Afternoon Briefing Tuesday 20th October

0:02Welcome to the Times Radio afternoon briefing on Tuesday 20 October. Police have charged a man after an Australian MP was hit by a vehicle. Helen Haynes, who's 65, has had one of her legs amputated. She was struck northeast of Melbourne on Monday. Media reports in Australia say surgeons are working to save her other leg. She remains in a critical condition. Concerns about damaging economic growth and hindering investment appear to have put the Chancellor off, increasing capital gains tax in his first budget due next Wednesday. Some ministers would like a rise in CGT on shares in second homes. It's thought the biggest revenue raiser in the budget will be a tax raid on banks.

0:44There are fewer rumours about the budget than in recent years. Former Tory Treasury adviser James Nation says complete secrecy is not necessarily a good idea. I can believe that Andy Burnham and John Healy keep things very tight, but I think as we're seeing from the Times front page today, the Treasury can still put some feelers out to try and condition certain responses. or manage expectations. And I think that's what we're seeing today. I think always on capital gains tax, there's been that fear from a Labour side that if you did raise the rate any further, you weren't going to raise any more money.

1:16In fact, it may even cost you. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says Labour must show how it will raise defence spending to 3 % of GDP by 2030. She says the money could be found. What we are asking for to get to 3 % of GDP costs less than a third of the increase in welfare since Labour came to office. I will say that again. What we are asking for is less than a third of the increase to welfare since Labour came into office. That's all we're asking for. That's what they say they can't do. The Office for National Statistics says the rate of UK unemployment fell to 4.7 % in the three months to August.

1:57Times Radio's business correspondent, Dominic O 'Connell, has been looking at the latest figures. The number of vacancies which are available is down 21 ,000 year on year. These are the numbers for August, which is the biggest fall in a couple of years. And ONS says that when they were doing the survey for this, small companies told them that they were stopping hiring because of labour costs, which has been one of the big criticisms, of course, of what was done by Rachel Reeves in her previous budgets, making it more expensive to hire people. Also, average earnings have grown across the board by 3.7%, and they're growing much faster in the public sector than in the private sector.

2:336.3 % in the public sector, 3 % in the private sector. Drivers will get five minutes to decide whether to park under a new code of conduct for private parking companies. Motorists in England, Scotland and Wales will also get a 10-minute grace period and the right to have charges dismissed for honest mistakes such as checking directions. Plus there will be a£20 cap for tickets given for basic errors. Simon Williams from the REC says the measures could have gone further. This is a step in the right direction, but not the leap we were hoping for. It's not gone as far as we would like. We wanted to see a ban on the use of debt recovery fees.

3:11And we also wanted to see a single independent appeals body. You can follow The Times Radio news briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.