High immigration levels prevent 'cohesive society'

Theresa May: High immigration levels prevent 'cohesive society'

Image copyrightGetty Images

High levels of immigration to the UK make building a cohesive society impossible, the home secretary is set to say.

Theresa May will use her speech at the Conservative Party conference to say Britain does not need immigration in the hundreds of thousands every year.

Net migration into the UK currently stands at a record high.

London Mayor Boris Johnson will also address the party, saying welfare reforms must protect the low paid.

Mrs May will say those on "both extremes of the debate" conflate refugees who need help with economic migrants who want to live in a more prosperous society.

"Their desire for a better life is perfectly understandable, but their circumstances are not nearly the same as those of the people fleeing their homelands in fear of their lives," she will say.

"There are millions of people in poorer countries who would love to live in Britain, and there is a limit to the amount of immigration any country can and should take.

"While we must fulfil our moral duty to help people in desperate need, we must also have an immigration system that allows us to control who comes to our country."

Image copyrightPA

Image captionBoris Johnson will say the lowest paid should be supported with their aspirations

The home secretary will also warn of the pressure immigration places on infrastructure and public services.

"Because when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it's impossible to build a cohesive society.

"It's difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.

"But even if we could manage all the consequences of mass immigration, Britain does not need net migration in the hundreds of thousands every year."

She will cite statistics from the OECD and the House of Lords economic affairs committee which she says shows the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is "close to zero".

"So there is no case, in the national interest, for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade."

Leadership clues

Net migration rose by 50% to 318,000 last year - with sharp increases from inside and outside the EU.

A total of 641,000 people moved to the UK in 2014, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This led Prime Minister David Cameron to say he would not "cave in" and abandon his target of reducing net migration below 100,000.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson is expected to tell the party conference that any welfare and tax reforms must not reduce support for "the hardest working and lowest paid".

"Shops workers, cleaners, the people who get up in the small hours or work through the night because they have dreams for what their families can achieve - the people without whom the London economy would simply collapse," he will say.

"[These are] the people Labour is leaving behind and then there is an even more important requirement.

"Because if Labour is once again becoming the party that pointlessly bashes the rich it is we who give everyone the tools to make their own lives and their own successes."

BBC political correspondent Alex Forsyth says that with talk of who might succeed Mr Cameron continuing on conference sidelines, both speeches will be closely watched for signs of any leadership ambitions.

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SOCIETY ward off the effects of poverty

