The four Welsh police forces are set to see their budgets cut by 0.6%, after plans for bigger cuts were shelved.

The Home Office confirmed on Thursday that all forces across England and Wales faced the same cut in 2016/17.

Police chiefs were alarmed at being asked to draw up plans for cuts of 25% and 40% in the run up to the chancellor's Autumn Statement.

However, George Osborne decided to protect police funding, saying "now is not the time" for it to be cut.

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Scotland's Finance Secretary John Swinney has defended his budget decision to cut local government revenues by 3.5% for 2016/17.

He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that in England councils had faced reductions of about 27%.

But local government body Cosla said the cuts were "totally unacceptable".

Mr Swinney's budget, delivered on Wednesday, pledged no change to income tax and a continued council tax freeze.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has used crude language in a furious new attack on Turkey over the downing of a Russian combat jet last month.

He was giving his annual news conference, a marathon event which at three hours and seven minutes, was only three minutes shorter than last year's.

"The Turks", he said, had "decided to lick the Americans in a certain place".

There was, he said, a "creeping Islamisation of Turkey that would have Ataturk rolling in his grave".

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Dominic Casciani
Home Affairs Correspondent

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Membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood is a "possible indicator of extremism" but it will not be banned, the prime minister has said.

A long-delayed review of the international Islamist network found parts of it had an "ambiguous relationship with violent extremism".

David Cameron told MPs the group's activities would be kept under review.

Its members in the UK have always argued that they are non-violent and respect British laws.

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The Daily Politics

The Home Office's £1bn e-borders scheme - seen by many as a costly disaster - has in fact delivered most of its aims, the woman who ran it told MPs.

Lin Homer said it had provided "12 years of continuous improvements" to border security even if progress had been "slower" than she had wanted.

She denied claims by MPs that 80% of the money spent on it was wasted.

Ms Homer, who is now boss of HM Revenue and Customs, was giving evidence to the public accounts committee.

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As David Cameron prepares to meet his EU counterparts in Brussels later for further talks on the UK's EU reform aims, here's a timeline showing how events have been unfolding and what is to come, ahead of the planned in-out referendum.

Labour has accused the government of "bypassing scrutiny" over unexpected deaths at Southern Healthcare NHS Trust.

A report into the deaths of mental health and learning disability patients is due to be published later, hours before MPs leave Westminster for the Christmas recess.

It leaves MPs without time to table an urgent question or to press the health secretary on the report's findings.

Luciana Berger described the move as "appalling", adding: "Ministers must be held to account for what is going wrong."

In a written statement laid before MPs this morning, Heath Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the Mazars report into Southern Healthcare criticised a lack of leadership and focus and found "there had been no effective, systematic management and oversight of the reporting of deaths and the investigations that follow". The full report is expected to be published at 2pm.  

The government will introduce clean air zones in five UK cities to improve air quality and meet legal limits.

Vehicles that are considered to cause pollution such as older diesel models will be restricted from entering city centres in Birmingham, Leeds, Southampton, Nottingham and Derby by 2020. This impact buses, coaches, taxis and lorries but newer vehicles that meet the latest emission standards, and private cars, will be unaffected.

Liz Truss, environment secretary said: "These Zones will reduce the pollution in city centres and encourage the replacement of old, polluting vehicles with modern, cleaner vehicles. Similar zones in Germany and Denmark have been shown to improve air quality."

In a nod to the Volkswagen scandal, Ms Truss said there was agreement in the EU to introduce "more stringent emissions testing" to ensure "vehicles like up to their low emission credentials".

"One of the main reasons our cities continue to face air quality problems is the failure of diesel vehicles to deliver expected emission reductions in real world driving conditions."

The Daily Politics

Unison has faced a "challenging" few months, Dave Prentis has said as he was re-elected for a further five years as general secretary.

Mr Prentis called on the union to "come together" after beating rival candidate Heather Wakefield and two candidates backed by the Socialist Worker Party.

The leader of Britain's biggest public sector union recently criticised Jeremy Corbyn - who he had backed for the Labour leadership - demanding the party "get its act together".

He also faced claims that paid union officials were working to fix the election in his favour.

But after being re-elected with 66,155 votes - more than 30,000 ahead of his nearest rival - Mr Prentis said: 

Jeremy Hunt, health secretary, has announced the Care Quality Commission will be inspecting the Southern Health Trust. 

The trust reportedly "failed to investigate" deaths. Mr Hunt said the report will be released later today by NHS England. 

He said the government were "determined" to learn the lessons of this report. He said the report will say there was "a lack of leadership, focus and sufficient time spent in the trust on carefully reporting and investigating unexpected deaths of mental health and learning disability service users. The report found that there had been no effective, systematic management and oversight of the reporting of deaths and the investigations that follow."

Unison has re-elected Dave Prentis as general secretary, although the number of votes he received was down 18% since his last election in 2012.

Heather Wakefield came in second and was viewed as the 'Corbyn candidate'.

The results were:

• Dave Prentis 66,155
• Heather Wakefield 35,433
• Roger Bannister 16,853
• John Burgess 15,573

Mr Prentis said he was "honoured" to be re-elected but warned of a difficult time ahead. He said:

Leaving the European Union would lead to a rise in EU import costs of £11 billion, according to a group advocating that the UK stays within the union.

Britain Stronger in Europe said British businesses and families would be directly hit financially, external with an estimated cost of £176 per person.

Lord Rose, who is chair of Britain Stronger in Europe said the extra costs "would fall squarely on the shoulders of British businesses and be passed on directly to British families through higher prices at the shops".

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Subsidies for small scale solar electricity panels on homes are to be cut, the government has announced, although by less than previously suggested.

The subsidies will be cut by 64%, although this is less than the previous proposal of an 87% reduction.

The cuts have been softened following a storm of criticism.

The government says large-scale solar farms are cost-competitive, but the sector says it is being forced to stand on its own feet before it is ready.

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