Daily briefing Sunday 20th July

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0:35This is the Times Daily Briefing for Sunday 20th July. The British Army has launched an investigation after the identities of senior SAS personnel were published online. The Sunday Times has learned that the details of special forces soldiers recruited from the Grenadier Guards had been publicly available for a decade. The Defence Secretary John Healy is said to be furious about the breach, news of which emerged less than a week after the Afghan super injunction was exposed. Political correspondent Terry Stiasny says it adds another layer to the questions over security for the armed forces. Apparently this had been going on for 10 years and it has only just been taken down after this was brought to light by reporting by the Sunday Times.

1:19So the head of the army has now ordered inquiry into this, but it does add to questions about security and whether the identities of special forces following on from the Afghan data leak are kept secure enough. The government is pledging to halve sewage pollution by the end of the decade. Ministers say water companies in England and Wales will be held accountable over the target, amid public anger over increasing bills and record levels of water leaks. It comes ahead of this week's publication of a landmark independent review into the sector which may recommend the abolition of the water regulator of Watt.

1:56The government has completed the nationalisation of a second train company, C2C, which operates between London and South Essex, has been taken over by the Department for Transport, having previously been run by Italy's State Railway. Almost 40 % of train journeys in England will now be on services managed by the government. Richard Bowker is the former chair of the Strategic Rail Authority. Speaking to Times Radio, he said the government will have to make a significant financial commitment to the service. Some of the trains are coming up towards the end of their life, so they're going to need to be replaced.

2:29The wires that carry the electricity overhead, most of that dates from the 1960s. And, you know, when you have a private business, you can look at a 5, 10, 15, 20-year investment programme. The problem for the government is that the Department for Transport and the Treasury tend to have one-year, two-year sort of horizons, and that's no good. And the budget airline Ryanair has confirmed it pays commission to staff who successfully enforce its bag-size policy. A payslip of a former Ryanair employee seen by the Sunday Times shows a staff member received a gate bag bonus related to oversized cabin luggage.

3:05Chris Haslam is the chief travel writer for the Sunday Times, whose investigation began six months ago. It was a policy of deny, delay and dismiss, just don't even answer the emails. And it was only when I got irrefutable evidence from a leaked email suggesting that EasyJet were involved in the practice, that they kind of reluctantly owned up to it. And now Julianne Corr at the Sunday Times Ireland has actually done what I did and presented Ryanair with irrefutable evidence and they've kind of admitted that they do. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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