GROUP 11—SOCIETY

ward off the effects of poverty. The means for the relief of hunger are close at hand; and the impulse to give in kind is so elemental that it persists long under quite different social conditions. . Even the most stingy people who would not give money of the smallest value to the beggar will give bread. There is a deep-seated belief in the hearts of all that no one can be doing wrong in giving food for instant wants. While the organisation of Society remained simple, this feeling sufficed for the allaying of such poverty as prevailed, where the very poor were few and the very rich almost nonexistent. It suffices still in the rural parts of some lands. In mediaeval days it found a sort of organised expression through the monasteries, which dispensed hospitality without attaching to it an undignified personal obligation. Even yet people feel they can take from a monastery without being shamed, though they are better able to assist the hospice than it is to assist them. The vague and beautiful relations of courtesy, hospitality, and charity, before the days when
The giver may not give, lest any blame him,
And the taker may not take, lest taking shame him,
were well enough in the childhood of the world, while human intercourse was personal throughout all society, and mutual and cordial understandings pervaded a whole country-side at once.
The Failure of Charity in Keeping Pace with Civilisation
But that idyllic state became broken up in our own country by war, by pestilence, by new economic combinations, such as the grouping of men in masses for manufacturing purposes, and by the extraordinary subdivisions of labour which have followed the use of machinery, and have made men skilled in small sections of work, and unskilled in all else. The personal relationships have failed with the growing complexity of life, and they must be replaced by a new, collective, wisely-generalled humanity, if the poor are not to suffer, and perhaps increase. The passage from the old to the new during the last three hundred years has been marked by grievous strife, experimenting, and mistakes, which we may follow with painful advantage if it helps us to clear the future from the proved impediments of the past.
The relation between the State and the English poor, as set forth in our laws, has undergone four great changes since history had a full record, and it is on the eve of a 3766 fifth. There was the period before Queen Elizabeth, when repressive measures were tried, and, failing, gradually became merged into voluntary relief. Then there was a compulsory system of relief, organised locally, and lasting for more than a hundred and fifty years. But this plan could not accommodate itself to the vast economic changes which came with mechanical invention and the use of steam. Indeed, it proved a source of demoralisation to the point of national danger before it was superseded by the modern Poor Law system—a great advance, but lapsing into admitted inadequacy after nearly eighty years of use. The fifth period asks insistently to be begun, without at present eliciting any response from too busy Governments. We wish to look at these successive stages of experiment in more detail.
The Attempt to Suppress the Signs of Poverty by Force
The most ancient laws for dealing with the poor are predominantly, if not entirely, repressive. Where poverty reached a stage that called for public notice, it was regarded as bordering on the criminal, and was confounded with begging and vagrancy. The giving of indiscriminate alms was forbidden, and anyone found offending could be fined ten times the amount he had given ; but by the reign of Henry VIII. it had become necessary to define the “ poor creatures ” wdio could properly be “ holpen,” and those who might live by charity were registered and licensed within certain limits, while “ valiant beggars ” able to work were subjected to additionally stringent penalties. The law sought to punish those who did not work, and to make them work, be they young or old.
Drastic Laws that Failed in the Repression of Vagrancy
Thus a statute of Henry VIII. (22 cap. 12), which remained in force for sixty years afterwards, ran that any person, “ being whole and mighty in body, and able to labour, having no land master, nor any useful merchandise, craft, or mystery, and who can give no reckoning how he doth get his living,” shall be brought before the Justices of the- Peace, who, “ at their discretion, shall cause every such idle person to be had to the next market town, or other place most convenient, and there be tied to the end of a cart, naked, and be beaten with whips throughout the same town, or other place, till hi% body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after such punishment he shall be enjoined, upon his oath, to return, forthwith, the next straight way, to – the place where he was born, or where he last dwelt the space of three years, and there put himself to labour, like as a true man oughteth to do.”

