of january. live across the 13th of january. live across the uk this is britain's newsroom with andrew pierce and bev turner gets britain growing. >> the prime minister has shrugged off market turmoil. he's unveiling his i action plan this morning in a bid to lure the investment we desperately need. we're going to be taking this speech live just after 11 and telling you exactly what we think of it. >> britain's grooming gangs. the row continues. a whistleblower makes shocking new claims at the first inquiry was a cover up and the covid vaccine compensation scheme. >> the health secretary is now looking at changing the law regarding compensation for people harmed by the covid vaccines, with concerns that it doesn't offer enough support. >> and is there a climate of fear in whitehall? civil servants will no longer be labelled transphobic if they express gender critical beliefs. that's under new guidelines. >> and is it time to sack tulip siddiq? pressure is mounting on sir keir starmer to sack the

treasury minister after calls for a corruption investigation into her london properties and her associations with her aunt . her associations with her aunt. >> and more reasons to shop at morrisons, the supermarket morri sons, the supermarket chain, morrisons, the supermarket chain, yes, are the latest to back farmers in their protest against the government over those changes to inheritance tax. >> and also this morning, the rj foundation, we're going to be speaking to the founder of this charity, which works to raise awareness and funds for more accessible defibrillators across the uk. after one mum or two parents actually tragically lost their son jamie, to cardiac arrest in 2022. we're going to be talking to them. a busy morning between now and midday. keep your comments and thoughts coming to us gbnews.com/yoursay. here's the news though, with tatiana.

>> bev turner. thank you. the top stories the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has been blasted as a cover up by rochdale whistleblower maggie oliver. the former detective constable, who resigned from greater manchester police over the way they treated vulnerable grooming gang victims in rochdale, told gb news that the inquiry chose to prioritise the voices of officials over survivors, while labour mp dan carden has become the latest mp to break ranks with the prime minister to call for a grooming gangs inquiry. he's urging the prime minister to use the full power of the state to deliver justice. a government spokesperson from the home office issued the following statement. no child should ever suffer sexual abuse or exploitation, and it's paramount that we do more to protect vulnerable children, which is why we are working at pace, they say across government to drive

forward real action. in other news, the government will mainline ai into the veins of the uk, with plans being unveiled today by sir keir starmer. the prime minister is set to promise investment, jobs and economic growth due to a boom in the sector. it comes as his government battles against allegations they are mismanaging the economy. the government's announcement claims that if ai is fully embraced, it could bnng is fully embraced, it could bring £47 billion to the economy every year. and it says that £14 billion is set to be invested by the private sector, bringing around 13,000 jobs. the majority of those would be construction roles to build new data centres. now at least 24 people have been killed and thousands evacuated as fires rage on in california. the la county medical examiner also said at least another 16 people remain missing. fierce winds are forecast to continue for the coming days, further fuelling the fires. the largest

inferno is currently just 13% contained . more than 100,000 contained. more than 100,000 people are under evacuation orders. the fires are on track to become among the costliest in us history. meanwhile, us president elect donald trump has called politicians in california incompetent over their handling of the fires and back home. temperatures are set to rise to double figures today as the country's bitter cold snap comes to an end. as temperatures move above zero degrees, ice and snow will begin to melt, with localised flooding possible. more than 30 flood alerts are in place across england and scotland. much of england and wales will be between —1 and 3 degrees overnight, which is not as cold as recent nights, according to the met office. those are the latest gb news headlines. for now, it's back to andrew and bev for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts.

>> very good morning britain's newsroom with andrew and bev. thank you for joining newsroom with andrew and bev. thank you forjoining us newsroom with andrew and bev. thank you for joining us this morning. we are here until midday. >> we certainly are well. health secretary wes streeting he's looking at changes to the law on compensation for those people who suffered pretty serious harms by those covid vaccines. >> so wes streeting has tasked officials to look into reforming the options, possibly including legislative changes, following criticism of the scheme's limited payouts and tough qualification criteria. >> let's talk now to the co—founder of the scottish vaccine injury group, ruth o'rafferty. ruth, morning to you. well, this will be welcome news for you that the secretary of state appears to be moving forward. can you explain to people listening and watching? perhaps you aren't aware of what sort of injuries have people suffered and how debilitating have they been?

>> they've been very severe. we have group members who can work, but the majority of our group members can't. i did a survey just a couple of weeks ago, and the largest percentage of the people in our group class themselves, around 20% of capacity. so that means that they rarely can leave the house. they can't perform normal daily tasks. their concentration span is very short, so they're maybe be able to spend an hour a day doing something that involves their cognitive faculties. so people are severely affected by this. >> can you explain, ruth, exactly how it affects them? what what what medical impact has this vaccine had on their system? >> well, we have a range of adverse reactions. it depends on what vaccine people had. we have things like cardiological events. we even have people in heart failure because it hasn't

been diagnosed soon enough. myocarditis, pericarditis, strokes. but there's an awful lot of neurological damage done as well. and that's something that we really fighting for, for recognition for because the vaccine damage payment scheme don't recognise a lot of the neurological conditions that our group members have. and we think it's it can't be coincidental that they all followed the same trajectory, the same timeline, the same symptomology, and we just can't get anyone to acknowledge the neurological deficits that we have. what's very interesting is that brian drezen from america, the founder of react 19, she was involved in a study with the nih who studied vaccine injured people, and she had a diagnosis of vaccine induced neuropathy. but that's not even something that the vdps scheme recognise. >> what kind of hurdles have you come up against ruth, in your

journey to try and support people who are vaccine injured, and how many do you have in your group in scotland alone at the moment? >> well, at the moment we just it's not a very large group. we have just approaching 750 people. i know that that's a tiny percentage of the people who are vaccine injured in scotland. if you look at the yellow card scheme data, the government, the uk government acknowledges that between 1 and 10% of people actually report adverse reactions. and in the uk, we're approaching half a million reports, half a million reports and that that's the yellow card reporting scheme. >> so that is for any medicine. and we've had that for decades. if you had a medicine and you had an adverse response, your doctor would say, go on to the yellow card reporting scheme and tell us what happened. but those numbers went through the roof dunng numbers went through the roof during the pandemic. >> yes. so these figures are actually for the covid vaccines. and i went in excuse the noise in the background there. i've got a sheet of paper here. i went in just two days ago to extract all the data from the yellow card scheme for the covid

vaccines, and there are individuals, individual people, 486,634 people have reported an adverse reaction. that was up to may 2024. there's been no updates on their system since then, so i can't tell you the up to date data. out of those 486, 634 reports from individuals, 362, 606, 362,600 and i'm getting my. i'm sorry. >> don't worry, ruth, just just quickly then. so you you six. >> six. two. so that's a large number of people with serious adverse reactions. so that's life changing adverse reactions. >> what do you want the secretary of state who says the law may be changed. what does the law. how does the law have

the law. how does the l