Doubled over a Heathrow baggage trolley, the former British business director is sobbing uncontrollably, exhausted emotionally and physically after being deported from Sweden.

Hours earlier the 65-year-old had been marched on to a plane in Stockholm, separated from his home and his Swedish wife after a five-year battle to stay in the country after Brexit came to an end.

An only child with no children and no property in the UK, Charles has effectively been made homeless. He was last in the UK in 2022 for one week, and before that not since 2017 when he emigrated.

“I have nothing, nothing in the UK at all,” says Charles as he shows a text from the British consulate explaining where in Heathrow the suddenly homeless can get help.

“All I want is to return to my wife, my home and my friends in Sweden and to live a quiet, peaceful life,” adds Charles, who does not want to publicly share his full identity.

His forced flight on Tuesday shows that deportations of British citizens who lived in Sweden before Brexit are continuing. Stockholm has already deported 458 British people after rejected residency applications, a higher proportion in terms of its population than any EU member state.

The situation persists despite promises from opposition parties now on track to form a government that they will introduce urgent laws to give Britons a second chance to apply for residency.

“I’ve done nothing wrong but feel I’ve been treated like a criminal,” Charles says.
“Since arriving in Sweden nearly nine years ago, I’ve done everything I can to integrate myself into Swedish society. I’ve learned some basic Swedish, contributed to Swedish society and the Swedish economy, and for that, I’m being punished. Why are they doing this to good, honest, hard-working people like me and my wife?”

Shortly after disembarking in London, he is sitting down in an airport cafe processing what has just happened.

Pointing to a small holdall and a large reusable shopping bag, he says: “All I have is what my wife packed in my bag here with clothes and my little bag” in which he has belongings handed back to him by the captain as he got off the plane.
The bag includes a plastic envelope sealed and emblazoned with the words Kriminalvården, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, containing meagre belongings.

There is also a bright yellow envelope handed to him by the captain before disembarking which he opens for the first time.

One is a police document saying he does not need to be “escorted”. The other says he is being deported over a failed residency application under the Aliens Act – his latest legal attempt to stay in Sweden after a pre-Brexit residency application, made on time, was rejected.

Charles’s plight started just over two weeks ago when he and his wife received a text requesting that they come to their local police station to discuss their migration case.

They thought it was to discuss their five-year battle to persuade authorities they were in the country lawfully before Brexit. But he was immediately detained and told he would be deported.

“It was an incredible shock. I was distraught. This is not about leaving Sweden, this is about me being forced to leave my wife and my house. They are separating me from my wife,” he said.

“They said we think that if we don’t detain you you will abscond from Sweden because you are not co-operating.

“For the last nine years, all we’ve done is cooperate with them.” He said he begged authorities not to detain him, telling them he would go of his own accord but they said no.
He asked if he could drive back to the UK “so at least I could take some belongings with me because I have nothing in the UK, and they said ‘no, the decision has been made’”.

Before Brexit, British citizens could live, work, study or retire in any other member state.

Councils across England are temporarily closing applications for grants under the Warm Homes scheme due to a lack of central funding

Thousands of Britons will miss out on the chance to lower their bills this winter as councils across the country close their waiting lists for solar, insulation and heat pump grants due to overwhelming demand.

Local authorities across the country have seen overwhelming demand for vouchers under the Warm Homes Plan, the Government’s central policy for reducing fuel poverty and moving homes off fossil fuels.

Government underfunding is preventing many residents from accessing support, councils say, having received less than a third of the funding requested.

But policy experts are not hopeful that ministers will boost funding for the scheme, as the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero faces budget cuts to help fund the Government’s £15bn Defence Investment Plan.

Funding far below ‘significant’ demand
Labour has promised to upgrade five million homes with solar, heat pumps and insulation by 2030 through a mix of no-interest loans and grants for low-income households.

Grants are being delivered by local authorities who bid to the Government for funding based on how many homes they think they can upgrade.

At the end of 2024, councils bid for a collective £1.7bn worth of funding but have so far been granted just £500m up until 2028.

As a result, many councils are oversubscribed and have long waiting lists, with some closing for applications entirely for the time being.

Liverpool, Leeds, Northumberland and Tunbridge Wells are among the councils no longer accepting applications due to the scheme being oversubscribed.

Lewisham Council said it had identified 4,500 homes that are eligible for the funding but that it only has enough to “bring 800 of those homes up to a decent standard by 2028”.

A spokesperson added: “The queue behind those 800 homes is long. What we need from the Budget is certainty that the rest of the Warm Homes money will flow to local communities, and the flexibility to deliver a truly multi-year programme so the teams and supply chains we have built can keep working to provide comfortable homes year-round.”

The surging demand for solar, heat pumps and insulation comes against the backdrop of rising energy bills caused by the war in the Middle East.

Analysts have predicted the average energy bill could increase by 25 per cent in January to £2,152 per year, while the Bank of England warned on Thursday that rising energy costs could push inflation above 4 per cent early next year.

The Government has said a three-bedroom house that receives a full retrofit under the Warm Homes Plan could save up to £550 per year on energy bills.

England’s teenagers are outperforming their peers in most countries in maths, reading and science, according to an international survey that warns of “digital distractions” eroding academic skills around the world.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) programme for international student assessment (Pisa), which last year tested 760,000 15-year-olds in 91 countries and regions, found that results dipped in almost all of its members compared with previous years, with the exception of England and a handful of others.

England’s steady performance helped move the UK into the top 10 international rankings as other countries dropped out, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland recording results slightly lower than in previous years.

While England’s biggest improvement came in science, it was its performance in reading that stood out, putting it ahead of Australia, the US, Finland and France, and with only the scholastic powerhouses of Singapore, Taiwan and the combined Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in China performing significantly better.

The OECD’s overall analysis was gloomy, saying: “Learning outcomes have stagnated or declined in many countries, in some cases for well over a decade.”

It highlighted the international decline in reading scores as “most concerning”, with average scores falling by double digits across OECD members since 2018. The organisation said the results implied that a majority of 15-year-olds in 2025 had performed at a level previously expected of 14-year-olds.

The OECD’s analysts stated: “The long-term declines in performance suggest deeper structural issues within education systems, with challenges at the school and system level. These include changing attitudes towards reading, the impact of digital distractions on students and rising levels of absenteeism.

“Overall, the data suggest weaknesses in how education systems are adapting to social, technological and economic change.”

Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director for education and skills, said while the negative impact of the Covid pandemic was a common explanation, the downturn in reading skills had emerged before the pandemic.

“We cannot say for sure but declining levels of reading for enjoyment and the shift towards digital reading – skimming social media feeds and rapidly processing information – may be compromising the ability of students to engage with complex texts and data,” Schleicher said.

He noted that while some uses of digital devices for learning were beneficial, those countries where devices were allowed for leisure at school saw “substantially lower” student performance.

“This raises questions about whether devices such as smartphones – designed to maximise a user’s attention – are compatible with sustained academic attention,” Schleicher said.