News

Young unemployed people are under severe stress leading to many feeling suicidal, a survey has found.

Charity The Prince's Trust commissioned YouGOV to find out how those aged under-25 feel about being out of work, with more than 900,000 still not in employment, education or training.

40% of youngsters have experienced the symptoms of mental illness, while even more shockingly one in three of the long-term unemployed have thought about suicide as a way out of their plight.

A committee of MPs has called for the government's hated bedroom tax to be scrapped.

The Scottish Affairs Committee, which deals in Westminster with issues north of the border, includes MPs of all parties, although Tory and Liberal Democrat members did not support the report.

Its chairman, Labour MP Ian Davidson, called the tax a "cruel burden" on the poor.

He said:

A big rise in the number of green jobs in the UK economy is likely by 2020, according to a new report.

Global Action Plan (GAP) used government figures to estimate the number of new environmental jobs as well as talking to some big companies including Sainsbury's, Siemens and Bosch about their future work opportunities.

While expansion in higher-profile areas like wind farms and solar panels will continue, the next seven years will see green jobs move into the mainstream and they will be based everywhere.

Phone calls on rent arrears are the most common received by the government's Money Advice (MA) service, and 37% more people have contacted them for this reason over the last year.

But the BBC's reporting of this makes no mention of the likely main cause - the government's hated bedroom tax.