Afternoon Briefing Monday 21st 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 Radio afternoon briefing for Monday, the 21st of September. Flights are being delayed in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England because of a problem with air traffic control.

0:46National Air Traffic Services says a problem and its press to Accenture in Scotland has now been fixed. It's unrelated to a software fault earlier this month, which led to more than 2 ,000 flights being cancelled. Ryanair has repeated its call for Nats Chief Executive Martin Rolfe to resign. The hard-right anti-immigration AFD party has again done well in a state election in Germany. It's taken about 38 % of the vote in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg, West Pomerania. Chancellor Friedrich Mertz's centre-right Christian Democrats have taken just 5%. Oliver Moody is the Times' correspondent in the German capital and says the AFD is attracting continuing support.

1:27It's probably come in first place, although it's only just secured an advantage over the centre-left Social Democratic Party. It has no obvious path to power in that state, but this will certainly increase its sense of momentum following a really spectacular victory in the central eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt two weeks ago. Analysis by the Times is suggesting that many Labour MPs may be reluctant to back legislation to cut the welfare bill. More than half of Labour MPs have more people claiming personal independence payments in their constituencies than the size of their majorities. The Times' political editor Stephen Swinford says the welfare budgets will not be dropping any time soon.

2:15There will be nothing in the budget to actually reduce the benefits bill because the government's going to need time to respond to that. So we are expecting something on the longer haul. We're in a situation where Andy Burnham says he wants to reduce the benefits bill, but he says he's opposed to crude cuts. What we are hearing, in fact, is anything, is they're going to end up spending more on employment support and other things in a bid to get the benefits bill down over time. And Kemi Badenoch says she wants to reverse a post-Brexit change and bring back tax-free shopping for tourists. The Tory leader says if her party returns to power, it'll scrap the VAT refund scheme from 2021.

2:54The Conservatives say the current situation makes the UK less competitive than many other European destinations. Shadow Treasury Minister Gareth Davis. We believe that this will result in more money being spent on our high streets at the tune of about£4 billion. This is something that we want to see because it helps not just the high street but economic growth and prosperity to support businesses at probably what is a very difficult time. You can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC.

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