Woman's Hour - GCSE resits, Hotel safety, Baby milk, Alisha Palmowski

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Are GCSE's working for all children? Figures show resits in Maths and English are dragging down the overall results in those subjects. Whilst post 16 education has evolved with A levels, BTECs and T levels, GCSE's have remained largely unchanged since they were introduced in 1988. Chloe Tilly talks to Vanessa Clark, BBC education correspondent.The CEO of Travelodge Jo Boydell has resigned following a string of security lapses in which unauthorised room access has been granted without the guest's permission. Chloe speaks to Sharon Thompson who made contact with the BBC, reporting that a man accessed her hotel room at 2am, frightening her and her daughter. We'll also hear from Carolyn Pearson, CEO of a travel security company on how women can keep themselves safe while staying in hotels.Parents are taking on debt, cutting maternity leave short and some say they've even resorted to unsafe feeding practices because of the cost of infant formula. New research shows the profits that baby formula companies are making and the impact on family finances, mental health and babies' wellbeing. Chloe is joined by Professor Amy Brown, who led the study and mum Ruth Kenfield.The latest of our series where our academic researchers in residence talk about something that’s caught their eye this summer. Ashleigh Percival-Borley served in the British Army in Afghanistan, but now she’s close to completing a doctorate in history at the University of Durham looking at women in the Special Operations Executive. That’s the organisation responsible for espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines during the Second World War. But Ashleigh thinks it’s time for us to reconsider one particular set of women who worked at the Special Operations Executive such as June Darton Kerr. This weekend, one of Britain's brightest young female motorsport talents will be racing in the Netherlands. Alisha Palmowski won at Silverstone last month. It was the first time what's known as the F1 academy, which promotes female drivers, has raced there. Alisha is one of a new generation of female drivers hoping to prove that women belong at the very highest levels of motorsport. She joins Chloe.Presenter: Chloe Tilley Producer: Corinna Jones

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Your spreadsheet says, good luck. Odo brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. Hello, this is Chloe Tilly and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the program. Now we're talking today about whether GCSEs are working for all children

after figures show resets in maths and English are dragging down the overall results in those subjects. Whilst post-16 education has evolved with A levels and B-TX and T levels, GCSEs have remained largely unchanged since they were introduced back in 1988. So how have resets impacted your family? What anxiety and stress has it caused? and what do you think would actually be a better alternative? You can text us this morning on 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through our website.

Of course, also on WhatsApp, you can send us a voice note or a message, 0700-100-44. When so much success comes down to confidence, are we hindering young people's progress? We're also going to look at what hotels should be doing to ensure guest safety after the boss of travel lodge stepped down following a string of security lapses. In one incident, an abuser got access to his victim's room. In another, a woman was sexually assaulted. We'll also get practical advice on how we can keep ourselves safe

when staying in a hotel. And we're going to be discussing the cost of baby formula after research found that some parents are watering down formula or going without heating to try and save enough money to buy that formula. Research has found prices rose by up to 45% between 2021 and 2023. We're going to hear the impact it's having on family finances and also parents' mental health.

And we're going to be joined by the 19-year-old racing driver who's been signed by the Red Bull Racing Academy. Alicia Ponwowski is from Manchester. She's taken on the male-dominated world of motor racing. We're going to discuss why there are no current female Formula One drivers and haven't been since, wait for it, 1992. Could she be the one who could change that? Do get in touch with us this morning on everything that we're talking about. But we're going to begin discussing the relentless cycle of pupils in England failing and then resitting their GCSEs in maths and English. Apparently, a leading education union says it is simply not working. The Association of School and College leaders say a significant proportion of students fall short of passing those subjects and that most who retake those exams face the miserable, experience of falling short once again.

Well, if we look at the figures, only one in seven students in the age group retaking GCSE maths after a previous failure got a grade four or above this summer, with only one in six managing to pass English, meaning the majority will have to retake the exams next year if they want to remain in education or training. The government says it wants to stop the relentless treadmill of unnecessary resets. It said it would introduce a new stepping stone qualification from 2008, level one. That's one level below GCSEs for students who don't achieve a pass in GCSE maths or English. So what options would work best to stop this endless cycle of resets? Let's speak to Vanessa Clark,

education correspondent at the BBC. Morning, Vanessa. Good morning. Now, if we look at these figures from the GCSE results that obviously came out yesterday, the breakdown of numbers say it's actually the GCSE resets that are bringing the pass rates down. Yeah, so a lot of the headlines yesterday would have talked about the past rate remaining stable. You know, we saw the path to echo up during COVID, you know, during the pandemic when a lot of grades were teacher assessed and we saw a bit of a bump, but we saw things returning to normal. But when you dig into the figures, one in three students who opened their results yesterday will have, won't have received the past they need in English or maths. And they'll have to continue studying that subject in sixth form or their apprenticeship or work. wherever they're deciding to go next.

And they'll eventually have to retake that GCSE. That is where the problem lies, because when you reset the exam, as you were saying there, the chances of you passing it the second, third, fourth time are very low. So last year, you'd a one in five chance of passing it when you, you know, you took the reset. Now it's down to 15%. As you say, it's down to one in seven. I spoke to someone yesterday who had an A-star in chemistry and physics

and just couldn't get their English. And it's so demoralising, especially when you go into that recent, you know, cycle that people talk about for students. Once you fail it once or twice, you do feel the pressure. So I think that's why it's a topic of conversation at the moment. And people are trying to decide, you know, what the best thing to do about this is. So is it a case that GCSEs aren't fit for purpose? the sense that they work for some pupils in some subjects and not in others? Or is it actually the GCSEs are okay as an idea, but maybe the reset element of it needs to be looked at?

