Newspaper headlines: 'Sick note UK' and 'Bird flu spreads to humans'
- Published
The Guardian reports that asylum seekers will lose basic housing protections under new proposals to move tens of thousands of people out of hotels and into the private rented sector.
The paper says ministers want to exempt asylum seekers' landlords from rules, including minimum room sizes - causing "alarm" among healthcare workers and migration campaigners. A government spokesperson said standards of care would not be compromised, but that the use of expensive hotels must end.
Rishi Sunak's speech to the Council of Europe in Iceland is the main story for the Daily Express, which carries the headline: "You must let us deport illegal immigrants". The paper says the prime minister told judges at the European Court of Human Rights that it was time to stop "meddling" in Britain's plans to fly illegal migrants to Rwanda, adding that they must start being "fair and transparent" after what the Express calls "secret late-night court rulings" that left deportation flights grounded in the UK.
According to the Times, the prime minister is facing the prospect of three by-elections, after being advised that Conservative MPs, nominated by Boris Johnson for peerages, will have to stand down from the Commons - before the next general election - if they want to join the Lords. The paper reports that of those nominated by the former prime minister, Nadine Dorries, Nigel Adams and Alok Sharma are said to be prepared to give up being MPs, which could see the Tories lose seats in by-elections. But a source close to Mr Sharma tells the Times that it is a "totally hypothetical question".
The Daily Mirror highlights remarks by former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, who told the BBC that people who can't afford basic food items should do without. She was responding to a question about the cost of making a cheese sandwich at home, which has jumped by around a third in the past year. "Can't afford a sandwich? Hard cheese," reads the paper's headline.
The Daily Mirror pictures a Palestinian man, arm-in-arm with the rabbi husband of a British Jewish woman, killed in a terror attack in the occupied West Bank last month. Abu Radia met Lucy Dee's husband, Leo, to thank him after his life was saved when one of her kidneys was donated to him. The paper says the 38-year-old carpenter also gave Rabbi Dee a framed blessing with the message: "If you save one life, it's as if you've saved the world." Rabbi Dee tells the Mirror that his wife would have wanted her kidney to be "a sign of peace and reconciliation".