Afternoon briefing Wednesday 1st April

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 Wednesday 1st April. The Prime Minister said the UK can weather the impact of the Iran war on our economy, saying the decrease in the energy price cap and the freeze on prescription charges today will all help.

0:48Sir Keir Starmer said Britain will also provide calm and clear leadership and will not be dragged into the conflict following Donald Trump telling European countries that they will have to fight for themselves. There's been a good deal of pressure on me to change my position in relation to joining the war and I'm not going to change my position on the war. So whatever the pressure, whatever the noise, I'm the British Prime Minister and I have to act in our national interests. I should say that on defence and security and intelligence, we're obviously working closely with the US as we always do.

1:23He also responded to Donald Trump saying he was seriously considering pulling out of NATO by saying it was the single most effective military alliance. Meanwhile, the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has announced cuts to petrol duty for the next three months and encouraged people to take public transport if they can, also in response to the conflict in Iran. The months ahead may not be easy. I want to be upfront about that. No government can promise to eliminate the pressures that this war is causing. I can promise we will do everything we can to protect Australia from the worst of it.

2:00The British Business Secretary Peter Kyle told Times Radio that the government is looking into its supply chains to make sure the UK economy is protected from fuel shortages as a result of the conflict. We are going through a fundamental look and assessment of supply chains and critical products and services that are essential to resilience in our country. And we are looking at those exact pinch points and what action we may or may not need to take into the future, whether this goes on for weeks, months or into the longer term. And we are making contingency plans accordingly. New information is said to have led to Scott Mills' sacking at the weekend, according to The Mirror.

2:41They said the suggestion that BBC bosses fired him solely because of the 2016 police investigation is wide off the mark, but that it did regard the same person. Allegations of serious sexual offences against a teenage boy under 16 were dropped in 2019 by the CPS due to not enough evidence. Times columnist Sonia Soda told us there was another claim made last May from a separate journalist. She came by information a year ago from a credible source that there had been inappropriate communications from Scott Mills to somebody else and she put a series of questions to the BBC. She never got a response to them.

3:15The BBC has put out a statement acknowledging that actually that was something they should have acted upon, they should have potentially got back to this journalist and sort of apologising for not doing so. Scott Mills hasn't commented on any of the allegations and has never been charged. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

3:38This 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. Every morning throughout the World Cup, the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times will bring you your essential daily briefing.

4:28We'll hear from our reporters inside the England and Scotland camps bringing you the big news first. We've got reporters covering the best of the rest and following all the biggest stories. From FIFA banning water to Donald Trump coming on as a sub against Paraguay. OK, maybe not the last bit, but who knows? So join the game for the biggest show on earth. Find the game wherever you get your podcasts.