I think it depends on who you talk to. So there's a curriculum review in England going on at the moment by Dr. Becky Francis. She's published her interim review and she very much says the reset element of it is not fit for purpose. She said GCSEs, on the other hand, are still very important, especially the maths and the English, because your chances of becoming, you know, a niche, you know, at the moment we talk about a million students, children who are not in employment and training and your chances of becoming a neat are actually linked to your GCSE maths in English and whether you pass that or not. So she says actually the subject itself is really important and really important to learn these skills, but how do you stop this recent element? And there's been a

suggestion by her in this curriculum review and we'll hear more about that in the this in the autumn of a stepping stone so maybe a modular more flexible element to it where maybe you do a bit about fractions or you do you know it's split into bits rather than just sitting this exam all in one the problem with the stepping stone element is you still will have to sit the GCSE eventually so one head teacher I was speaking to yesterday in Derby likes the idea of this functional skills that are in schools at the moment, much more practical, much more about, you know, money and, you know, really tangible modern day elements of maths. She thinks that's a really good element. And actually, if more employers in six-form colleges accepted that, that that would be a really

good route to go down. Yeah, and we spoke here on Women's Ad just a few weeks ago about functional skills and how it does help people who are struggling with resets. It's interesting because if we look at the other side of the spectrum, we've got the head of the exams regulator Sir Ian Borkham, who's Chief Executive of Ofqual, saying he believes math grades are actually rising because of improvements in teaching and reforms which were brought in by Michael Gove, who was often seen as quite a controversial education secretary,

certainly by teachers. Yeah, this really is a tale of two stories. So if you look at the stats for the amount of people, students that are going into A-levels to study maths and further maths, it's really popular. It's one of the most popular subjects and business studies and all those economic type subjects. So if you look at that end of it,

top grades in maths were also up this year and yet we're seeing on the other spectrum, the reset element of it, people finding it really difficult. But as some people say, you shouldn't really throw out

the bath with the bathwater. Sorry, I've got that analogy. Completely wrong. The bathroom with the bathwater. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, this idea that, you know, actually people are really enjoying maths at the moment.

I spoke to loads of, of students yesterday who were going on to do maths and we're really excited about that. And the Department for Education acknowledges that something isn't right here and they are going to introduce this new stepping stones qualification. They say resitting is not actually a requirement.

But if you go into most sixth form colleges, they do want students to go and sit their GCSE maths or English if they haven't got it. A lot of this, if you want to go down the technical route, is to do a performance measure. So six-form colleges, if they don't have that, it reflects quite badly on them if it shows that their students haven't passed that. So the Department for Education said yesterday it was reviewing those performance measures.

So we might see a bit of a change in that area as well. It's interesting because I was reading this morning that the new Head of Eaton, incoming Head of Eaton, says that GCSE should be reformed and assessed with more course work, which is not something at the moment. And if you look at post-16 education, there's been lots of changes, B-Tex, T levels, of course A-levels as well. yet GCSEs remain largely unchanged. Do you get sense there's an appetite from the government

to fundamentally reform them? Well, if you look at Dr Becky Francis's curriculum review, which she published the interim report, the Department for Education are very much alongside of that. The things they are saying at the moment are very much reflecting what is in her report. And it talks about maybe changing some subjects you know, that we should be looking at AI literacy,

we should be talking about sustainability. So I think we will see some subject changes. Interestingly, as you say, the new head of Eaton, Alistair Churnside, was also talking about, you know, not removing everything. Like pupils in England are able to compete with the best in the world. Like the subjects are amazing, but we have stopped that school assessed grades. And a lot of that was to do with AI, you know, and, you know, maybe getting some extra help at home by your parents.

But as technology evolves, he argues, that we might be able to identify AI more clearly. There'll be a digital watermark on it. He said we're not quite there yet, but actually as technology advances, we may be able to go back to coursework, more assessments, which some students actually thrive in because that exam environment is a lot of pressure for kids.

And sometimes when they have more time to actually dig into it, they are much more successful at the end of it. Vanessa Clark, education correspondent for the BBC. you so much. Of course, this is at a time when, you know, young people's confidence is so impacted around exams. Interested to hear from you this morning, how resets have affected the young people in your lives. Do get in touch with us. You can text us 84844 or we're at BBC Women's Hour on social media. Now, what safety measures should your hotel room actually provide for you? And what role should staff play in ensuring robust security practices? We're

discussing this today after the CEO of Travel Lodge, Joe Bordell, resigned following a string of security lapses, prompting a review of measures at the firm. In one serious incident in 2022, a woman staying at a travel lodge in Maidenhead was sexually assaulted when a man lied to staff to get a key to her room. Well, since that story was reported, many people have contacted the BBC over room security incidents at travel lodges, including a domestic violence victim who said she was staying at a hotel in London in 2025 when her abuser walked into the hotel, told the receptionist that his girlfriend was upstairs having a seizure.

