Evening briefing Tuesday 18th 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 Tuesday the 18th of November. An action plan is in place to counter Chinese spying efforts after MI5 warned that politicians are being targeted by Beijing.

0:46Parliament staff, economists, think tank employees and those working alongside the government have been targeted for their networks including MPs and peers. It's believed two headhunters are working for Beijing's security services and the networking site LinkedIn is being used to pass information. The security minister, Dan Jarvis, says any amount of information could be of interest. I urge all parliamentarians and their staff to be wary that China has a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value and will gather individual pieces of information to build a wider picture. Shadow security minister Alicia Cairns says more reassurance is needed that the measures announced will be enough.

1:29Earlier this month, Norway and Denmark alerted us to the existence of dual-use kill switches in Chinese-made electric buses, allowing China to switch off buses and bring chaos to transport systems. So could the minister give an update on the investigation into our bus networks, but also the chips that have been placed in Ministry of Defence vehicles that require our members of the armed forces to be silent whilst travelling around our country in defence of our nation? The Chinese embassy has said that allegations it's spying on the UK by having agents pose as HR recruiters is pure fabrication and malicious slander.

2:01The Republican politician, who Donald Trump branded a traitor, says she'll continue to fight to release information on Jeffrey Epstein. Marjorie Taylor Greene's been speaking alongside victims of the disgraced financier ahead of a vote on making investigative documents public. The Home Secretary has admitted illegal migration numbers are too high, saying she's horrified by the 27 % increase in arrivals in the year to June. Yesterday, Shabana Mahmood announced reforms to the asylum system including making refugee status temporary. The Chancellor has been told to plug a hole in the public finances by cutting spending, not putting up taxes.

2:37Leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenot, claims Rachel Reeves will scrap the two-child benefit cap next week. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says the budget will be an attack on aspiration. An attack on alarm clock, Britain. An attack on those who get up in the morning. This budget will do nothing for the 5.6 million very brave men and women who act as sole traders or run their own businesses without which the British economy frankly would grind to a halt. Governments promise more resilient public finances. Five people have been taken to hospital in Staffordshire following a chemical spill at a school.

3:15Emergency services were called to Biddlef High School this morning after reports that students had been exposed to a chemical substance. This chemical has since been isolated and the building ventilated. A jury has heard a 13-year-old girl accused of murdering a woman in a pre-planned stabbing inflicted more than 140 wounds on the victim. Jurers were told the teenager had conducted online research before the killing, while 43-year-old Marta Bednicek was probably dead before her body was burnt in a fire in Wellingborough in March. Lincoln Crown Court was told the defendant accepts unlawful killing but denies murder, claiming diminished responsibility.

3:51And services appear to be returning after a major outage on websites powered by Cloudflare. Sites such as X, Facebook and ChatGPT have suffered with connections issues and thousands of complaints have been lodged. You can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. That's your Times Evening Briefing on Tuesday the 18th of November.

4:43Transcription by CastingWords 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