Evening briefing on Wednesday 19th November

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 Evening Briefing on Wednesday 19th November. The Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has told Times Radio it's vital to get staff on board if Labour want to fulfil their key pledge to fix the NHS.

0:47A report from the cross-party group likened the government's reforms in England to mismanagement of HS2. They also found the decision to restructure wasn't prudent and was decided upon despite no money having been set aside for it and no impact assessment done. Clive Betts says the crucial measure of getting people on board just wasn't followed. There's a very simple message across any reorganisation, any attempt to spend money to improve. You begin by talking to the people who are going to work to achieve that. If you don't get the employees on board, whether they're doctors at one level or the other level of people simply organising the waiting list and making sure patients arrive on time and are properly looked after, If you don't get everyone on board, then things are likely to fail.

1:34A former Metropolitan Police officer has been found guilty of molesting a girl and raping a former partner. The attack on the 12-year-old was in the late 1980s when he targeted a woman during a toxic relationship over 20 years later. These latest offences emerged after David Carrick, who's from Stevenage in Hertfordshire, admitted 71 instances of sexual violence against 12 different women over 17 years. The Defence Secretary says the UK knows Russia is trying to spy in British waters as the Navy tracks one of its vessels. As I speak, a Russian spy ship, the Yantar, is on the edge of UK waters north of Scotland, having entered the UK's wider waters over the last few weeks.

2:16This is a vessel designed for gathering intelligence and mapping our undersea cables. John Healy accuses the Yantar's crew of deeply dangerous behaviour after they pointed lasers at British pilots trying to monitor its movements. He said it's the second time the ship has deployed to British waters this year. A judge has blamed the lack of funding of the court system as he refused to keep an attempted murder suspect on remand. Despite significant risk of re-offending, the man accused of trying to kill someone in an attack in East London earlier this year is being freed from prison. Judge Silas Reid's ruling has been described as a disaster waiting to happen.

2:54The backlog of Crown Court cases is currently more than 78 ,000, with trial dates being set as far away as December 2029. Ahead of the budget, the Chancellor has been told to pick the right fights. Progressive think tank the IPPR says Rachel Reeves needs to tax people with unfair advantages before targeting working households. She's promised to stabilise public finances. Stephen Millards from an independent economic research institute, he says markets need this budget out of the way. One minute there are leaks about tax rises, the next there aren't. I don't think that helps at all. Uncertainty for quite a while has been quite high.

3:31It's not good for firms. It's not good for investment. President Trump's envoy to NATO has said the US wants Germany to take command of the alliance's forces in Europe. Matthew Whitaker suggested Berlin should eventually appoint the commander of NATO's forces on the continent, upending more than 70 years of tradition. That position has invariably been a four-star US general throughout the history of the alliance. And you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online. That's your Times Evening Briefing on Wednesday 19th November.

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