The receptionist handed him a key before directing him upstairs to her room. Now, stories like this, they're of course shocking and even though relatively rare, can undermine women's confidence in using hotels. So what safety and security measure should hotels provide? What's the law and indeed what is best practice? Let's speak now to Carolyn Pearson,

CEO of Travel Security Company Maiden Voyage and Sharon Thompson, who got in touch with the BBC to share her experience with us. So good morning to both of you. Good morning. Thanks for being with us. Sharon, begin, if you would, by telling us what happened to you? Well, it was 27th of November, 2021,

and I'd booked to stay in the travel lodging real. I was staying there with my daughter who had recently been diagnosed with a neurological condition and we went to cheer ourselves up and we booked to see Jason Mansford at the theatre now because of my daughter's mobility issues I needed a hotel that was closest to the theatre and that was the travel lodge

so we went to see Jason he was amazing and we got back to the hotel room and went to bed and about half past 1, 2 o'clock I woke up having a menopausal flush and so I got off on top of the covers I stripped off and then a little while later

I heard the door, I was still awake, I heard the door open, and I saw some light coming into the corridor, from the corridor coming into the room. I sat up, put my hands across my chest, because I was, yeah, at Burr, and I saw a man enter the room. He just stood there, stirring, he didn't say anything, he didn't move, he was dressed all in black. Now, I started to shout to get out, get out quite loudly, and I woke my daughter up. And when she woke up, and when she woke up, he just stirred us, turned around and walked out without saying anything. I couldn't find a phone in the room to contact reception. I didn't realise travel lodge didn't have phones in the room, and I couldn't find a number

for reception, and we were too frightened to leave the room in case he was still outside. So we waited till it became light, and around half past seven, I went down to reception as we were leaving and told them about the incident, and they just didn't seem to occur. They just kept saying if you want your money back, you'll have to contact head office. I hadn't even mentioned money. I just said, I'm reporting this is a safety issue. And they just kept telling me report to head office. I rang head office.

And they would, again, didn't feel like they took it seriously. They just said, we can offer you half the money back and free breakfast if you ever stay with us again. And are you clear on how that man was given a key for your room? I have no idea. I did ask, how did he get in? And they were unable to say. They were just more interested about trying to offer me a refund. And I felt just very, very farped off to be felt. Let me read you this statement, which we've got from Travely Lodge.

And they say customer safety and security is and remains a priority for us. Earlier this year, we commissioned an independent review led by Paul Greenie KC to examine our room access security policies and escalation procedures. We've also conducted an internal review and have since made changes to our room access security policy and incident escalation procedures supported by training for all of our customer-facing colleagues. We've partnered with a leading violence against women and girls' expert who are delivering a tailored programme of senior leadership training and we're working closely with UK hospitality,

participating in their guest security working group, helping to develop industry security guest principles and good practice guidance. Sharon, what impact did that experience leave with you? How do you now feel when you stay in hotels? How did you feel at the time? We were absolutely terrified, as I'm honest. When we do stay in hotels now, I have bought one of them little wedges that you put under your door.

We bought one of the little locks that you can attach to the door so no one can get in. But I'm always conscious of it, especially when I'm there with my daughter. So, you know, when we go, because we do like to go away together, but we are always on alert. We are always quite nervous now. Gosh, do stay with us because I want to bring in at this point,

Caroline Pearson, about really just to discuss the security angle here. Carolyn, how widespread are these kind of incidents in hotel? Well, I'm sorry to hear your story, Sharon. I must have been terrifying, and I understand also that you will be rightly nervous, are going forward so I'm staying in a hotel. Chloe, it is unfortunately, right, it's quite common for people to have what we term an hotel hotel intrusion incident. And so what you've experienced, Sharon, is somebody's got into your room, you thought you'd locked it, you know, to the best of your ability, and they've been given a key card which has allowed them to access

your room. We've been doing some research and some surveys ourselves. And what we're finding is around about 50% of hotels do not have a secondary independent locking mechanism. And therefore, not just travel lodge, but many, many hotels are not locking off rooms once they've been allocated. And they're giving a key card to other guests. And they're getting into the rooms, you know, accidentally they've been allocated the same room. Or indeed, there have been incidents of malicious intent by hotel workers who've let themselves in and committed various different incidents. So what safeguards should hotels have in place to make sure something like this doesn't happen? Yeah, so I understand that travel lodger are reviewing the processes,

but I'm contacted quite frequently by people who have said that since they have released these statements, they have still had hotel room intrusions. But this is wider across the industry, isn't it? I mean, we're not just talking about travel lodges, it's about what hotels legally and also just good, practice should be doing to provide security for whoever states there? Sure, yeah. So it's not a regulated industry. So there's nothing at the moment that holds hotels accountable to a standard. What we really want to see is, yes, of course, great training, great protocols, great processes, but we know that if you have a human in the loop, you know,

mistakes will always happen. Therefore, there's a few things that I would like to see. The magic bullet for me would be that if all hotel rooms, have... have a secondary, manual independent lock, then people wouldn't be able to override that with a master key. That amazes me that isn't the case. Is that not a really simple thing for hotels to have? So that's literally just either a bolt or something you turn and you see that lock goes across. So when you turn, so when you're in your room and you turn the locking mechanism, the bit that's on the other side of where you tap your key card, that doesn't actually do anything. So if somebody's got a valid key, they will get in. What you need is a separate.

separate chain or those tea bars that go across, which are brilliant. And then you can be sure that nobody else can get into your room. But there's no obligation legally or best practice to do that currently. No, no. So I'm just wondering what people can do if they feel that they've not had a good experience in a hotel. Where can they go to feel that they are being listened to and resolve? their situation? Well, what I'm seeing is that people are contacting hotels

and they're not getting an adequate response, such as you, Sharon. They're getting fobbed off. They're getting, you know, small offers of, you know, come back and stare at our hotel for a discounted rate. You know, obviously escalate that to the highest level. But let your local MP know as well, because actually MPs are discussing this in the background.

But I'm afraid, you know, what I'm seeing is unless people go to social media, and make a big noise about this, then the hotels aren't really contacting people to get these situations rectified. But I do know, through my experience, that when they do, they get a much better outcome than they would have done if they'd just tried to go through the official channels.