If he was caught a second time begging while able to work, he must have a hole bored through the gristle of his right ear— the instruction in a later renewal of the statute being that the instrument must be a hot iron, and the size of the mutilation “ the compass of an inch about.” For a third defence he could be put to death, “ as a felon and enemy of the commonwealth.” Under the same statute “ all idle children ” over five years of age could be “ appointed to masters of industry, or other craft or labour, to be taught.”
When Slavery was a Punishment for the Saucy Child
These laws were made more stringent in the reign of Edward VI., the vagrant, for a first offence, being branded with the letter V ; for the second offence with the letter S (slave) ; and the third penalty was death. Anyone could take away the child of a “ loiterer and idle wanderer,” and bring it up till twenty, if a female child, and till twenty-four if a male, and appropriate the produce of its labours ; and if it should at any time resent chastisement by its master, the penalty was that it should remain a slave for life.
This statute, be it said, for the relief of that age from some measure of odium, only remained in force two years, but it shows the governing spirit of the period.
The punitive laws, with forced apprenticeship, and fixed wages for which every man must work when work was demanded of him, of course, proved ineffective, and presently—in the reign of Henry VIII.— arrangements were made for voluntary alms to be contributed for relief of the poor, after persuasion, on Sundays and holidays ; but, this being a failure, collections for “ the poor in very deed ” were made compulsory in the reign of Elizabeth, with possible imprisonment for non-compliance.
A Poor Law that Remained in Force fos;
Twenty-Three Decades
Later, shortly before the death of the great queen, the Poor Law, as it has been known ever since, was in essence established —that is to say, in each parish all the inhabitants were taxed compulsorily, overseers of the poor were appointed,. and arrangements for collecting and distributing the funds were made. Work was to be provided for those who could work, and relief was to be given to those who could not work. Poor children were to be trained to some handicraft, and the idle were threatened with punishment. The difficulty, of course, was in finding work when workmen could not find it for themselves—and that difficulty was never overcome.
The Elizabethan law remained in force, with modifications, till 1834, but became less and less fitted to deal with the needs of the country as industrial conditions changed, until during fifty years preceding the Poor Law of 1834 it became gradually swamped by gross abuses. Early in the eighteenth century (1723) the distribution of the funds gathered under the overseers’ levy had become so unsound that indoor relief had to be insisted on as a safeguard, and the applicants were “ offered the House ” as a test of the reality of their poverty. The parish apprenticeship system became a scandal, and a law was passed for the protection of apprentices. But the full inadequacy of the scheme was not revealed until, towards the end of the eighteenth century, three great disturbing influences came simultaneously into operation.
The Changed Economic Conditions that Overthrew the Elizabethan Poor Law
These were, first, the Enclosure Acts, which dispossessed the rural labourers of their common rights and made them wholly dependent on their daily wage. The law that there should be four acres of land to every cottage was repealed. The change of the land into pasturage reduced the number of labourers needed, and’ such as were left largely lost their share in the land through the Enclosure Acts. Between 1710 and 1760 only about three hundred thousand acres were enclosed from the commons, but between 1760 and 1843 nearly seven million acres were enclosed.
Simultaneously with this restriction of rural labour a second great change in urban employment and village industries was going, on through the invention of machinery and the use of steam. Hand labour of all kinds was superseded, and could not be absorbed by the new forms of manufacture, nor could it readily adapt itself to any of the requirements of the period. At the same time such labour as had a chance in the industrial Or agricultural market could not defend itself by combination, for all united action on the part of workmen was forbidden as conspiracy by \he law. This throwing- out of workmen, by shrinkage and change in employment, was accompanied, too, by a great rise in the
37⁶7

STEAM AND ELECTRICITY POWER

STEAM AND ELECTRICITY
POWER

Courtesy, Central Electricity Board Films
WHERE THE SAME STEAM IS USED MANY TIMES
This is the Harris Hall Generating Station at Birmingham, showing the large cooling towers. After the steam has emerged from the condensers it is cooled in these towers and then pumped back into the boilers to do its work over and over aeain.

Courtesy, Central Electricity Board Films
THE POWER THAT LIGHTS THE MYRIAD LAMPS OF LONDON
Above we see a turbo-generator at Battersea Power Station The blades of the turbine are propelled by steam and generate enormous power to light the interiors of homes and work the power plants of the factories of London’s southern area.
STEAM AND ELECTRICITY

Courtesy, Central Electricity Board. Films
WHERE THE SAME STEAM IS USED MANY TIMES
POWER
This is the Harris Hall Generating Station at Birmingham, showing the large cooling towers. After the steam has emerged from the condensers it is cooled in these towers and then pumped back into the boilers to do its work over and over aeain.

Courtesy, Central Electricity Board Films
THE POWER THAT LIGHTS THE MYRIAD LAMPS OF LONDON
Above we see a turbo-generator at Battersea Power Station The blades of the turbine are propelled by steam and generate enormous power to light the interiors of homes and work the power plants of the factories of London’s southern area.

past persceptions

A DARKIE DOES A STEP DANCE
DANCES OF MANY LANDS

Wide World
Step-dancing to banjo and violin is a favourite amusement of the plantation negroes of the Southern States of U.S.A. Seated on bales of cotton, the players urge the dancers to ever quicker movements, while the bowler-hatted fellow claps.

e.n.a .
THE DANCE OF THE SHEPHERDS
Here is another seasonal dance. Czechoslovakian peasants perform their ceremonial dance at the end of sheap-shearing. The ceremony is attended by all sorts of quaint, superstitious and semi-religious rites. Note the model of a church.
466

HOW MAN FEEDS HIMSELF

GRAIN

HOW MAN FEEDS HIMSELF
GRAIN
1
L

Courtesy, Australian National Travel Association
CARAVANS OF STRAINING HORSES BEARING GOLDEN GRAIN
The horse is still in favour on the land. In Australia the grain is usually bagged and borne across the country to tram or steamer in huge wagons drawn by many horses. Effective transport is one of the biggest problems in the world’s open spaces.

