Afternoon Briefing Wednesday 29th October

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 Afternoon Briefing for Wednesday 29th October with me, James Kitchen. A leading construction body has accused the government of gaslighting the public over its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of the decade.

0:48It comes after developers warned the budget watchdog of sluggish demand and called its forecast too optimistic. They also claim the cost associated with meeting environmental and safety standards is putting the Chancellor's growth plans at risk. Speaking to Times Radio, the chief executive of the Construction Plant Hire Association, Steve Mulholland, said the government's economic choices had been devastating. There's a real lack of confidence now because of the decisions that the government took at the last budget. They started to buy it properly in March, April, when the NI charges went through.

1:23The other thing, there was no plan. When those taxes were raised, there was no plan. The truth of it is planning approvals are down 46 % year on year and starts are down 20 % at the moment. They are gaslighting the public, certainly with regards to our industry and various other things, on those figures. It is lies. The government has insisted it will deliver on its pledge and it's determined to bring about the biggest era of house building in British history. The Minister for Border Security and Asylum has told Times Radio deporting 1 ,000 out of 8 ,000 arrested illegal workers is an excellent result.

1:57Alex Norris said the other 7 ,000 workers could not be removed because there's a current limit on only deporting those with a minimum of a year's sentence. We're changing that to take suspended sentences into account. There are, of course, I think, well-publicised challenges in the courts. We are pushing much harder against those legal challenges. We think that there needs to be more risk in pushing those cases on behalf of the British people. The removals follow a crackdown on illegal workers in takeaway salons and car washes. The Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness has vowed that the country will rebuild better than before after Hurricane Melissa left a trail of flooding, damaged buildings and power outages.

2:37The storm is now lashing Cuba with winds of around 120 miles an hour. Arthur Hill from the Jamaica Observer told Times Radio island nations like his are bearing the brunt of climate change. We had, for the first time in history, an hurricane that formed on the 3rd of July, 2024. That's the earliest hurricane we've faced in the season. We have been getting unseasonal drought, we've been getting unseasonal rainfall, and for small island developing states like Jamaica, we are worried that the developed world does not seem to be taking climate change very seriously. Donald Trump's insisted his Gaza peace deal isn't in jeopardy, despite heavy Israeli airstrikes on the Strip overnight.

3:25Hospital officials say dozens of Palestinians died in the attacks, which were in response to the killing of an Israeli soldier. David Mensah is the spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hamas can't be trusted. There is an agreement. They've cheated on the agreement. They killed one of our soldiers yesterday with a sniper fire. The soldier was inside the correct, behind the yellow line, as per the agreement. And that soldier was killed. He's a 37-year-old young man. His funeral will be today. Israelis have had it up to here. And Aston Martin's cutting its investment plans after it reported weaker than expected sales.

4:04The luxury carmaker's seen revenues fall by 27 % to£285 million between July and September. It's blamed the effect of US tariffs and lower demand in China for the results. And remember, you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

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