So what... And of course... Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, leave reviews as well, you know, inform other guests. What can women, or indeed anyone, traveling to a hotel, do to protect themselves? And we don't want to worry people.

But you know, you look at social media and it can be full of hints and tips. What would you say are the things we could do to proactively ensure our safety? Yeah, of course. So read those reviews before you book a hotel. You've got AI now. Do a good search on the hotel that you're thinking of staying at. When you're checking in, if the people are checking announce your room number out loud, then push back.

You don't want anybody else to know where you're staying, which room you're in. if you're allocated a room on the ground floor or you're in an annex or anywhere that makes you feel uncomfortable again ask for a different room when you get to your room do a really good check do the locks actually work that you've got because you might want to you know you know not think about that get into bed at night and then realize oh you know this room doesn't lock properly so check everything before you before you go to sleep check the room even I mean it sounds really dramatic but just have a quick around make sure nobody's lurking in there And then finally, as you've done, Sharon, is just get yourself either a door wedge or a door jammer or something like that so that you can take responsibility for locking that door.

And then you can't get caught out by an off day of a receptionist or malicious intent or a system failure. I was quite struck when Sharon mentioned in her case that there was no phone in her room. And that seems to be an increasing thing, particularly in budget hotels. Then if you do have a problem, you can't easily contact reception, can you? No, you can't. And again, it's like it's putting the onus on the traveller to do the heavy lifting because, you know, I'm loved to say before you stay at a hotel or when you check in, you know, to ask for receptions telephone number in case there are any incidents. Because I spoke to somebody yesterday who'd had an incident and they were calling, you know, the customer service line at 2 o'clock in the morning and it just rang out. Gosh. Listen, thank you so much for talking to us this morning. I'm really grateful for getting your tips and also to Sharon as well. well for explaining her experiences. Carolyn Pearson there, CEO of travel company Maiden Voyage,

and we also heard from Sharon Thompson, who got in touch with the BBC to share her experience. And if you have been affected by anything you've heard in this programme, the BBC Action Line has links to support. Thank you for your messages coming in on GCSE resets for maths and English and the impact it's had on the young people in your life. This message has come in saying, oh my word, my daughter is bright, community. Her teachers love her, she's conscientious, but the GCSEs broke her. Her confidence, her mental health has hit the floor. She got twos and threes, three for maths. She revised endlessly, but crumbles with the anxiety in exams.

She can do every part of the maths exam, but under exam conditions she breaks. She doesn't want a lower quality of assessment. She wants to be assessed throughout her schooling, and then her work will be much more successful. Coursework, modules, etc. is needed for similar students. keep the exams for those who thrive in this situation without making others feel like they have a lower ability if they struggle in an exam. So happy you're raising this, says this message.

She now has to face her research. Do keep your thoughts coming on this. Your experiences this morning can text us 84844 or on WhatsApp. We're 0300-100-444-4. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools. too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together.

It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odo gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's OD-O.com. Now a new study has highlighted the impact that rise,

infant formula prices are having on families across the UK. The research from Swansea University has found families are taking on debt, going without heating, and even watering down formula because of the rising cost. The study suggests the financial strain is not only affecting babies' nutrition and safety, but also parents' mental health. The research was led by Amy Brown, Professor of Public Health at Swansea University, and she's with me now. Morning to you, Amy.

Morning to you, Amy. Good morning. So specifically, why now and why did you decide to look at the affordability of infant formula? I mean, we've seen this issue in the media for a while now. There have been increasing stories that parents were really struggling. But we just wanted to bring together this piece of research to really share those stories and then try and work towards some solutions for it to put pressure on for something to change. This can't go on.

Now, the NHS, just to remind people, recommends exclusive breastfeeding. around the first six months of your baby's life, but we know some people aren't able to breastfeed, some women can't breastfeed, others choose not to. But that's not what we're talking about here. This is about the price of formula milk. And for parents who use it that you spoke to, what did they tell you about their experiences?

I mean, this has had to have been the most difficult piece of research we have ever done because it was so distressing to listen to all those parents' experiences. I mean, what was happening is that a lot of... of the mothers in the study wanted to breastfeed. They had difficulties doing so and they hadn't planned to use formula and they ended up needing to buy it. But parents were just really struggling within the whole cost of living crisis that were all affected by, we've all seen those food prices go up. But formula has gone up higher than food prices. And combined with all the marketing that tells you that you need to be buying a more expensive formula milk, you don't.

The ones that you can buy the lowest cost are perfectly fine for your baby. They're They're not going to impact your baby's health or development in any way. But parents really feel pressure to spend a lot of money on formula. And this is really starting to just impact them terribly in terms of their well-being and their budgets. Earlier, I spoke to Ruth Kenfield. She is the mum of 13-month-old son Otis. I asked her how much she was spending on baby formula. We went for the second cheapest pot on the market,

which was Little Steps, which is £8.50 per tin, which at the peak of needing to use them was £16 a week, give or take. But some of the tins available are about £20 a tin if you're wanting antich or anti-reflux. So we would have been spending £40 a week on those tins, which we couldn't afford to do. And that was quite a hard decision to make because my son did and does suffer from reflux. We didn't pick the absolute cheapest on the market,

which is about £6.70. So we went for the cheapest that was most widely available. So that's heartbreaking. Your son had reflux. You could have had a formula that was designed to help his reflux, but you couldn't afford to pay. buy it so he had to pick a cheaper option. What does that do to you? It makes you feel like you're unable to give your kid the best possible thing out there. On paper, all of these formula milks have

got to meet the same nutritional standards. And they're not legally allowed to market these products. But when you look at them on the shelf and they're shouting at you, vitamin D, extra anti-collic, anti-reflux and your baby's struggling. And even though he was on a prescription from the doctors, it still never resolved the problem. So when you feel like you can't do enough to help your baby, it just contributes to feeling like a rubbish parent. And what makes it challenging is you do really need to stick to one brand, don't you, once you've started? Because the baby gets used to it, don't they? They get used to it. And even though they have the same nutritional value, they taste different and they may fill your baby up at different rates.

