Need help buying new car in the UK

[Kevin H]

Hi all,
As some of you know, I live in Australia, but I need to help my elderly mother in the UK to buy a new car. I'm not familiar with the UK market so I am looking for suggestions based on experience.

She only needs a small car - her last one was a Ford Focus and she's also had a VW Golf in the past.

The new car must be safe in terms of very good crash test ratings, and it must have high quality Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, in particular Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Keeping Assist, Driver Attention Monitoring and Blind Spot Monitoring.

I'm aware that many new cars have these features, but I don't know how much the technology varies between car makers and whether some brands are better than others.

Unfortunately the car will probably need to be a manual, unless I can persuade her that automatics have improved since she last drove one 50 years ago!

I would appreciate any suggestions about what might be suitable, or not, ideally based on personal experience.