Afternoon Briefing Friday 19th September

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Welcome to the Times Afternoon Briefing on Friday, the 19th of September. An elderly British couple who were detained in Afghanistan earlier this year have been freed.

0:4376-year-old Barbie Reynolds and her husband Peter, who's 80, were detained by the Taliban on February 1st. Their release follows mediation led by Qatar. Richard Lindsay from the Foreign Office was part of the negotiations. They were very relieved to be going home and they were just delighted to be reunited with their family when they will be very shortly. An Eritrean man has become the second migrant to be deported to France under the one-in, one-out deal. He lost a High Court bid to have his removal blocked. An Indian man left on another flight yesterday. About 31 ,000 migrants have, however, crossed the English Channel illegally in this calendar year.

1:22But the Business Secretary Peter Kailas told Times Radio the government is making progress. We have a returns agreement with France. The previous administration didn't. We are doubling down on all of the areas that will make sure that we can get a grip on this issue, start returning people who don't have the right to be here, and actually process those claims. claim processes are up by a third. 35 ,000 people now have been deported from the country who shouldn't have been here in the first place. UK government borrowing for August was the highest in five years. It reached£18 billion,£3.5 billion more than in August last year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

2:00Ian King, Times business columnist, says officials were not predicting this. The Office for Budget Responsibility was assuming August borrowing would come in at just£12.5 billion. So this is a real overshoot. And it means for the first five months of the financial year, that's April through to August, borrowing so far has hit£83.4 billion. That is some£11 billion, more than the OBR was expecting. And if you strip out COVID, these are the biggest borrowing figures of all time. And Oxford and Cambridge have been knocked out of the top three of the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide rankings.

2:35It's the first time that's happened in the guide's 32-year history. The London School of Economics came first for the second year running, followed by St Andrews and Durham. The guide's author, Zoe Thomas, explains why the LSE did so well. It's the social sciences powerhouse, but also it does take heed for what its undergraduates are saying, and it's acted on that. It's the state, it's beautiful now. It's focusing more on looking after students with things like, you know, taking care of mental health, being prompt with returning marks. I'm doing all of the stuff that students need in order to have a full and well-rounded exceptional experience.

3:09And you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of The Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale.

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