And we, because we were on the SMA Little Steps, that got recalled. So we had no choice but to switch brands. So the next cheapest brand was Hippo Organic, which was £13.50 a tin. That's a huge jump. It felt like the cost had doubled overnight. And we couldn't do any real weaning and gradually getting him used to that new formula because it had all been recalled. It was a case of right, we have to switch. So were you tempted to do any of the things to cut costs we've heard in this report, people using leftover feed or watering it down?

Or even people buying opened packs on social media, just leftovers to try and get the cost down. So I personally haven't watered down any feeds or used any leftover feeds that have gone beyond the two-hour mark. But what we have done is I've had friends who I have passed through formula milk to them that have been opened from peers. When you were pregnant with Otis, I mean, did you know for a start how expensive formula was? And then did you have a plan? Did you think I'd like to breastfeed or I'd like to exclusively formula feed or do a mix of each? What were you thinking? So I had no idea that formula milk was going to be that expensive to answer that question up front.

My husband and I have based our entire relationship on being equal and equitable partners in everything. So we thought let's combination feed so that he could have some time to build a bond. and also so that he could help through the night. So when I had Otis and he was put on my chest, this light bulb switched. And I thought, I want to breastfeed. I want to do it now. This is going to be incredible.

My body was like, do it. And then it just didn't work. And he couldn't latch on at all. And every single professional said he's got a really significant tongue tie. I was trying to express that wasn't working. So we had no choice but to use formula milk. And then there was some difficulties around getting the right support to be able to get my milk to come through, which basically never did. We ended up being rejected on getting support because we were formula feeding, which was very upsetting at the time.

What has all of that done to your relationship with Otis, with your partner, your self-esteem? You've got hormones, you must be exhausted. I mean, there's so much going on there. It was one of the hardest parts of having a newborn baby, having to accept that I can't give him milk from myself. And then I get quite upset about the cost of feeding and that it was my fault. Well, that's Ruth Kenfield's experience.

Still with us is Amy Brown, and Professor of Public Health at Swansea University that's done a report into this. I mean, we heard there that Ruth found it difficult, but, you know, she has a job, she works, she acknowledges that. For other people, it's even harder. And just give us a sense of some of the lengths some people were going to try and save money on baby formula. Yeah, I mean, everything that Ruth has said just echoes so strongly with the study's findings. But we had parents who were really financially struggling.

So they were sometimes getting into debt. they were having to always rely on family and friends. They were asking on social media marketplaces if strangers had milk that they could have for their baby. Some were stealing it from shops. Then others were feeling that they needed to water down the formula, which can be very dangerous because the baby won't get the right nutrients or using leftover formula, which might put your baby at risk of gastrointestinal issues. alongside that risk, they knew how bad this was and they felt so terrible about it.

The number of mothers in particular who were so distressed, they were saying that it contributed their postnatal depression, that one mother told us that she wished maybe she'd never had the baby because she felt so terrible that she was letting her baby down. And it is just, it is also fixable. formula doesn't need to be this expensive. Well, do we know why it is this expensive? I mean, I was reading in your research, infant formula prices were high before the cost of living crisis,

but they rose up to, 45% between 2021 and 2023. Why? I mean, part of it is the cost of living impact, where all our food went up and the prices of production and the raw ingredients went up. One of the biggest challenges we've seen that parents are facing is they're really facing pressure to buy milks that are more expensive and they're marketed as having superior ingredients or have these impacts on your baby. And none of that is true. You can go along

and you can buy the lowest cost milks and they're absolutely fine for your baby. But parents were worried that they'd be judged for it, that maybe research might find it in the future that there was a difference. None of this is true. You can go and buy those milks that you can afford. and your baby will be okay. It's worth noting, of course, that families who are on low incomes can claim free vouchers, which they can spend to buy free baby formula. If the family's monthly take-home pay is £408 or less from employment, and of course on universal credit as well.

What do you think would be most beneficial then? Are you saying that actually when parents go into a supermarket, they should see what white packaging, like we heard suggested before from Ruth, almost like cigarette packaging that's got no advertising on it, so there's no choice. Or is this about price capping? What do you think? I think it's a really complex issue,

and we're going to have to come at this from different examples, that the marketing needs to go. The marketing is not evidence-based. It is misleading parents. It's causing them to worry. So get rid of the marketing in the first place. I think one of the other big issues is that we need more investment into breastfeeding support in the first place because we had so many women who'd wanted to breastfeed, they hadn't got the support they needed,

and then they felt they'd been let down then and then let down all over again, and then they got hit with these marketing messages telling them that certain brands were closest to breast milk, which just isn't true. We also need to really challenge this issue of how expensive some of the milks are. I would be totally in favour of a price cap. This is baby's food we're talking about. I don't see why such profits should be made from it. We do have, as you say, families on a very low income can offer,

can get that support, financial support to buy formula. But we found that there were a lot of families just outside that. They had somebody working. The mum was usually on maternity leave. They had been hit by the whole cost of living crisis with everything going up and they just needed the price to come down a bit.