Courtesy, Canadian Pacific Railway
THE STARK OUTLINE OF AN ELEVATOR
In Canada grain is carried from the field to a roadside elevator to be weighed, cleaned, graded and stored. It is then carried by a freight train that may be half a mile long to a storage elevator, such as this one which has been built at Victoria.
131

HOW MAN FEEDS HIMSELF

HOW MAN FEEDS HIMSELF
TRAWLING

LOWERING THE “ DANN ”

The ” dann ” is a buoy carrying a flag by day and a lamp by night. It is attached to an anchor and marks the centre round which the trawlers operate in their pursuit of fish.

HEAVE, HO! AND UP SHE RISES!
Not an anchor, but the trawler’s laden nets. Inch by inch the heavy load is raised. On a calm day this is difficult enough; in times of storms and gales a giant’s strength is needed.
GREY DAYS AT SEA
Even in comparatively mild weather the heavy deep-sea swell renders the fisherman’s life no easy one. This picture of a hissing bow-wave reflects only a little of the heave and surge of life on a trawler, ever menaced by the ocean’s rage.

THE FINAL EFFORT
Over the side comes the quivering weight of the catch to be shot directly into the vessel’s hold that lies open to receive it. The end of a hard day’s toil is at last in sight.
THE CATCH IS LANDED
Knee-deep amid the gaping fish stand the men, encrusted with silvery scales, handling the thick and dripping nets that hang above them, half in and half out of the water.
Pictures by the courtesy ojthe British Trawlers Federation
HOW MAN FEEDS HIMSELF
TRAWLING
LOWERING THE “ DANN ”

The “ dann ” is a buoy carrying a flag by day and a lamp by night. It is attached to an anchor and marks the centre round which the trawlers operate in their pursuit of fish.

HEAVE, HO! AND UP SHE RISES!
Not an anchor, but the trawler’s laden nets. Inch by inch the heavy load is raised. On a calm day this is difficult enough; in times of storms and gales a giant’s strength is needed.
GREY DAYS AT SEA
Even in comparatively mild weather the heavy deep-sea swell renders the fisherman’s life no easy one. This picture of a hissing bow-wave reflects only a little of the heave and surge of life on a trawler, ever menaced by the ocean’s rage.

THE FINAL EFFORT
Over the side comes the quivering weight of the catch to be shot directly into the vessel’s hold that lies open to receive it. The end of a hard day’s toil is at last in sight.
THE CATCH IS LANDED
Knee-deep amid the gaping fish stand the men, encrusted with silvery scales, handling the thick and dripping nets that hang above them, half in and half out of the water.
Pictures by the courtesy of the British Tranters Federation 

A zoo in Denmark

Danish zoo that culled giraffe kills family of lions

Adult male lions often kill cubs fathered by other males

Continue reading the main story

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A zoo in Denmark that provoked outrage after putting down a healthy giraffe has killed a family of four lions to make way for a new young male lion.

Copenhagen Zoo says it "had to euthanise" two cubs and their parents after it failed to re-home them.

The 16-year-old male and 14-year-old female were nearing the end of their natural lives in captivity, it added.

Last month, the zoo killed a healthy giraffe because it was deemed surplus to requirements.

"Because of the pride of lions' natural structure and behaviour, the zoo has had to euthanise the two old lions and two young lions who were not old enough to fend for themselves," the zoo said in a statement.

