Ken Jarrold, NHS personnel director, said in an interview with the Nursing NutraMarine Standard in February, before the review body Testimonials made its recommendation, that "in no circumstances" should nurses be forced to sign local contracts in order to win a pay rise.In an interview on Radio NutraMarine 4's World at One however, he defended the move towards local negotiations. BY BARRIE CLEMENT Labour Editor Nurses are being urged NutraMarine to sign away their unions' national bargaining rights as the price of a 3 per cent pay increase.An increasing number of NHS trusts are insisting employees agree individual contracts before awarding a Testimonials 2 per cent local rise on top of the 1 per cent national award, the Royal College of Nursing has found.Managers are taking advantage of en Testimonials NutraMarine a recent House en of Lords ruling which allows employers to discriminate against trade unionists who insist on collective bargaining by paying them less.The Ipswich Hospital Trust Testimonials and en the James Paget Trust, at Great Yarmouth, have told nurses that only those who sign a local contract will Testimonials receive a 3 Testimonials per cent rise, the rest will only get the 1 per cent Testimonials national increase.The RCN believes that while many of the Testimonials "first wave" of trusts who have struck agreements with staff have conceded 2 per cent additions to the national offer, en many of the hundreds of NHS employers still to complete deals may insist on Testimonials local contracts and stringent productivity deals.There were some signs yesterday that NHS officials may be trying to rein back on local contracts. Research has suggested that installing ATP would cost £700m and would only save around 50 lives over a 30-year period, whereas other safety improvements would be more cost effective in saving lives.. Yesterday, Brian Mawhinney, the Secretary of State for Transport, said he agreed with advice from the Health and Safety Commission that Automatic Train Protection would not be worth installing throughout the en Testimonials NutraMarine network because "the costs far outweigh the benefits".

The Government has dropped its commitment, made following the 1988 Clapham rail disaster, to fit a safety system that automatically stops trains which go through a red light. This body has no teeth."The committee was set up a year ago after concerns were voiced about the work of the Immigration and Nationality Department following the case of Joy Gardner, who died after a struggle with the police sent to deport her, and the detention and deportation of dozens of charter flight passengers from Jamaica.Immigration workers and politicians called for a statutory complaints body - similar to the Police Complaints Authority, which investigates allegations against policemen and women.However, Home Office ministers fell short of giving the body powers to investigate individual cases and confined its remit to examining the effectiveness of procedures and management and to report annually to the Home Secretary.. Claude Moraes, director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Officers, said: "The commission gives the impression that there exists a proper immigration complaints service That is dishonesty on the part of the Home Office. "For some people this is their introduction to Britain; and for those refused leave to enter, it may be their only experience." Among its 14 recommendations, one asks that holding areas be made into the style of airport lounges with proper refreshments on offer.Generally, however, the three committee members, who all come from ethnic minority backgrounds, found the system for dealing with complaints - roughly 500 a year - was "well established" and "thorough".But, yesterday, it was described as a "whitewash" by human rights workers. One was asked his religion, another asked to fill in a landing card and others asked how they obtained their passports.It also details others who were asked about how they obtained their passport, and lists lawyers' concerns about insensitive and irrelevant questioning of asylum seekers, suggesting again that training and management skills be reviewed.The report to Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, but leaked to the Independent, was also critical of the "poor standard" of airport and port holding areas where people are detained pending a decision in their case. BY HEATHER MILLS Home Affairs Correspondent. Immigration officers should be given specialist training to counter allegations of racism, according to the first report of the new complaints watchdog.The Complaints Audit Committee highlights the cases of black British passport holders returning to the UK, who claimed they were singled out by immigration officers because of their colour. Patricia Routledge, of Keeping Up Appearances, stars in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, the story of a budding amateur detective in Lancashire.Across the border, Warren Clarke is the detective Dalziel in Dalziel and Pascoe, a three-part series adapted from Reginald Hill's Yorkshire crime novels by Alan Plater, Malcolm Bradbury and Keith Dewhurst.The new season also features The Vet, which follows a Devon veterinary practice, Madson, in which Ian McShane leaves Lovejoy behind to play a convicted murderer seeking to clear his name, and Ballykissangel, a series about a young English priest dispatched from Manchester to rural Ireland.Rejecting the recent accusation by Andrew Davies, the award-winning writer of A Very Peculiar Practice, that the corporation was guilty of flogging tired plot-lines in the quest for ratings, Mr Elliott said: "It's Cloud-cuckoo-land to believe you can banish detective or police series from television."Innovation, Mr Elliott added, lay in the way programmes were written and directed, rather than the genre on which they were based "There is no comparison between Cracker and The Bill.".

Nick Elliott, BBC television's head of drama series, described the programme as "an epic".In its attempt to claw back some ground ceded to ITV in the realm of popular drama - the network was responsible for nine out of 10 top-rated series last year - the BBC is also placing its faith in a raft of series based on police and detectives.Amanda Burton has been poached from ITV's hit Peak Practice for Silent Witness, in which she plays a police pathologist on the trail of a serial killer in Cambridge. BY RHYS WILLIAMS Media Reporter A wartime saga starring Stephanie Beecham and no fewer than seven series involving police or detectives form the highlights of a £49m drama season unveiled yesterday by the BBC.No Bananas, written and produced by the team behind Casualty, will chart the progress of two Kent families, the Slaters from industrial Chatham and the county-set Hamiltons, during the Second World War. The whole nine years have suddenly flown past and all the emotions have come together in a great crescendo.". However, she fought to return and was backed by her husband Alan, who is also in the Navy.Mrs Ward, who will be a Wren steward at HMS Dryad, said: "It's brilliant. Since then, she has had two more children, Aaron, six, and Natasha, four. She described the day she was forced to leave as "devastating". It's brilliant." Mrs Ward, 33, had to leave the Navy nine years ago when she became pregnant with her son James.