Afternoon Briefing Thursday 13th August

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 Hello, this is your Times Radio afternoon briefing for Thursday the 13th of August with me, James Kitch. More than a quarter of a million school leavers have gained an undergraduate place at university or college as students receive their A-level results.

0:47UCAS says a record number of 18-year-olds have secured a place at their first choice this year. More than a quarter of entries were awarded an A or A-star grade, up by 0.2 % on last year. Last month, Andy Burnham vowed to value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap in a boost for vocational education. But speaking to Times Radio, the Skills Minister, Jackie Smith, insisted the government's not prioritising technical training over the humanities. There will be people for whom history is their passion. Of course we should make sure that there are the opportunities for people to study that route, if that's what they want to do.

1:25It's not for me to tell people what they should study. It's for me to make sure that whatever strengths you have as a young person, and whatever your dreams are, whatever the way you best learn is, you've got the chance. The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen slightly. NHS figures show an estimated 7.27 million procedures still needed to be carried out at the end of June, relating to just over 6 million patients. That's down from 7.28 million at the end of May. The drop follows two months of consecutive increases. The government submitted plans to restrict zero-hours contracts could impose eye-watering costs of up to£3 billion a year on business An official impact statement found the reforms would force companies to contend with new red tape, extra staffing costs and lost revenue The chief executive of Hospitality UK, Alan Simpson told Times Radio his industry is held in contempt I fear that Westminster, the political bubble perceives good work as being working in an office for 38 hours a week in a predictable way.

2:33And that is not the way that an awful lot of people want to work. It's not the only definition of good work. And we're legislating for an assumption about what good work is, which is frankly really old fashioned. We've lost 100 ,000 jobs in hospitality over the last year. And I think there's a real danger that unless we rethink the way we think about good work, we're going to lose 100 ,000 more. Meanwhile, the UK economy grew by 0.4 % in the three months to June, manufacturers stockpiled to mitigate against supply shortages and price rises caused by the Iran war. The first heatwave also came in May, which put some industries under pressure.

3:10The UK could experience its hottest day of the year so far as parts of England prepare for 38 degrees Celsius. Rare amber extreme heat warnings issued by the Met Office have now come into effect. It comes after the Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the government's Emergency Cobra Committee in response to the extreme weather. Wildlife advisor at the Forestry Commission, Rob Gazard, told Times Radio this dangerous period will last for the next few weeks. We've got very high temperatures, we've got very low humidity, and we've got relatively strong winds. And most importantly, as you'll know, we're in drought conditions, particularly across the south of England.

3:47And we have got no rainfall expected for the next few weeks. So all those things come together and that makes things very challenging both the fire rescue services and land managers across the country across the whole uk have been fighting wildfires now for five weeks so that's a big challenge on resilience remember you can follow the times radio news briefing on spotify and you can listen live to times radio online

4:22This 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. Discover more at pwc.co.uk You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing.

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