Anthony Lee, 49, pleaded guilty in September alongside his wife, Laura Saunders, 38, who appeared in court under her married name. Lee was responsible for deploying Tory resources for the contest, which then-prime minister Rishi Sunak called for 4 July. Saunders was the party's head of international, based at head office and had been chosen to run in the Bristol North West constituency. NHS worker Amy Hind, 36, the wife of Conservative deputy digital director Anthony Hind, pleaded guilty in June to cheating on the date of the election. In a hearing at Southwark Crown Court, Lee was handed a suspended sentence of 10 months and two weeks in prison for each of his two counts, while Saunders was given a suspended sentence of four weeks and two months. Hind was given six months in prison, also suspended. All three were also ordered to complete unpaid work, while Lee and Saunders were told to pay compensation totalling more than £10,000. They were all charged after an investigation found inside information on the date of the 2024 general election had been used to place bets. Judge Tony Baumgartner said at the sentencing that Lee and Saunders placed bets worth more than £2,000 on the date of the election - which would have generated returns of more than £23,000 if the cheating had not been uncovered. Hind placed four bets and attempted to make a further three in accounts "opened specifically for the purposes of cheating", the judge said. Had all seven of her attempts succeeded and gone unnoticed, the return would have been just over £26,000. Hind had placed more than 3,000 online bets over the years but the ones she put on the election date "were a clear departure from your previous betting history", the judge told her. Hind's previous betting was mostly on sports, he added. Lee, a key Tory figure, was aware of a Downing Street meeting to discuss possible election dates on 10 March 2024, almost two weeks before the scheduled date was announced. As the meeting unfolded, Lee and his wife - who were not in attendance - began betting on when the election would be held, the court heard. "The overwhelming inference is that Anthony Lee was receiving inside information as the meeting went on and was acting upon it," the prosecution said. Lee was also involved in email correspondence including one chain titled "Crazy idea: Campaign discussion", the court was told. Craig Williams, a former Sunak aide who was Tory MP for Montgomeryshire and Cardiff North, has also admitted to cheating at gambling. He will be sentenced after other party officials and insiders who are accused of the same charge stand trial.

It follows Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh announcing she had approved drilling in the Jackdaw gas field on Wednesday, claiming it will boost energy security and reduce the need to import gas from abroad. Politics Hub: Follow the latest But she has yet to approve extraction from Rosebank, and previously told Sky's Paul Kelso a decision on it "would take a little longer". Speaking on Sky's Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Harman said: "Well, my guess is they will approve it [Rosebank]. I think they should approve it, and I think they should strongly make the green argument for doing it of investing the proceeds into turbocharging our homegrown renewable energy." She noted that ministers are making green arguments around the decision to approve Jackdaw: "They're saying... If it's gonna be done, and we know we're gonna have to have gas as part of our energy mix, it's better that we do it near at hand because we can impose conditions which have less carbon emissions during this extraction." She also pointed to the announcement of an energy wealth fund, which will use tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas to help fund the green transition. Baroness Harman said that, if ministers make the same arguments as they did for Jackdaw, "that then is a very green argument for doing Rosebank". Both Jackdaw and Rosebank were originally given the green light by the last Conservative government. But those approvals were struck down by the court in January 2025, who said the environmental impact of burning the oil and gas extracted hadn't been considered. Rosebank is considerably bigger than Jackdaw and is mainly composed of oil, meaning the climate impacts would be much larger than those of Jackdaw. Most of the oil would also be exported onto the global market, with opponents arguing it wouldn't do anything to increase energy security. Labour committed to not grant any new North Sea oil and gas licences in their 2024 election manifesto. Ministers have argued that as the process was already underway for Jackdaw and Rosebank they do not count as new licences. Our political reporter Faye Brown has reported that many Labour MPs are unhappy about Jackdaw and would be even more angered if Fahnbulleh approves Rosebank. One unhappy MP said that while the energy secretary "might get away" with Jackdaw, "Rosebank is a different story". "Her position won't be tenable no matter what carbon offsets and other cross subsidies she proposes."

Telecoms minister Ian Murray told the Sky News Defence Insider app that he would move "as quickly as possible" to update the law and ensure far greater punishments can be imposed on hostile actors who target such infrastructure, which carries the bulk of the nation's data and gas supplies. Proposed sanctions include extending a maximum prison term from 5 to 14 years, and the ability to impose unlimited fines. Russia has been accused of conducting a covert operation over cables and pipelines in waters north of the UK, using three submarines. Any updated legislation would not be used against hostile states. However, the Kremlin is believed to hire criminals and other proxies to conduct acts of sabotage on its behalf. The law would apply to such individuals. Mr Murray said he hoped that the prospect of such a length prison term would act as a deterrence. You can see his full interview here. "Undersea cables are the hidden backbone of modern Britain, carrying the data we rely on every day to message friends and family, do our banking, and run our businesses," the minister said separately in a statement. "The threats we face have changed dramatically, with suspicious Russian activity around critical undersea infrastructure, yet some of the laws protecting these vital connections date back more than a century. "We intend to modernise those laws with tougher penalties, stronger requirements on industry and new powers to protect our national security, making sure the UK's critical infrastructure is fit for the threats of today and tomorrow." More from Sky News:Will approved North sea drilling plans bring down energy bills?Vital clues could help predict prostate cancer years in advance Fibre-optic cables running along the seabed carry around 99% of the UK's international data, underpinning everything from messages and video calls to online banking and shopping. Any significant disruption in this flow of data would risk derailing daily life and could have a devastating impact on the economy. The same is true for any attack against the UK's undersea pipelines that provide 74% of the nation's gas supply as well as its grid of undersea electricity cables. In its push to update legislation governing underwater infrastructure, which dates back to 1885, the government is publishing a white paper on Thursday that sets out its proposals, which also includes requiring the companies that provide the subsea cables and pipelines to do more to identify sabotage and espionage risks. The government is seeking views on the document from industry and other experts over the next 12 weeks. Mr Murray said the legislation would be updated in the current parliament.

