Afternoon briefing Thursday 19th March

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. This is your Times Radio News Briefing for the afternoon of Thursday 19th March. Watch. Gas prices in the UK have increased 25 % since the attacks from both sides on energy infrastructure in the Middle East yesterday.

0:47The latest target is a refinery owned by Saudi oil company Aramco, which was hit this morning but is said to have had minimal impact. Gulf states have requested an urgent debate at the UN about the strikes that have followed Israel's attack on Iran's huge gas field. Amina Bakar is the head of Middle East and oil exporting countries at the global trade intelligence tool Coppler and told Times Radio how significant the attacks could be. We are entering one of the worst energy crisis that we've ever seen in history. And I think this fact really didn't sink in yet. Oil prices, as you said, yes, they have been rising.

1:23It's above, they're trading above$100, but it'll get a lot worse very fast. 20 % of the world's Supplies flowing through Hormuz, which is currently obstructed. Donald Trump said he will massively blow up the world's biggest gas field if Iran attacks Qatar again. There are now 27 cases of meningitis in Kent, according to the UK Health Security Agency. There's been no further deaths. Currently, cases have been confirmed in students at four schools in Kent, as well as one student at a college in London. The health secretary, who's visiting the county, says the risk to the general public is very low.

2:00The Trade Minister, Chris Bryant, has told Times Radio that Britain's last remaining blast furnaces at Scunthorpe will become electric arc furnaces, making the UK the first large developed economy to stop making virgin steel. The shift has led to job losses in steel plants, including Port Talbot in the past. Mr Bryant told us this was a strategic decision. We're not going to be able to do everything in the world, and we accept that. We need to be able to do things where we can make a real economic advantage. And there are elements of steel that we need to be doing. I mean, it's great that we're using a great deal of scrap metal and we're doing it more efficiently and effectively.

2:35That's also part of trying to cut down our carbon. The government wants up to 50 % of the steel used in the UK to be made in the UK. Mr Bryant also told Times Radio he's unequivocally behind the government's reforms to settled status after Angela Rayner attacked them. The former Deputy Prime Minister described the plans to double the time migrants wait before they get indefinite leave to remain as un-British. The Times' politics editor Stephen Swinford says it's a big move. That is a direct challenge from a future Labour leader hopeful to the Prime Minister. And then we've also, the Times reveals today that Angela Rayner has been taking aim at the Office for Budget Responsibility.

3:14And she was basically saying it hasn't costed the benefits of increased public spending. So there is a lot of action around Angela Rayner in the left at the moment. And it just feels like it's coalescing into a real challenge to Keir Starmer. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

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