According to zookeepers, the male cub "would have been killed by the new male lion as soon as he got the chance."

The zoo said it had asked other parks to take the 10-month-old cubs, but had received no offers.

The new male lion is due to arrive in the next few days and will be introduced to the zoo's two female lions who, born in 2012, have reached breeding age.

Marius the giraffe was put down in February after efforts to re-home the animal failed

Last month, the manager of the zoo received death threats after a healthy two-year-old giraffe called Marius was put down and later dissected in front of visitors.

The zoo said the animal did not fit in with the park's breeding programme but the move shocked animal lovers across the world.

Despite the outcry over the death, the zoo said it did not believe it was necessary to change its procedures.

A spokesman for the zoo said there would be no public dissection of the lions since "not all our animals are dissected in front of an audience".

border controls

Conservative activists urge PM to keep border controls

Border controls have been extended for the maximum period of seven years

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• Q&A: Bulgarian and Romanian immigration
• Voices: Bulgaria and Romania working rights in EU
• 'Prepare for EU migrants' warning

Ninety senior Conservative activists have urged David Cameron not to lift border controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants on 1 January.

In a letter to the PM, they argue he could use a clause in EU law to prevent a "hugely disruptive and destabilising wave of mass immigration".

It allows countries to continue with border controls if they have "serious labour market disturbances", they add.

They say the UK needs "space and time" to reduce long-term youth unemployment.

Conservative Justice Secretary Chris Grayling acknowledged there was "massive" public concern about the issue but suggested retaining the restrictions was not feasible as his party's Lib Dem coalition partners would not support the necessary measures in Parliament.

Temporary restrictions

Bulgarians and Romanians gained the right to visa-free travel to the UK in 2007, when their countries joined the EU.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

How are local authorities going to be able to support unrestricted new immigrant individuals and entire families without additional financial support or increased local taxation?”

Tory activists' Letter

Since then, temporary restrictions have been in place meaning Romanians and Bulgarians have been able to work in the UK only if they are self-employed, have a job offer, or are filling specialist posts for which no British worker can be found.

These restrictions will be dropped on 1 January, having been extended to the maximum period of seven years.

Mr Cameron has said the government "can't stop these full transitional controls coming to an end".

But the letter, written by Conservative Grassroots chairman Robert Woollard and "backed by local association chairmen, former chairmen and other senior activists", says they "respectfully disagree" with the government's position.

It says a "safeguard clause" written into the EU accession treaty for the two countries "allows for the re-imposition of temporary restrictive measures in any member state if it is 'undergoing or foresees serious labour market disturbances'.

"Long-term UK youth unemployment - at 21% - is the third highest within EU and OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries," it adds.

'Social unrest'

The letter says it is therefore logical for the UK "to unilaterally exercise its opt-out on immigration matters under the Lisbon Treaty and extend the original restrictions to 2018 to allow the UK economy the space and time to reverse the long-term high youth unemployment trend".

"You must be aware that this is an untenable political position given the widespread opposition of the British people," it continues.

"It is also an unsustainable economic position in view of the huge pressure already placed on public services at a time when the country is still facing acute challenges within the economy."

Commons Leader Andrew Lansley says there will be no imminent Immigration Bill debate

The letter says: "How are local authorities going to be able to support unrestricted new immigrant individuals and entire families without additional financial support or increased local taxation?

"The fiscal position is simply untenable, irrational and grossly unfair - and may lead to social unrest."

Mr Woollard adds: "As a matter of urgency we urge you to call a special sitting of Parliament and bring forward a vote on Nigel Mills MP's proposed amendment to the Immigration Bill at the soonest."

More than 60 MPs have signed the Tory MP's amendment to extend the controls until 2018. But earlier this month, Commons Leader Andrew Lansley announced the bill would not be debated until next year - after the controls expired.

David Cameron has said the idea of freedom of movement within the EU, one of its most important principles, needs to be reconsidered as "massive" population shifts in the past decade have put pressure on countries across Europe.

