Portrait of the week: More mortgage pain, 999 goes down and a race to kill rats

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Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, encouraged banks to enter a voluntary agreement for stretched mortgagors to pay only the interest on their loans for six months, after the Bank of England raised interest rates to a 15-year high of 5 per cent. HSBC, with employees continuing to work from home, is to move its world headquarters from its 45-storey tower in Canary Wharf by 2027. Boots is to close 300 of its 2,200 chemists’ shops in the coming year. To cut its debts, Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain (also owning Picturehouse cinemas in Britain), is to apply for administration.

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The government said it would cost £169,000 to send a migrant to Rwanda, compared with £106,000 to keep one in Britain. The 999 emergency line broke down for a morning; Viscount Camrose told the House of Lords that BT took two hours 50 minutes to inform the government. Junior doctors (those below the rank of consultant) would go on strike again from 13 to 18 July. NHS consultants would strike on 20 and 21 July. The Royal College of Nursing failed to secure votes from the majority of its membership to authorise further strikes. Sarah, Duchess of York, had surgery for breast cancer. The Prince of Wales announced his life’s work to be helping to end homelessness. Winifred Ewing, the Scottish National party politician, died aged 93. Craig Brown, the former football manager of Scotland, died aged 82. Dame Ann Leslie, the journalist, died aged 82. About 7.3 million people watched live on television as Sir Elton John, aged 76, played at Glastonbury on his farewell tour.

Racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are ‘widespread’ in English and Welsh cricket, according to a report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, which recommended the removal of the annual match between Eton and Harrow at Lord’s.