They say just 6% of those eligible will get - or currently receive - the drug in its first three years on the NHS, with millions buying it privately instead. The warning comes from the Commons' health committee, which wants obesity treated as a long-term and managed condition like diabetes. Mounjaro (tirzepatide) is one of the best known GLP-1 drugs, along with Wegovy and Ozempic, and is taken as a weekly injection. It works by suppressing appetite and making a person feel fuller for longer. MPs say its rollout needs to be ramped up dramatically as a "two-tier system" has formed between those who can afford to pay privately and those who can't. "The government must urgently reassess the pace of rollout of Mounjaro," the committee urged. "This should include making better use of the capacity of digital providers. "As a first step, the department should hold a summit on GLP-1 access with a range of providers and healthcare professionals to open a dialogue on how best to improve the rollout." The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) recommended Mounjaro to treat obesity in June 2024. Wegovy (semaglutide) has also been approved by the NHS. The NHS estimated 2.8 million people would be eligible for Mounjaro, at a cost of £15.2bn over five years, if all signed on for the drug in its first year of availability. Nice agreed to NHS England's request to introduce it gradually instead, and it's only being rolled out to 220,000 over three years. The MPs' report calls for a new framework to "include ambitious targets for the proportion of a local population that should be able to access GLP-1s". It says around 2.4 million packs of GLP-1 drugs are prescribed each month in the UK but the vast majority are being bought privately. Prices for a month's supply of Mounjaro range from about £150 for the smallest dose to about £350 for the highest. More from Sky News:GP practices to be offered £3,000 bonus for prescribing weight-loss jabsMounjaro and Wegovy 'may need to be continued for life' "Access to GLP-1 medication appears increasingly to be determined by ability to pay rather than clinical need," the MPs warn. "Given that obesity already follows stark lines of deprivation and inequality, failing to provide equitable access will entrench and widen those disparities, letting down the patients who need support most." An NHS spokesperson said it was "testing new ways to accelerate access, including new routes for starting these medicine". It said "a wide range of other support" for obesity was also available, "which has already helped tens of thousands of people achieve a healthier weight".

The former prime minister has been granted core participant status for the public inquiry into grooming gangs. This means he will have specific rights within the inquiry, and may appear alongside other individuals or organisations relevant to the investigation. While many core participants are asked or compelled to give evidence, it is unclear if he will be required to do so. After initially refusing calls to launch an inquiry, Sir Keir agreed last year, while still in Number 10, to hold public hearings. The government had faced a barrage of criticism over its handling of the issue, particularly around the issues of transparency and scope. The investigation will examine specific cities and towns across Britain over allegations that authorities responded inadequately to local claims of child sexual exploitation by various grooming gangs. London, Oldham, Bradford and Keighley will be among the first towns and cities the inquiry will focus on. Gangs which operated in Birmingham and Wales will also be examined. The inquiry follows Baroness Louise Casey's 2025 damning report, which concluded that authorities had failed to protect children, track crime data accurately, and confront group-based child sexual exploitation. The government accepted the recommendations from the inquiry, but continued to face criticism as many of the same issues had been raised in previous reports. Tech billionaire Elon Musk then raised international attention on the issue when he used his X social media platform to attack Sir Keir over the long-running scandal. More from Sky News:Two named storms to hit UKOffenders who refuse to attend sentencing to face new penalties The hearings programme of the inquiry is made up of three phases, with the first taking place in December and January. This is set to examine the ways in which local services failed victims and survivors. It will also look at whether the findings of past investigations and recommendations were implemented successfully to bring about meaningful change. Further hearings will be held in March and April next year. During his bid to become a Labour MP, the man who replaced Sir Keir as prime minister, Andy Burnham, insisted he "acted immediately" on grooming gangs while he was mayor of Greater Manchester and criticised others for manipulating the facts. Former children's commissioner for England, Baroness Anne Longfield, is leading the £65 million three-year inquiry, which has the legal powers to compel witnesses to give evidence and require organisations to hand over documents. Any evidence of crimes uncovered will be referred to Operation Beaconport, the national police operation launched to review hundreds of previously closed investigations.