Evening briefing Tuesday 11th August

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 Radio Evening Briefing for Tuesday 11th August with me, James Kitch. The Conservatives have accused the Prime Minister of re-traumatising victims with constant U-turns on prisons.

0:45Andy Burnham says he's increasingly confident the killers of PC Andrew Harper will not be released from jail early. He's asked the Justice Secretary to draw up new plans to free up prison spaces to reduce the number of offenders being released prematurely to ease overcrowding. The former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, told Times Radio the justice system is caught in a vicious cycle. The reality is that the government has inherited a long-running saga of both obfuscation and ineptitude by successive governments. We have consistently raised the tariffs of sentences. So we are now sentencing people for much longer periods of imprisonment than we used to 30, 40 years ago.

1:27But having done that, we've overcrowded our prison system, so we've brought in early release. It comes as probation officers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of potential industrial action. Thousands took part in the indicative ballot amid claims of chronic staff shortages, excessive workloads, burnout and reliance on overtime to keep the service running. Elsewhere, there's a warning food prices could rise because of droughts across the UK and Europe. The Food and Drink Federation says fruit, vegetable and grain supplies are being hit. The Times' environment editor is Adam Vaughan. I've heard people saying that will come with tomatoes, the heat is bad for brassicas like broccoli, so later in the season we might see issues with those.

2:09I think it will eventually obviously feed into food prices because farmers are just going to pass on costs, right? That's what they have to do. The Met Office says the UK is on course to record its warmest ever summer. Amber Extreme Heat weather warnings have been issued for all regions of England from Thursday when temperatures are forecast to reach up to 38 degrees Celsius. Britain's biggest energy supplier has told customers to avoid running appliances while the solar eclipse knocks out a portion of the electricity supply. Octopus Energy says cutting back on usage between 6 and 8pm will reduce the need to fire up gas power stations as a backup.

2:48Tomorrow's partial solar eclipse will peak at up to 96 % coverage between 7 and 7.15pm. Andy Burnham says the government will change its tactics to tackle people smuggling gangs and be relentless in chasing down criminals. The Prime Minister's intervention comes after a so-called mega-dinghy carrying 230 migrants crossed the Channel yesterday. John Vine is the former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. They're launching craft much further down the coast in France and they're launching craft from Belgium as well. And they're also increasing the size of the boats in order to cram more people on them.

3:30So this is a relatively new tactic and I have to say it's rather concerning. It's thought Donald Trump used a catering container to secretly switch jets after last month's NATO summit in Turkey. Senior American officials say he was moved off Air Force One due to security threats from Iran. Local communities could soon be given more powers to stop bookies and vape shops from opening on Britain's high streets. As part of the plans, police will be able to shut down what they're calling dodgy barbers and nail salons for up to a year. Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

4:15This 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.