Morning Briefing Wednesday 18th February

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 Times Radio's morning briefing on Wednesday 18th February. I'm Daryl Jackson. The Times is reporting this morning that ministers are considering ditching Labour's manifesto pledge to pay young people the same national minimum wage as older workers.

0:48It's overwarnings it's fuelling record youth unemployment. Almost one in six 18 to 24 year olds are out of work, the highest level in more than a decade according to official figures released earlier. Political correspondent Alicia Fitzgerald told Times Radio it's had an impact on firms. It has actually disincentivised employers to actually choose younger people to hire over people who are older because the logic is if you're paying someone the same as someone older and you have the option to have someone more experienced who maybe needs less training and less kind of hand-holding I suppose than someone who's 18 or maybe 20 would then there isn't really an incentive to choose that candidate.

1:30Police say they are setting information about private flights in and out of Stansted airport following the publication of the Epstein files. Millions of Documents related to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein were unsealed by the US government last month. The files have shown Epstein's jet made 90 flights to or from UK airports, including 15 after his 2008 sex offence conviction. There are concerns about people being trafficked to the UK. Russian and Ukrainian delegations are due to continued talks today, brokered by the US in Geneva. There's no sign of a breakthrough and Russia doesn't appear ready to compromise on its demands for Ukrainian territory.

2:09The first day of talks began between the two sides yesterday. Sir Mark Lyle Grant, former national security advisor, told Times Radio there are very low expectations. Ukraine has shown a willingness to compromise as much as it can and to negotiate with the Russians. and it's the Russians who haven't actually changed their fundamental demands really from day one when talks were first mooted. So I think the pressure needs to go on Russia rather than on Ukraine if a deal is to be done. At the moment, that looks very unlikely. Reform UK's new Treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick will say net zero efforts have become a distraction for the Bank of England in his first major speech later.

2:52Nigel Farage named his top team yesterday with Jenrick given the finance brief. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman was made education spokesperson and promised to abolish the Equalities Department. Baroness Ross Altman, former Pensions Minister, told Times Radio that would trouble her. The idea of the Equality Act is meant to be to help inclusiveness scrap the requirement for diversity, equality and inclusion. then you by definition will be excluding groups in society and I think for politicians to suggest that is simply wrong. And it's claimed more than four million working UK households aren't earning enough money to live a decent life.

3:35The Centre for Research in Social Policy says the data covering the year before Labour came into power lays bare the scale of the challenge facing the government. Last month the Prime Minister said helping British people with the cost of living was his top priority. The research, funded by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation, found more than two-thirds of households were living below the minimum income standard. There's more on all those stories throughout the day on Times Radio. This 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.

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