03/03/2017 Look East (West)

First tonight, BBC Look East can reveal a huge variation

in the take-up of the Government's Help to Buy scheme for new homes,

which offers affordable loans to first-time buyers.

Figures suggest, in Cambridge, just one in ten new homes

But in Bedford that jumped to seven out of every ten new homes.

It's a dream that so many struggle to realise,

But it's a dream that has come true for Tara Rogers.

A ?48,000 loan from the Government's Help to Buy scheme

helped her to get a mortgage for this two-bedroom house in Bedford.

I luckily had a deposit, but I was in a situation that,

if I took the Help to Buy scheme on top of that,

it really brought my mortgage down and I was able to purchase the house

that I actually wanted in the area that I wanted as well.

The scheme that Tara's benefited from is helping

How important was that? I was almost crying, because mine daughter goes

to school here. The scheme that Tara's

benefited from is helping to energise the housing

market in some parts of our region, Under the Help to Buy scheme,

the Government will lend you up to 20% of the value

of a new home, boosting the size of your deposit and helping

you get a good mortgage. In some places,

it's proving really popular. 90% of the homes on this

development that have already been sold are being

bought using the scheme. Help to Buy is having a big impact

on the sort of homes Are you building homes

that are targeted at first-time buyers, because

Help to Buy is now available? I have a resounding

response for that - yes. targets, specifically,

first-time buyers. But not everyone thinks Help to Buy

is working well, with some experts concerned

the Government loans are There's no doubt that

the Government deserve a lot of It has delivered

exactly what they first intended, which was to get mortgage

lenders in particular back lending after the credit

crunch of 2007-2008. I suspect that actually now,

its time has passed. Without Help to Buy,

Tara wouldn't now own this house. One of thousands of

people in our region who have been given a leg up

onto the housing ladder. A sticking plaster on a prison

system that's overcrowded that's what campaigners say

about government plans to recruit hundreds

more senior prison officers. It follows the riot

at Bedford jail last year Today, the Justice Minister,

Liz Truss, made a visit to Whitemoor

prison in Cambridgeshire. They were behind bars but,

in November, inmates at Bedford jail showed just how easily

they could overcome prison staff. Officers from across the

country had to be brought in Another example of the waning

staff numbers Today, at Whitemoor prison,

the Justice Secretary reinforced her commitment

to create 2,000 new jobs. Recruiting those extra

officers will mean we are able to have one officer

for every six offenders, and that will help

keep those people safe. It'll also give the

encouragement to get into work, to get the training they need

to turn their lives around. A rise in drug abuse

and violence within our jails is leading to rising numbers

of attacks on prison staff, A lot of prisons are violent

and dangerous places, and they've got more

violent and dangerous. They get more violent

and dangerous every year. money for staff

development and training, is welcome, but it is

a sticking plaster solution unless we can

really get to the bottom of The Government admits it may be

years before jails are made more secure and, with inducements

like a ?3,000 pay rise for staff at Whitemoor,

they hope more people will be attracted to

and remain in the industry. Campaigners, however,

are less convinced. Scientists at

the University of Cambridge have grown the world's

first artificial embryo. The breakthrough was made

using cells from a mouse. could be used to create

artificial human life. This is the first time

embryo-like structures have been developed in laboratories,

using two types of stem cell. Cambridge researchers describe

how they've cultured a combination of genetically modified

embryonic mouse cells, It is unlikely to develop

into a healthy foetus without adding a third form of

stem cell to develop the yolk sac, It's illegal to experiment on human

embryos in the UK beyond 14 days. Now scientists here are seeing

if they can use this new stem cell technique to create

artificial human embryos. The study of human embryos

is extremely complex. We have very few of those embryos

donated by parents for research. Therefore if we have

an artificial system, which we hope

to generate one day, in which we can generate humanlike

embryo structures from stem cells, So would it be legal

to experiment on artificial embryos It's not taking an existing embryo

and researching on it, be within the current

regulatory framework, although we would need

to think carefully Artificial embryos may sound

like a plot in a sci-fi novel but, in the right hands,

they could provide the answer to why so many women

miscarry in early pregnancy. A school teacher from Corby has

been nominated for a global award 30-year-old Ray Chambers

has been shortlisted for the Global Teacher's Prize

for his mentoring and his online sharing

of his creative teaching skills. Over 20,000 teachers from

170 countries were nominated It will be awarded

in Dubai later this month. Now how's the weather

looking for the weekend? The weekend is here and although

there is going to be some rain, there is also going to be some dry

and bright weather as well. For tonight, we've got this

weather system moving in, so that is going to bring us

some rain, spreading across all parts

by the end of the night, and some of that could be

on the heavy side. So we will wake up to

a rather wet day tomorrow. It's going to stay

very mild overnight, with lows

of around seven Celsius. So we started the day

quite misty and cloudy But it's looking as though

it will swiftly clear eastwards, and then we will be into some much

brighter conditions. There might just be the odd shower

following on behind. With light winds and

fairly mild temperatures of around 10 or 11 degrees,

it should feel quite pleasant. The national weather is coming up,

but here's the outlook. For Sunday, it looks as though

it will be a dry start with rain quickly moving in,

hanging around for a lot of the day, Good evening, mixed fortunes this

weekend. Today we saw a fair share of rain. This is the view one of our

weather watchers in Doncaster. Not