Daily roundup 19 March: Brexit, tube attack, and obesity

Children in Wales as young as seven will get the chance to have their say on the Brexit process, the Welsh government has said. The Telegraph reports that a consultation is being launched to help ministers in the devolved administration understand the views of the younger generation and make sure they are represented in the Welsh government's discussions and decisions about the country's future once the UK leaves the European Union.


A teenage Iraqi asylum seeker who planted a bomb on a crowded London underground train had been involved in the government's Prevent deradicalisation programme for more than a year, it emerged at the end of his Old Bailey trial. The Guardian reports that Ahmed Hassan was found guilty on Friday of attempted murder after his homemade device partially detonated at Parsons Green in west London during the morning rush hour in September.


Britain is facing an "obesity apocalypse", the country's leading child doctor has warned as he called for a 100-fold rise in the number of teens given weight loss surgery. The Telegraph reports that professor Russell Viner said obesity and mental ill-health were the great epidemics threatening Britain, as he called for sweeping changes to "rescue" children from bleak futures. He has urged ministers to introduce a ban on junk-food advertisements before of the watershed.


One in six burglary suspects is under 18, research has found. The Daily Mail reports that research by Churchill Home Insurance found that more than 17,000 children were arrested on suspicion of burglary between 2014 and the first half of 2017, and under-18s accounted for 12 per cent of all arrests for aggravated burglary in England and Wales. From 2014 to the end of 2016, 4,250 children were prosecuted for domestic and aggravated burglary, with a conviction rate of 68 per cent.