LONDON (Reuters) – The family of James Hanratty, one of the last men hanged in Britain, plan a fresh bid to overturn his 1962 conviction for a notorious roadside murder and rape.

Doubts about Hanratty’s conviction arose soon after his execution and played a significant role in Britain’s abolition of the death penalty three years later.

LONDON (Reuters) – The coalition on Wednesday gave a Liberal Democrat MP who refused to back its plans to raise student fees the job of encouraging young people to keep applying for university despite the higher costs.

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Simon Hughes abstained during a fraught vote earlier this month to allow universities to nearly triple tuition fees to as much as 9,000 pounds, while violent protests erupted outside parliament.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said on Monday it would reinstate a temporary cap on migrant workers from outside the European Union after it had fixed technical problems that led to a court declaring it illegal.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said the government would also be closing entry to skilled workers without a job offer from outside the EU as their quota of 5,400 visas was full.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government published its preferred route for a high-speed rail line between London and Birmingham on Monday, saying it had made alterations to half of the route to meet concerns of residents and conservation groups.

The line, costing 30 billion pounds and originally announced by the previous Labour government, will cut travel times between the capital and Birmingham to under 50 minutes from 90 minutes now.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said Monday it would reinstate a temporary cap on migrant workers from outside the European Union after it had fixed technical problems that led to a court declaring it illegal.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said the government would also be closing entry to skilled workers without a job offer from outside the EU as their quota of 5,400 visas was full.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government staged a partial retreat on the scrapping of 162 million pounds of annual school sports funding on Monday after a wave of protests from teachers, pupils and Olympic athletes like diver Tom Daley and heptathlete Denise Lewis.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said schools would instead be given 65 million pounds to cover two years of additional sports teaching after existing funding ends in the summer.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government said on Friday it will scrap a 19-minute target for ambulances to reach non life threatening cases and replace it with measures checking the quality of care provided.

But the existing 8-minute target for life-threatening emergency cases will remain.

LONDON (Reuters) – Child poverty will increase over the next four years and the coalition’s policies will make the situation worse, a leading economic think tank said on Thursday.

The government rejected the findings in a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but the Labour party said the conclusions contradicted government promises that child poverty would not rise.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government will end child detention at immigrant removal centres, fulfilling an election pledge made by the Liberal Democrats, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said on Thursday.

The announcement is a welcome bonus for Clegg’s party as it emerges from a political storm over the breaking of its campaign promise not to raise student fees.

LONDON (Reuters) – The coalition will slow the pace of reforms to the National Health Service after concerns from doctors and patient groups over the scale and speed of the changes, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said on Wednesday.

Under the plans, outlined in the summer, local and regional health authorities will be abolished, with their responsibility for planning and budgeting 80 billion pounds a year of hospital and specialist care transferred to family doctors.