Morning briefing Friday 7th 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. Good morning. About one in five student loans are being given to non-British citizens. It risks costing the taxpayer billions of pounds a year in unpaid debt.

0:42Last year, foreign students received about£4 billion in tuition fees and maintenance loans, about 20 % of the total lending under the scheme. The vast majority went to EU citizens, with one in 20 of all first-time student loans going to Romanians. Julie Kirkbride is a former Conservative MP. EU students coming here claiming the right to live here are very probably getting a free university experience in the UK and may go back to their own countries where the relevant authorities, i.e. HMRC and the student loan company and all these people, will never be able to place them and therefore the loan they took out will never be paid back.

1:22Cambridge University is facing severe criticism after emails revealed senior figures brushed off detailed allegations of plagiarism against a star professor. Jason Arday resigned on Wednesday after mounting scrutiny over similarities in his academic papers and thesis. The Times has revealed their head of his faculty, Professor Hilary Kremen, dismissed early warnings from academics in May 2023. Tom Ball is a reporter for The Times. Two academics from different universities wrote to Cambridge, pointing out that they had spotted a number of inconsistencies, similarities and things that they thought were concerning and should be raised with the faculty.

2:02The emails that we've seen show that Kremin responded to those by stating that she'd held a meeting with Ardeh and that following the meeting with Ardeh, he decided to take down the article from the journal. And she then went on to write that Professor Ardeh spoke movingly about his ongoing experiences of direct and indirect racism and the conditions he was living whilst writing that. article. The FA has sent a letter to FIFA withdrawing its support for Gianni Infantino's re-election as president. Europe's governing body UEFA is also continuing a threat to boycott the World Cup, that's despite a plan to sell stakes in it being abandoned.

2:35But yesterday, the Confederation of African Football's executive committee confirmed they were backing Infantino. Maya Mezahi is a journalist covering sport in Africa. Since 2017, the people that have been running African football have been put in place by Gianni Infantino. So it's been a sort of, I scratch your back, you scratch mine. They're doing favours for one another. So really the FIFA Council, the African part of the FIFA Council, those are all of course handpicked by Gianni Infantino, the executive committee, in large part influenced by Gianni Infantino. And so this is the reason why you have such unanimous support.

3:10The Tories are promising to evict foreign nationals from social housing in the UK if they return to power. Under the plans, any single person who isn't a British, Irish or EU citizen would lose their social home regardless of whether or not they have children. And train passengers face further travel chaos overnight and into the morning. It's after a power outage, ground trains to a halt across the Midlands and north-west England. You can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere.

3:48In 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. Discover more at pwc.co.uk