Afternoon briefing Friday 23rd November

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1:21This is the Times Radio afternoon news briefing on Friday 23rd October. A shadow Home Office minister has told Times Radio the Prime Minister should be losing sleep over how he's going to increase defence spending. Matt Vickers has welcomed government advice on stockpiling for national emergencies like cyber or terror attacks from hostile states, but he has this advice for ministers. We'd actually like to see them doing a bit more to make sure that we weren't facing some of these threats and concerns. We might remember the guy whose chancellor now was defence secretary. He quit because he didn't think we were protecting ourselves adequately.

1:55Well, the priority now is national security. It should be the number one priority for this government. Andy Burnham should be losing sleep, worrying about how we get to 3%, how we protect this country adequately. The government says it wants to raise defence spending to 3 % of GDP over the next parliament. But the Conservatives say that needs to happen by 2030. New amber danger to life weather warnings have been issued for Scotland and northern England. Forecasters are worried about damage to buildings and flying debris tomorrow night when Storm Bulo hits the UK. It's as wind from Storm Austin continues to cause problems in the southern half of the UK today.

2:32The Chancellor's told businesses she's giving them some breathing space. John Healy's announced plans to cut what he claims is£800 million worth of pointless paperwork. The Times' chief political commentator Patrick Maguire says he's not sure it'll be enough to win over industry leaders, though. Yes, you're cutting reporting requirements, you're cutting paperwork, but actually what businesses are really annoyed about is basically what Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner did in terms of the Employment Rights Act, hiking the minimum wage, especially for young workers, and unless and until the government really addresses some of those things, whether its stance with business will improve.

3:09The boss of the UK's largest energy suppliers told Times Radio, all the while we're reliant on gas, it makes sense to get it close to home. Greg Jackson from Octopus has welcomed the decision to approve the Jackdaw gas field 150 miles east of Aberdeen. He says at the moment his firm's forced to buy gas from the other side of the world, as we're not getting it out of the North Sea. And the problem with that is gas from the other side of the world is less efficient. You waste a lot of energy freezing it. You then waste a load of energy turning back into gas this end. On top of that, it pays taxes to the other side of the world.

3:44While we're using gas, it's appropriate to get it from close to home. But we should be clear, Britain needs to get off gas. The reason we're having our second crisis in the last five years is because gas is so dependent on these geopolitically unstable regions and on dictators. Andy Burnham insists the UK will still meet its net zero target. And we could soon find out who the next James Bond will be. Reports suggest final screen tests are taking place this weekend, with Callum Turner and Jack Loudon among the names being mentioned. Don't forget you can follow the Times Radio news briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.