Is there a government appetite for that, do you think, to introduce price capping and baptising? No progress has been made at the moment. They're certainly getting the message that a lot of people are in favour of a price cap now and that these profits shouldn't be made in this way. And are the cheapest brands always available

because we heard from Ruth that actually sometimes it's not always that easy? she actually said to me that the cheapest ones were available at certain stores that weren't closest to her house. So it wasn't practical to get it. And there seemed to be a huge range in price. There is a huge range in price. The cheapest ones tend to be available at the lower cost supermarkets. So of course, if you don't live by a lower cost supermarket, and if you're trying to rely on one of the lowest cost brands and everybody goes along and buys it, there's got to be some real kind of thought here around ensuring that the milk is available for parents.

Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm grateful to you for your time. That's Amy Brown there, Professor of Public Health at Swansea University. Let me read you this statement from the British Specialist Nutrition Association. It's the trade body for formula milk who represent most of the leading suppliers in the UK, such as Danon, Nestle and Hip. They said, we understand that rising a living quarter, costs are making things harder for many parents. BSNA members are committed to providing families with trusted feeding choices to meet their needs and clear information to support informed decisions along the feeding journey. We continue to engage with government on the CMA recommendations

and support measures that increase competition and help parents manage costs such as loyalty points and reward schemes. And the Department of Health and Social Care responded by saying the government accepted a package of measures to improve information available to parents. support product comparison and remove unnecessary barriers to affordability. Analysis shows that switching from the most expensive product to the least expensive could save up to £540 over the first year of an infant's life. Savings depend on individual purchasing decisions and, of course, their circumstances. Your experience on that, very welcome.

Do you get in touch with us 84844 on the text. Now, for the latest of our series where academic researchers in residence talk about something that's caught their eye this summer. Ashley Percival Bawley served in the British Army in Afghanistan, but now she's close to completing a doctorate in history at the University of Durham, looking at women in the Special Operations Executive. That's the organisation responsible for espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines during the Second World War. But Ash thinks it's time for us to reconsider one particular set of women who worked at the Special Operations Executive, such as June Darten Kerr. June Dutton Kerr was a member of the Special Operations Executive, so Churchill's secret army, the men and women who parachuted into occupied, Europe to sabotage, to resist, to fighting the shadows. But June actually didn't do that.

She did something different, and you could argue that it's slightly unglamorous because June was a secretary. but June's role in the SOE, I think is really, really interesting because, yes, she didn't do the daring do exploits, but she witnessed and she was part of one of the Second World War's most troubling impacts, I'd say, for Poland. June joined as a civilian secretary and then she moved across to the Polish section. She stayed there until 1945 with Colonel Henry Threlful. So, she worked directly for him and he ran that Polish section. And in her own history, which is held in the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, June sums up her job, nothing of any consequence. She says, just office work. Just typing. But actually, what's so interesting about her job,

that she was running the operation to drop British and Polish agents into occupied Poland for Henry Threffel. She was doing all his admin work, all his office work. And she was, was observing her British officers. They were coming through week after week and they were growing more and more disgruntled. Because we have to imagine, obviously, Poland is a really difficult situation in 1943. Then in August 1944, their mission in Poland collides with one of the most devastating betrayals of the entire war, the Polish Warsaw uprising. And this was the Polish Home Army against the Germans and they uprising. They want to take back Warsaw and they're expecting the USSR, the Soviets, sitting across the river, they're expecting a little bit of support.

They're sitting miles away and actually they don't move. They stay there and they don't come to the Poles Aid. Henry Threffle, in his operational report that's held in the National Archives, actually gives this really detailed, very kind of doctrine-led account on what happened the kind of failures, these operational strategic failure of the Water Uprising. But what's really interesting is that there's annexes to the report where he's written letters asking for air support, asking to be able to use certain air bases so that they can launch these air operations to support the uprising. And actually, we can infer that June would have been writing those letters. She is at the intersection where the Allied High Command is essentially communicating with the USSR saying, please, come come, come,

please just send these planes over, can we please just send these supplies over, let's support our Polish agents. Now, June was right at the centre of the action. But we call her a secretary. And the word secretary has this kind of connotation where we consider secretaries, bit like Miss Moneypenny to James Bond. He's the action figure. He's the hyper-masculine super-spy. He's going out, running all the missions, doing all the dangerous stuff, and she's sitting behind. But actually, June, she's the custodian of those. secrets. She is monitoring this operation. She's writing up the orders. She's talking to the Polish agents. So she's not this passive bystander. June is at the center of that operation. She's the

office staff. She's the admin. She's directly supports Colonel Henry Threffel. She is in that room discussing these consequences that have 80 years of an impact. So it's really interesting that we, I think, should reframe them not just as secretaries. They are active participants in the strategic nature of Britain's secret war. Because when you put secretaries in an espionage, a secret world, where intelligence and information, essentially, is what you're fighting with, that that's the weapons of your war, then they become the custodians of those secrets. They become the holders of that power.

And the way June would have admin to the office, the way she ran the office, the way she was able to admin the Polish agents, how she communicated between Colonel Threffel and the agents. That's her at the centre of the operation. But, oh, she's just a typist, though. She just typed up the letters. So I think it's very important that we kind of reel it back and we think, well, let's look at the actual roles of these women and see that they have this really key impact, not just jumping out of planes, I mean absolutely amazing in that respect, but also in more of an operational strategic concept sitting in the operations room and being part of those very, very key decisions. The thoughts there of Ashley Percival Borley. Now this weekend, one of Britain's brightest young

female motorsport talents is going to be racing in the Netherlands. Alicia Palmowski won at Silverston last month. It was the first time what's known as the F1 Academy, which promotes female drivers, has raced there. The Academy, which is specifically for women, was set up three years ago. and this year there are 14 races on Grand Prix circuits in three continents. Well, Alicia is 19 years old. She's had a remarkable rise through the sport. She won the prestigious Janetta Junior Scholarship four years ago, only the second female to do so.