'Massive concern'

Mr Grayling told the BBC that immigration controls were just one aspect of the UK's relationship with the EU that the Conservatives would change if they were governing on their own, instead of in coalition.

"David Cameron has said very clearly he would like to see tougher rules in future and we have always said we would have implemented tougher rules in the past," he told Radio 4's Today.

The Lib Dems and Labour were "happy with what we have got", he claimed, and only a majority Conservative government would be able to address issues "causing massive concern to the people of this country".

"We do not have a majority... the Conservative Party would not be able to get through the House of Commons some of the things that we would like to do in changing our relationship with the European Union."

Ministers have refused to predict how many migrants might arrive from Romania and Bulgaria.

With eight other EU countries - including France, Germany and Spain - lifting restrictions at the same time, they say such forecasts are difficult.

The government is tightening the rules on benefit claims by EU citizens who come to the UK and on Monday, it also announced that overseas visitors and migrants were to face new charges for some NHS services in England.

Meanwhile, a senior Romanian official has said he expects between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the minority Roma community to come to the UK after 1 January.

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• Conservative Grassroots

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oldest

Leg bone gives up oldest human DNA

By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website

The Pit of Bones has yielded one of the richest assemblages of human bones from this era

The discovery of DNA in a 400,000-year-old human thigh bone will open up a new frontier in the study of our ancestors.

That's the verdict cast by human evolution experts on an analysis in Nature journal of the oldest human genetic material ever sequenced.
The femur comes from the famed "Pit of Bones" site in Spain, which gave up the remains of at least 28 ancient people.
But the results are perplexing, raising more questions than answers about our increasingly complex family tree.
The early human remains from the cave site near the northern Spanish city of Burgos have been painstakingly excavated and pieced together over the course of more than two decades. It has yielded one of the richest assemblages of human bones from this stage of human evolution, in a time called the Middle Pleistocene.

“Start Quote

We need all the data we can get to build the whole story of human evolution”

End Quote Prof Chris Stringer Natural History Museum

To access the pit (called Sima de los Huesos in Spanish) scientists must crawl for hundreds of metres through narrow cave tunnels and rope down through the dark. The bodies were probably deposited there deliberately - their causes of death unknown.

The fossils carry many traits typical of Neanderthals, and either belong to an ancestral species known as Homo heidelbergensis - or, as the British palaeoanthropologist Chris Stringer suggests - are early representatives of the Neanderthal lineage.
DNA's tendency to break down over time means it has not previously been possible to study the genetics of such ancient members of the human family.
But the recent pace of progress in sequencing technology has astonished many scientists: "Years ago, geneticists said they wouldn't be able to find DNA that was older than 60,000 years old," said co-author Jose Bermudez de Castro, from the National Research Centre for Human Evolution (CENIEH), a member of the team that excavated the fossils.
"Of course, that wasn't true. The techniques have advanced hugely."
Siberia to Iberia

Professor Chris Stringer from the Natural History Museum in London describes the significance of the discovery

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, under the supervision of Prof Svante Paabo, have been helping drive those advances. The success reported in Nature was the result of applying techniques developed for sequencing the degraded DNA found in Neanderthal fossils to even older specimens.
Prof Paabo, the institute's director, said: "Our results show that we can now study DNA from human ancestors that are hundreds of thousands of years old," adding: "It is tremendously exciting."

Continue reading the main story

Smart spiral

Is DNA the 'smartest' molecule in existence?
How does DNA testing work?

The scientists were able to stitch together a near-complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA (the genetic material contained in the tiny "batteries" that power our cells) from the ancient femur. But comparisons of the genetic code with that from other humans, ancient and modern, yielded a surprise.

