Former funeral director Robert Bush has pleaded guilty to 35 counts of fraud by false representation after an investigation into human remains.

The 47-year-old also admitted one charge of fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans at Hull Crown Court.

But he pleaded not guilty to 30 counts of preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body and one charge of theft from charities.

He will face trial on those charges at Sheffield Crown Court next year.

Humberside Police launched an investigation into the funeral home after a report of “concern for care of the deceased” in March last year.

A month after the investigation started, the force said it had received more than 2,000 calls on a dedicated phone line from families concerned about their loved ones’ ashes.

Bush, who is on bail, was charged in April, after what officers said was a “complex, protracted and highly sensitive 10-month investigation” into the firm’s three sites in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Most of the fraud by false representation charges said he dishonestly made false representations to bereaved families saying he would: properly care for the remains of the deceased in accordance with the normal expected practices of a competent funeral director; arrange for the cremation of those remains to take place immediately or soon after the conclusion of the funeral service; and that the ashes presented to the customer were the remains of the deceased person after cremation.

He admitted four “foetus allegations” which stated he presented ashes to a customer falsely saying that they were “the remains of their unborn”.

Rachel Reeves has told Sky News she is looking at both tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, in her first interview since being briefed on the scale of the fiscal black hole she faces.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well,” the chancellor said when asked how she would deal with the country’s economic challenges in her 26 November statement.

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Ms Reeves was shown the first draft of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) report, revealing the size of the black hole she must fill next month, on Friday 3 October.

She has never previously publicly confirmed tax rises are on the cards in the budget, going out of her way to avoid mentioning tax in interviews two weeks ago.

Cabinet ministers had previously indicated they did not expect future spending cuts would be used to ensure the chancellor met her fiscal rules.

Ms Reeves also responded to questions about whether the economy was in a “doom loop” of annual tax rises to fill annual black holes. She appeared to concede she is trapped in such a loop.

Asked if she could promise she won’t allow the economy to get stuck in a doom loop cycle, Ms Reeves replied: “Nobody wants that cycle to end more than I do.”

She said that is why she is trying to grow the economy, and only when pushed a third time did she suggest she “would not use those (doom loop) words” because the UK had the strongest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year.

What’s facing Reeves?

Ms Reeves is expected to have to find up to £30bn at the budget to balance the books, after a U-turn on winter fuel and welfare reforms and a big productivity downgrade by the OBR, which means Britain is expected to earn less in future than previously predicted.

Yesterday, the IMF upgraded UK growth projections by 0.1 percentage points to 1.3% of GDP this year – but also trimmed its forecast by 0.1% next year, also putting it at 1.3%.

The UK growth prospects are 0.4 percentage points worse off than the IMF’s projects last autumn. The 1.3% GDP growth would be the second-fastest in the G7, behind the US.

Last night, the chancellor arrived in Washington for the annual IMF and World Bank conference.

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‘I won’t duck challenges’

In her Sky News interview, Ms Reeves said multiple challenges meant there was a fresh need to balance the books.

“I was really clear during the general election campaign – and we discussed this many times – that I would always make sure the numbers add up,” she said.

“Challenges are being thrown our way – whether that is the geopolitical uncertainties, the conflicts around the world, the increased tariffs and barriers to trade. And now this (OBR) review is looking at how productive our economy has been in the past and then projecting that forward.”

She was clear that relaxing the fiscal rules (the main one being that from 2029-30, the government’s day-to-day spending needs to rely on taxation alone, not borrowing) was not an option, making tax rises all but inevitable.

“I won’t duck those challenges,” she said.

“Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well, but the numbers will always add up with me as chancellor because we saw just three years ago what happens when a government, where the Conservatives, lost control of the public finances: inflation and interest rates went through the roof.”

Blame it on the B word?

Ms Reeves also lay responsibility for the scale of the black hole she’s facing at Brexit, along with austerity and the mini-budget.

This could risk a confrontation with the party’s own voters – one in five (19%) Leave voters backed Labour at the last election, playing a big role in assuring the party’s landslide victory.

The chancellor said: “Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy.

“Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4% smaller because of Brexit.

“Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year on food and farming, goods moving between us and the continent, on energy and electricity trading, on an ambitious youth mobility scheme, but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting.”

Britain must prepare for at least 2C of warming within just 25 years, the government has been advised by its top climate advisers.

That limit is hotter and sooner than most of the previous official advice, and is worse than the 1.5C level most of the world has been trying to stick to.

What is the 1.5C temperature threshold?

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to try to limit warming to “well below” 2C – and ideally 1.5C.

But with global average temperatures already nearing 1.4C, warnings that we may have blown our chances of staying at 1.5C have been growing.

This new warning from the government’s top advisers, the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC), spells out the risk to the UK in the starkest terms yet.

In a letter today, the CCC said ministers should “at a minimum, prepare the country for the weather extremes that will be experienced if global warming levels reach 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2050”.

It is the first time the committee has recommended such a target, in the hopes of kickstarting efforts to make everything from flooded train tracks to sweltering classrooms more resilient in a hotter world – after years of warnings the country is woefully unprepared.

How climate change affects the UK

The UK is already struggling to cope with the drought, flooding, and heat brought by the current 1.4C – “let alone” what is to come, the advisers said.

Just this year, the country battled the second-worst harvest on record and hottest summer ever, which saw an extra 300 Londoners die.

“Though the change from 1.5C and 2C may sound small, the difference in impacts would be substantial,” CCC adviser Professor Richard Betts told Sky News.

It would mean twice as many people at risk of flooding in some areas, and in southern England, 10 times as many days with a very high risk of wildfires – an emerging risk for Britain.

The experts said the mass building the government is currently pushing, including new nuclear power stations and homes, should even be adaptable for 4C of warming in the future – a level unlikely, but which cannot be ruled out.

Is it too late to stop climate change or limit to 1.5C?

The CCC’s Baroness Brown said in a briefing: “We continue to believe 1.5C is achievable as a long-term goal.

“But clearly the risk it will not be achieved is getting higher, and for risk management we do believe we have to plan for 2C.”

World leaders will discuss their plans to adapt to hotter temperatures at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.

Professor Eric Wolff, who advises the Royal Society, said leaders needed to wake up.

“It is now very challenging even to stay below two degrees,” he told Sky News.

“This is a wake-up call both to continue reducing emissions, but at the same time to prepare our infrastructure and economy for the inevitable climate changes that we are already committed to.”