Evening briefing Wednesday 28th October

0:00Hello, this is your Times Radio Evening Breathing for Wednesday 28th October 28th October we are. We know where we're going. We can see the Britain we want to be. It's a vision burned into every line of this budget statement. Madam Deputy Speaker, breathing space now, fresh hope for the future, delivered to the British people by this Labour government. John Healy announced 20 million households in council tax bans A to D will receive a£100 household energy payment, costing£2.6 billion. The Chancellor also pledged to set out a roadmap for fiscal devolution, with business rates retained locally by the end of the decade and mayors receiving a share of income tax from 2028.

1:09The economist Rupert Harrison is a senior advisor at PIMCO Investment Management. I think that there's lots of academic evidence that less centralised countries are better at doing things like regional growth policy, that money is better spent locally. But I don't think that you get credit for that up front. I don't think that any investor or forecaster is going to say, oh, I'm going to put a few extra percentage points on my UK growth forecast because they're doing devolution. It's a question of show, not tell. The main revenue generator and extra time-limited surcharge on banks' profits was set at 3%.

1:46The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts disposable income will only be 2 % higher by the end of this decade than it was at the start. It also downgraded its forecast for growth next year from 1.6 % to 1%, with inflation hitting 3.4%. The Times columnist Fraser Nelson has been looking at the numbers. You will struggle to find any 25-year period where people's real incomes didn't actually move. And as Donald Trump is finding out in America right now, that translates very quickly into political anger, especially if you're led to believe the opposite. Andy Burnham's talking about breathing space, etc.

2:22This phrase, breathing space, is almost the le motif of the Burnham premiership. Elsewhere, Russell Brand has been giving evidence at Southwark Crown Court, where he's accused of seven offences by six women, including rape and sexual assault. The Times' newsroom reporter Olly Cole is following the trial. At the start of his evidence, Brand said he could not recall all of the events set out, but had memory of some of the encounters and women involved, including having consensual sexual activity in bar toilets, backstage at shows and at his home. The 51-year-old said the allegations had consumed his whole life, recalling being blocked from Great Ormond Street Hospital to be with his sick baby son after he'd been publicly accused of rape.

3:01In cross-examination, Brand accepted he was obsessed with sex but could function without it. Pressed on what his idea of consent meant, he said, I know what no means. Russell Brand denies the charges against him. At least 68 people are now confirmed to have died after two high-speed trains crashed in central Spain this morning. They were carrying more than 500 passengers when they collided between Madrid and Seville. It comes after 45 people died and 170 were injured in a crash in the south of the country in January. Remember, you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:46Thank you.