three days by an offender out of prison on probation in England and Wales. Over the six years to 2020, the paper says there were more than 600 reviews of alleged murders by reoffenders. The probation officers' union has requested a meeting with the Ministry of Justice, which says it has increased recruitment and invested more money in the service.

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Star-gazing could soon be a thing of the past because of the prevalence of satellites, scientists have warned

The Observer reports the claims of a whistleblower who worked at a Home Office-run hotel in Brighton which housed people seeking asylum in the UK. The source tells the paper that unaccompanied children at the hotel were regularly threatened with violence and subjected to racist abuse by staff. The whistleblower describes hearing staff threaten to throw children out of windows and making jokes about them going missing. The Home Office says it has not received any complaints in relation to the claims and that "robust safeguards" are in place to ensure that children are safe.

The Sunday Express says the government is on a "collision course" with civil servants over plans to end the right of anyone who enters the UK illegally to claim asylum. The paper says Mr Sunak wants to "tear up the rule book" to end the current spate of Channel crossings but that "Whitehall insiders have vowed to torpedo the plan".

A four-fold increase in the number of satellites orbiting the earth since 2019 is threatening to change the night sky forever, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph. Quoting experts from the Royal Astronomical Society, the paper says "space junk" could block out the stars within a decade. Some 400,000 satellites have been approved globally, with Elon Musk's SpaceX poised to launch another 44,000 in the coming years.