This gives the winner a year's fully funded racing and the use of a car. She now races as part of the Red Bull Racing Academy. I spoke to her a bit earlier on, and I asked her how did a normal girl from Manchester, as she likes to call herself, ended up in motorsport? that's a great question to start off with. Yeah, honestly, I do really say that I am just a normal girl from Manchester who happens to have this crazy opportunity to be living my dream,

you know, racing alongside Formula One in F1 Academy, with the support of Red Bull Racing and F1 team. You know, I still pinch myself now talking about it. But yeah, it was just sort of by fluke, really, that I actually got involved in motorsport myself. When I was about eight or nine years old back in 2015, so it really has been my whole life now. My grandparents just thought

as a fun activity to do at the school holidays that just take me go-karting to my local indoor track. I'd never heard of a go-kart, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd love to tell you that I was rapid straight away and it was all sunny days, but it wasn't. I had no idea what was going on, but I just got hooked straight away instantly.

You know, the speed, the adrenaline, just loved everything about motorsport. I grew up with the influence of it around me as well. I've always been a huge F1 fan, always had it on the TV growing up. So, yeah, it's just crazy that, you know, that one session there, go-karting all those years ago, that's triggered a chain reaction to me being sat here now wearing a Red Bull Racing T-shirt.

So, yeah, it's been a whirlwind of a journey, a long one, but a whirlwind at the same time. So you got hooked straight away, but was there, as you look back, a defining moment where you thought, actually I can do this beyond a hobby and this could be a career? Absolutely. I think the pivotal key turning point in my career would be when I made the transition from go-kart racing into car racing, when I won the Janetta Junior Scholarship at the end of 2021. And I had my first season racing in cars in Genetta Juniors in 2022. I think that's when it very much transitioned from a hobby into a lifestyle,

I'd say. I think that's when I had the inner belief and confidence in myself that I might be quite talented at this, but might be able to give this a good go. And it's when it all became a lot more serious as well when I entered the car racing scene. There's obviously a lot more at stake, a lot more sacrifices are taken from not only me but my family as well.

The budget required goes up a lot. The stakes are a lot higher. But I think that was the pivotal turning point when I was around 15. So, yeah, still quite young to find, you know, that passion in motorsport and try and pursue it as a career. Alicia, you've obviously gone into what is a very male-dominated world, particularly when we're talking about male drivers in motor racing. Have you ever felt as a woman that's been difficult?

have there been stereotypes you've had to overcome? How have you been greeted really by men in that world? To be honest, talking from my own personal experience, I've not had a bad experience being a female within motorsport. I think obviously the climate's changing. The landscape of motorsport is changing very much now in the modern day. But when I started back in racing about 10, 11 years ago, back in go-carts, I was definitely one of two, maybe three females on a grid of 30 plus drivers.

So there was very few females involved in motorsport. But I'm just a big believer that when you go out on track, when the helmet goes on, the car doesn't have agenda. And we're all just out there fighting for the same thing. We all just really want to win. So to me, it's never been something that affected me mentally. I think I've always just had the mentality that I'm there to win. And it really doesn't matter male or females. So I can't say I've had a bad experience.

For people, and there have been some people who've criticised the cars used in the F1 Academy, saying they're too slow, they're there to allow women to advance up the ladder. How do you respond to that? I think, well, the cars that we use in F1 Academy, they are F4 level cars, which is the bottom of the single-seater ladder. There's no denying that. But equally, it's where every current Formula One driver kickstarted their racing career in single-seaters.

Every driver comes through Formula 4. So everyone has to start somewhere, whether it's females or males. So I don't think at all it's a negative thing, to be honest. We see a lot of females in F1 Academy coming straight out of go-carts into F4, which is the first logical step on the pathway to Formula One. So they are obviously slower than the Formula One cars, but equally they're not slow cars. We do 250 kilometres per hour.

We do naught to 100 kilometres per hour in 3.6 seconds, which is faster than a lot of road cars. So, yeah, no, I wouldn't say they're slow cars. Certainly doesn't sound like it. Do you ever get the sense you've got to prove yourself more than your male counterpart? I think potentially sometimes, I think especially at the start of my car racing career back in Janetta Juniors, I think sometimes I felt as though I had to maybe work harder, get my elbows out a little bit more to gain respect from my rivals.

But I think if anything, that's made me more determined to become a better, stronger driver. I think they were valuable lessons that I learned through needing to do that. So, no, I don't really see it as a difference, to be honest. I don't think it's anything different. Do you think attitudes have changed and are evolving within the sport? Definitely, I think so. I think even in my relatively short career within motorsport

throughout the last 10, 11 years, the amount of females now involved in motorsport, not just from the driving perspective, but from engineering, from media, through to photography, mechanics. There's so many opportunities within motorsport to get involved. And the amount of females in each of those respective areas has increased massively across those last 10 years,

and I've seen that happen. And just across an F1 Academy race weekend, the amount of young fans in particular, the amount of young female fans that come up to us, but also the amount of young male fans, the amount of young boys that are watching and supporting F1 Academy, because they don't see it as abnormal.

