UK News: Banks to slash bonus payouts by £3 billion

Britain's biggest banks were said today to be in talks about reducing the multi-billion pound staff bonus pot.

Negotiations about cuts to around 7 billion of payouts were being steered by the British Bankers Association.

One source said public anger about the bonus pool could see it slashed to 4bn.

Call to privatise services

Ministers were urged today to privatise vast swathes of the public sector, including libraries, schools, hospitals, prisons and police stations.

Centre-right think-tank ResPublica backed a radical extension of Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy policy to cover community assets and services.

Peers threaten voting system reform plans

A VOTE by peers later today could threaten government plans for a referendum on the voting system next year.

Critics claim the bill covering the move has not been properly drawn up and should be referred to a House of Lords committee so interested parties can appeal.

That could delay the legislation and jeopardise the May 5 referendum date as well as plans for new constituency boundaries cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600 to be in place by 2013.

Third face bleak future

A THIRD of workers approaching retirement do not have any pensions savings, research indicated today.

Just one in four people over 50 said they felt financially ready for retirement, while 64 per cent said they either did not know how much money they would have when they gave up work, or did not think they would have enough.

Women were most likely not to have adequate savings.

Freed duo welcomed home

Friends and family of Paul and Rachel Chandler, freed 13 months after being kidnapped by Somali pirates, were today preparing to welcome them home.

The couple, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, were released after payment of a ransom around 620,000.

Birmingham: Police who found more than 1 million in cash in an attic have been told by magistrates they can keep the money. Officers made the discovery at a semi-detached house in the Stechford area as part of an investigation into drug-dealing activity. An industry-sized cash-counting machine was also found.

London: The government has spent 2.7m cleaning up toxic and radioactive waste on part of the Olympic site, the Olympic Delivery Authority confirmed. The contamination, on the banks of the River Lea in east London, was discovered when the site's previous owners left in 2006.