MORE SUPPORT FOR SMALL FIRMS URGED

Large companies should help support smaller firms by paying them promptly, a business leader has urged.

The Government should also do more, by reforming business rates and improving access to finance, said the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Policy chairman Mike Cherry said supporting small firms should not be a “nice to have” afterthought to policymaking.

MINISTERS TO REVIEW FRACKING LAWS

Ministers are reviewing laws to allow fracking to be carried out under homes without the permission of the owners, it has emerged.

Trespass laws are being examined to pave the way for energy companies to explore for shale gas, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Operators need to ask homeowners before they drill under their land but can turn to the law to appeal if an agreement cannot be reached.

CALL TO PHASE OUT A-LEVELS

The A-level system should be replaced with a wider “baccalaureate” scheme that allows teenagers to study more subjects, a report suggests.

It says focusing just on A-levels - seen by many as the “gold standard”- is increasingly outdated and should be gradually phased out.

Instead, youngsters should follow a broader curriculum which covers not just English and maths, but languages, science and technology as well as other other skills such as teamwork.

DEAL ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN HOMS

The United Nations mediator brokering peace talks on Syria’s civil war says the two sides have reached a deal to allow women and children to leave a city under government siege for more than a year.

Lakhdar Brahimi acknowledged yesterday that the step was a small one - he had hoped for an agreement to let humanitarian aid into the city of Homs.

But the agreement was the first tangible outcome from peace talks that have been marred from the outset by low expectations and acrimony.

VERDICT ON ’EX-GAY’ ADVERT APPEAL

A Christian charity learns the outcome today of its appeal over a ban on a London bus advert suggesting gays can be helped to “move out of homosexuality”.

Core Issues Trust says that gay and lesbian rights activists are seeking to be the new “moral enforcers” and it is Christian religious conservatives who now need protection for their right to express dissent against “the new orthodoxy”.

The ad posters designed for the sides of the capital’s buses read: ”Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!”

SURVIVORS TO MARK HOLOCAUST DAY

Holocaust survivors and members of the public will today observe a memorial day to mark the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Events will be staged across the country in remembrance of victims of the Nazi persecution as well genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

The UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, will deliver an assembly at Copthall School in Barnet, north London, in his first address on Holocaust Memorial Day since taking up the post.

BEATLES PAUL AND RINGO REUNITE

Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunited on stage for a special performance at the Grammys.

The Beatles superstars performed Sir Paul’s song Queenie Eye to a rapturous crowd including Yoko Ono at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.

Sir Paul also proved members of the Fab Four can still trump the Rolling Stones when his collaboration with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear, entitled Cut Me Some Slack, beat Doom And Gloom by the veteran British band.

MORE RAIN COULD INCREASE FLOODS WOE

Ice, snow and rain will plague the country today as communities in the South West continue to tackle flooding.

The Met Office said the counties of Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset remain at medium risk of flooding as another day or rain hits the regions.

Meanwhile, snow will fall across high ground throughout the UK, particularly across Wales, Scotland and northern England, with some hail storms and thunder predicted.

EGYPT TO ELECT PRESIDENT FIRST

Egypt will pick a president before parliament, a widely expected change in a political transition plan as public support for army chief and July coup leader General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi grows stronger.

But the country remains dangerously divided, as seen in clashes that killed at least 49 people a day earlier and militant attacks in the country’s troubled Sinai Peninsula that left several soldiers dead.

The decision follows weeks of deliberations with different political groups who had pushed for holding presidential, not parliamentary elections first, as had been originally planned.