They see it as it's, there's nothing wrong with females racing, which is exactly the purpose of F1 Academy is to make that next generation of young drivers or young people realise that there's no reason females can't be in motorsport. So you are that role model for the next generation as being a woman, a young woman who is able to be incredibly successful in this field, even just at 19 years old. Yet there's still, at the moment, aren't any female F1 drivers currently. I think it was 1992 was the last time there was a female F1 driver. Why do you think that is? currently in modern day

I think it's definitely a case of when not it that we see a female Formula One driver I think all we're lacking at the moment is time to be honest I think motorsport and Formula One in particular it's quite a unique sport in the sense that only 22 drivers

across the entire world get the opportunity to race in Formula One any other sport you know if you look at football there's hundreds into the thousands of elite football players that can make it to a successful level whereas here in motorsport in Formula One in the pinnacle, there's just 22 drivers. So it really is a numbers game, and that comes down to the amount of females involved in

motorsport in grassroots, in karting, for example. But now with F1 Academy, with all these role models that we're hopefully creating, myself maybe even being one of them, which sounds, makes me feel really strange, to be honest that I could be a role model to the younger generation. Hopefully that inspires them to get involved in karting, and then hopefully one day a dream scenario would be that we get a 50-50 split between male and females. Granted, there's a long way to go to get to that stage, but I do believe given time it will happen and we will get there. You mentioned earlier that you won the

Janetta Junior Scholarship, I think four years ago, wasn't it? And that that was the turning point for you. If people were looking at your career, they may think that it's actually been quite a fast rise. Has it felt like that for you? I think it's been a mix, to be honest. I mean, I think as I mentioned before, it's felt like a really long journey in one sense, but equally a whirlwind in another sense. I think motorsport is such a tough sport to be involved in. It can be brutal at times. There's a lot of sacrifices that we have to make,

not only me as a driver, but my entire family across those four years that you mention, the amount of money, the budget needed to be in motorsport. It's exponentially more than other sports, so that makes it a big challenge, the amount of time, that we sacrificed to be involved in motorsport. You know, I don't think I've lived a normal teenage life up to this point. You know, any spare weekend I had growing up, I spent catching up on schoolwork because I was simply never at school

because I was always at the racetrack during the week. So there's been a lot of sacrifices. So in that sense, it seemed like a long journey. But equally, I've learned so much in such a small space of time and developed a lot as not only a driver, but as a person as well. So I think it's a mix of the two, really. That's a great question. I'm interested as well when you talk about the cost because you look at motorsport and obviously it's incredibly expensive at the higher level.

But for your family, when you say it's expensive for a sport, what kind of numbers are we talking about? Way too much, to be honest. I think, well, when we started off in Genetta Juniors for one season, it obviously varies with how much crash damage you have, how much testing you do. But you're looking in the region of £150,000 for that first car racing. year, which is in a junior category, you know, of 15 years old. And then in F1 Academy, you're looking of upwards around £800,000 for a season. So the numbers are crazy, absolutely. Wow. So when you got offered a place at the Red Bull Driver program, obviously you're at the F1 Academy as well, that takes the financial pressure off your family. You don't have to worry about it. You get

the support behind you. Absolutely. It's been game-changing for my life. in my career, you know, the support that Red Bull Racing provide. In F1 Academy, there's obviously 10 drivers that are lucky enough to be partnered with a Formula One team, and I'm in such a privileged position for my F1 team to be Red Bull racing, obviously multiple-time world champions. The support that not only Red Bull gives, but all the sponsors through Red Bull that they provide to me on a financial point of view, they're the reason that I'm here, 100%. And the support network outside of the financial point of view from Red Bull is incredible. I get unlimited access to the simulator in the factory of Milton Keynes.

I get full fitness, nutrition support, media support. Any concern or weakness that I feel I have within motorsport, there's somebody at Red Bull that can address those concerns for me and that can help me. So we've sort of gone through motorsport, just me and my parents, a very small network of people, and now I've got a team of hundreds and hundreds of people behind me. So it's very, very nice to have that support. It sounds like it takes up so much of your life and you've talked about the sacrifices

you and your family have made. Are you able to have any kind of normal life as a 19 year old? How do you achieve any kind of balance? There is no life, to be honest. It is very much. Motorsport is a lifestyle, very much more than a hobby. It's the first thing that I think about in a morning,

last thing that I think about at night. All that I, my whole life, my whole day evolves around how I can make myself a better racing driver, whether that's hours spent to the gym, spent to a simulator, analyzing data, watching past races. It sounds very sad, actually. I'm quite a nerd, to be honest, from that point of view. But yeah, it is tricky to balance everyday normal life.

I mean, growing up through school, my friends never really understood motorsport or understood what it was that I was doing at a weekend because it is such a unique niche sport, really, that not many drive, not many people do. It's quite uncommon. I never really had that understanding from my friends at school. So my second home is really at the racetrack

where everybody surrounding me has that mutual passion for motorsport. It's all like-minded people. So this is where I feel my most happiest, I'd say, at the racetrack. That's Alicia Pomovsky. And best of luck to her this weekend. Thank you for all of your messages on the impact of GCSE resists. Sandra says my two youngest grandsons have just left school with no GCSE passes despite having private tuition after school.

How can this be both? do have dyslexia, but they're devastated. What does this do to their self-esteem? And Maureen says most employers don't need maths for their employees. They need simple arithmetic. Thank you for your company today. Do make sure you join me tomorrow from 4 o'clock for weekend Women's Hour. That's all for today's Women's Hour.

Do join us again next time. Their tactics may be evolving. There's nobody who's safe from a sophisticated attack. But the fight back against the scammers is on. I know exactly what you're up to. I know how much money you've stolen. from my mom. I'm Sharie Val, and together with the Scam Secrets team, we shine light on the techniques criminals are using to steal your money so we can put the power back into your hands.

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