Morning briefing Friday 11th September

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up, so how the 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 concepts 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 Friday 11th of September. Local government secretary Angela Rainer has defended giving regional mayors a power to introduce a tourist tax, insisting that it will strengthen local economies. All 10 Labour Metro mayors pledged to cap the levied 5% when they introduce it, despite warnings from hospitality leaders that it will damage trade, as family staycations will also be included in the new tourist tax,

1:01expected as early as 2028. Maeve Schaefer is from the think tank IPPR North, and Taurusid regions across the country will benefit from this levy. We're really welcome because it means that mayors can now have the option to raise money and then this is the key point here, choose how to spend it. They know very well what is going to make their city, region thrive, they can decide to spend it on transport, they could decide to spend it on street cleaning or on bringing more visitors. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmoud has ordered police to use powers to ban masks at protests, saying that men in black malacharvers purposely communicate a fear factor and malign intent. It follows anti-migrant protests led by Patriot platforms Daniel Thomas, which brought over to a standstill last weekend. Police chiefs admitted that they missed using early intelligence and in future, promised in hearts coordination, facial recognition, technology use, and potential arrests ahead of planned demonstrations this weekend.

2:04Household Energy Bills could rise by £100 by 2030 because of severe delays in upgrading Britain's power grid, that's according to the National Audit Office. The scathing report warns that 50 out of 56 essential grid projects are running late. Fourcing consumers to pay up to nearly £8 billion a year in wasted wind charges to keep the lights on. Energy chief Greg Jackson warned that without urgent reform, daily waste payments will become just normal practice. Energy analysts and partner at Energy Consulting firm Beringa, Elin Fraser told us that this is an infrastructure challenge. The networks that have got to be in place to connect all of that up, and then the demand centres, so typically cities, where actually our demand profiles are changing quite quickly with electric vehicles, with heat pumps, etc. Trying to do all of that in a synchronised way, where investing cost effectively is actually really, really hard. And that's not to say it's impossible, that's not getting anybody off the hook, but it's quite a difficult thing to do.

3:05Former Conservative campaign chief Anthony Lee and his wife, former candidate Laura Saunders, have admitted shooting at gambling over the 2024 General Election Dates, so that Crown Court heard Lee used insider knowledge to place wages and passed details to Saunders before Richie Sue-Nex public announcement. Both will be sentenced next month. There's more on these stories and others 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 an 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.

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