Fresh travel chaos emerged today as ministers admitted emergency passport extensions are not accepted in dozens of holiday hotspots. Nearly three quarters of countries will not accept passports given 12-month extensions under plans to alleviate the crisis. Popular travel destinations including Australia, China, India and Brazil are excluded from the list. The USA, Cyprus and Turkey – which were last year on the list of the seven most popular overseas holiday destinations for Britons – are also not allowing the passports. It’s another hugely embarrassing blow for Home Secretary Theresa May who last week announced that expat Britons who need to renew their passports would be given one-year extensions. The emergency move was supposed to ease the pressure of the recent surge in demand for the documents that has seen up to 55,000 people at risk of missing their holidays. But now the government has admitted only 50 countries have confirmed they will accept the extended passports.

New figures from the helpline of the housing and homelessness charity Shelter show a massive rise in calls from renters at risk of losing their homes. Shelter have called for better protection for renters as the research shows that these calls have more than doubled in the past two years. Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive, said that the figures were ‘yet more evidence of the shocking reality that renters across the country are facing every day’. With recent research showing that more than 213,000 people have faced eviction in the past year after asking their private landlord for repairs, he says it is time to act. 'Calls to our helpline from renters are soaring and revenge evictions are becoming all too common.  Private renting is close to crisis point: this can’t go on. The government has to protect England’s nine million renters from unfair evictions’, he said.

A major research project will reveal the scope of families work in the majority of UK Churches. Exploring the Family Ministry Landscape is thought to be the first project of its kind in the UK and will look at what churches are doing to support families, as well as the range of training and resources that are already available. ‘Families come in all shapes and sizes, and society's understanding of what 'family' means has changed over the years,’ said Gail Adcock, Families Ministries Development Officer. ‘Family matters,’ added the Rt Revd Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham, ‘whether it's a single parent family, blended families, immigrant families or everything in between. The Church has a duty to support people in their relationships and in the challenges they face. We haven't got it all figured out just yet - and I hope this project will help us learn and grow as a community of faith for whom family matters.’

The number of abortions has risen to more than 8 million in Great Britain since the practice was legalised, according to the latest Department of Health statistics for 2013. MPs have criticised the way abortion is increasingly used as a form of ‘contraception’, as the new figures also show more than a third, 37 per cent, of abortions for resident women were repeat abortions. In total, there were 190,800 abortions in England and Wales last year. In 2012, 33 women were found to have had at least their ninth abortion, compared to 49 last year. Responding to the statistics, Labour MP Jim Dobbin said: ‘Why, in a country which apparently abhors abortion being used as a method of contraception, do the figures for repeat abortions keep rising? The UK is a rogue state when it comes to abortion. Our abortion time limit is double that of nearly every other member of the EU.’

A scientific panel has said that controversial techniques to create three- and four-parent babies are not ‘unsafe’, but further tests need to be completed. Professor Andy Greenfield, who chaired the panel, said safety was ‘not a straightforward issue’. If Westminster approves the techniques, the UK will become the only country in the world to legalise the creation of three- or four-parent embryos. Fiona Bruce MP said: “The international community is wholly against these techniques. The UK would be setting a very dangerous precedent in adopting them and isolating itself from the rest of the world. Lord Alton of Liverpool said: ‘Given the safety concerns which have been raised, the unresolved ethical questions, and a practice which runs contrary to international consensus, it would be prudent for the UK to wait at least until these issues have been resolved before being stampeded into a decision which has such far-reaching consequences.’

Cancer patients' chances of survival could be put at risk by growing delays in the NHS carrying out tests that can diagnose the disease, experts have warned. The number of patients in England waiting longer than the recommended six weeks for investigations such as MRI and CT scans has doubled in a year. In April, the figure reached 16,981 - or 2.2% of all the patients waiting for such tests. Macmillan Cancer Support called the delays ‘worrying’ and said each hospital has a responsibility to meet the targets. But, it added, ‘this Government and the next one also need to take responsibility’. The charity's chief executive Ciaran Devane said: ‘It is extremely worrying that the proportion of people who face delays in receiving vital tests which can diagnose cancer has doubled since this time last year. Only two weeks ago we heard that more people are waiting longer to start treatment and now more people are waiting longer just to get diagnosed.’

The UK has today brought into effect a law which marks forced marriage as a criminal offence. New legislation means that anyone found guilty of forcing another person into marriage in England and Wales faces a prison sentence of up to seven years, and the law also applies to British nationals forced into marriages without their consent abroad. A proposed change in law was first announced in 2012, when Prime Minister David Cameron declared: ‘Forced marriage is abhorrent and little more than slavery. To force anyone into marriage against their will is simply wrong.’ He continued: ‘I want to send a clear and strong message: forced marriage is wrong, illegal and will not be tolerated’. Home Secretary Theresa May, who has condemned forced marriage as ‘a tragedy for each and every victim’, has now welcomed the new legislation, saying the UK is at the forefront of the campaign to end the practice, which is particularly prevalent in South Asian cultures.

The Scottish NHS has written to parents saying that all future correspondence and medical reports about their children will be shared, without their consent, with a ‘Named Person’ appointed by the State to oversee their children’s interests, reports Christian Concern for our Nation. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill has been described as ‘sinister’ for introducing a 'Named Person' scheme to take effect in 2016, which it is claimed will potentially criminalise good parents and undermines the family. The Archbishop Cranmer blog makes the accusation and says SMPs have ‘effectively passed a bill which nullifies parental rights and endows the state with higher baby-sitting authority’ than parents.'

The Birmingham academy trust at the centre of the so-called 'Trojan Horse' allegations was accused of running schools that took the Islamic focus too far. A highly-critical report found a classroom culture which was not welcoming to non-Muslim pupils. It described a ‘madrassa curriculum’ in personal, social, health and economic lessons, and ‘posters written in Quranic Arabic in most of the classrooms visited’. Loudspeakers were used to broadcast the call to prayer and there were posters in classrooms encouraging children to begin lessons with a Muslim prayer. There were also claims of an inappropriate external speaker being brought in to talk to pupils. In RE lessons, the few pupils taking a Christian unit in the GCSE course, rather than the Islamic Studies paper, had to ‘teach themselves’ because the teacher had to concentrate on what the majority were studying. As far back as 2010 the Department for Education was warned that Muslim hardliners were trying to take control of Birmingham schools. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27476643

At this time of preparation for the Referendum, Members of the Scottish Parliament are hard pressed; keeping all their normal remit running, plus attending many extra husting meetings and trying to keep a life balance so that family is not neglected. Remember especially the front runners with the extra responsibility of every word weighed and reported in the Press. Intercessors at Pray For Scotland (who take a completely neutral stance) and whose prayer for the result of the Referendum is ‘God’s will be done in our Nation’ ask that we pray that leaders will arise who speak with authority, clarity and integrity. Christian members of the Scottish parliament include Dave Thompson, Nigel Don and John Mason (SNP); Ruth Davidson and Murdo Fraser (Conservative); Johann Lamont, Jacquie Bailie, and Anne McTaggart (Labour).