Rather than showing a relationship between the Spanish specimens and Neanderthals, which might be expected based on their physical features, the mitochondrial DNA was most similar to that found in 40,000 year-old material unearthed thousands of kilometres away at Denisova Cave in Siberia.
The Denisovans were a sister group to the Neanderthals, with distinct genetic characteristics. Identified only by DNA extracted from a tiny finger bone and tooth, they are, as some researchers have remarked, "a genome in search of a fossil" because there are no substantial remains representative of this group.
By using missing mutations in the old DNA sequences, the researchers calculated that the Pit of Bones individual shared a common ancestor with the Denisovans about 700,000 years ago.
Muddle in the middle

The Pit of Bones is difficult to access but has ideal conditions for DNA preservation

So there are several possibilities as to how Denisovan-like DNA could turn up in Middle Pleistocene Spain. Firstly, the mitochondrial DNA type from the pit came from a population ancestral to both the Spanish hominids and to Denisovans.
Secondly, interbreeding between the Pit of Bones people (or their ancestors) and yet another early human species brought the Denisovan-like DNA into this western population. Prof Bermudez de Castro thinks there may be a candidate for this cryptic ancestor: an earlier human species known as Homo antecessor. One million years ago, antecessor inhabited the site of Gran Dolina, just a few hundred metres away from the Pit of Bones.
Prof Chris Stringer, from London's Natural History Museum, told BBC News: "We need all the data we can get to build the whole story of human evolution. We can't just build it from stone tools, we can't just build it from the fossils. Having the DNA gives us a whole new way of looking at it."

Techniques developed to sequence Neanderthal DNA can be applied to older fossils

However, he points out, mtDNA is a small and unusual component of our genetic blueprint, from which only limited conclusions can be drawn. For example, no sign of the interbreeding we now know took place between Neanderthals and modern humans remains in the mtDNA of modern people.
To get the full picture, scientists had to sequence nuclear DNA (that kept in the nuclei of cells) from Neanderthals and compare it with that in present-day populations. Likewise, the true relationships between the Pit people and other ancient populations may only be known if and when nuclear DNA is available.
This will be a challenge given the age of the Spanish fossils, but their good state of preservation - largely a product of the fairly constant temperature inside the cave - gives hope.
"That is our next big thing here, to sequence at least part of the nuclear genome from the individual in the Sima de los Huesos," Svante Paabo told BBC News.
"This will answer definitively the question of how they are related to Neanderthals, modern humans and Denisovans."
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter

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health emergency

Food poverty 'now a health emergency'

By Nick TriggleHealth correspondent, BBC News

The use of food banks has been rising, according to reports

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Food poverty in the UK has now become such a big problem that it should be seen as a "public health emergency", a group of health experts says.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, six leading public health figures warned poor nutrition could lead to a host of problems.

It comes amid reports that people are struggling to feed themselves.

The UK Red Cross has started asking for food donations for the first time since World War Two.

And in October the Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks, said the numbers of people it was helping had tripled to 350,000 in the past year.

The letter also cited research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that indicated the amount of money being spent on food by households had fallen by over 8% in real terms over the past five years.

Families with young children have been hit the hardest.

The study also suggested that much of the savings had been made by people buying cheaper, processed food.

'Alarming developments'

The BMJ letter, signed by academics and pubic health directors, said this had "all the signs of a public health emergency".

It warned malnutrition, particularly during childhood, could have lifelong effects including increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic illness.

David Taylor-Robinson, a population health scientists at the Medical Research Council and one of the authors of the letter, added: "It is clear people are increasingly struggling with their food bills.

"We need to start monitoring this and treating it as a public health problem."

Chris Mould, the executive chairman of Trussell Trust, said he wanted the government to set up an official inquiry because "these alarming developments point towards serious trouble for the nation in the years ahead unless urgent action is taken now".

But a government spokesman said action had been taken to help people with the cost of living, including increasing the tax-free personal allowance and freezing council tax and fuel duty.

He added: "The benefits system supports millions of people who are on low incomes or unemployed and there is no robust evidence that welfare reforms are linked to increased use of food banks."

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