Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson

They added the social justice secretary and the health secretary will meet with the Equality and Human Rights Commission - which will soon publish guidance on the issue - on Thursday.A physiotherapist who prayed outside an abortion centre has been convicted of breaching a safe zone after refusing requests to move on.

Adam Smith-Connor was outside the clinic in Bournemouth in November 2022 where a public space protection order was in place.The 51-year-old from Southampton denied failing to comply with the order, but District Judge Orla Austin said on Wednesday his actions had been "deliberate".Smith-Connor was handed a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay more than £9,000 costs.

Poole Magistrates' Court heard the former serviceman had his head bowed and hands clasped outside the British Pregnancy Advisory Service in Ophir Road.The court was told he had been praying for his unborn son, who he said died from abortion 22 years ago.

The safe zone, introduced in October 2022, bans activity in favour or against abortion services, including protests, harassment and vigils.

During the case, brought by BCP Council, the court heard Smith-Connor had emailed the council the day before to inform it about his silent vigil, as he had done on previous occasions.Supporters of birthright citizenship point out that it has been the law of the land for well over a century and that

a "permanent subclass of people born in the US who are denied full rights as Americans."The concept of birthright citizenship, also known by the legal term "jus soli", is based in English common law and was generally accepted to apply to white men throughout early American history.

However, it did not become part of the Constitution until 1868, when the 14th Amendment was passed in the wake of the US Civil War in order to settle the question of the citizenship of freed, American-born former slaves.Previous Supreme Court cases, like Dred Scott v Sandford in 1857, had determined that African Americans could never be US citizens. The 14th Amendment overrode that.