live across the uk. this march. live across the uk. this is britain's newsroom with andrew pierce and bev turner. >> so how do you feel about softer sentences for minorities? judges are being told to consider the background of ethnic, cultural or faith minorities before passing a sentence. shadow justice secretary robert jenrick had this to say. >> this is an inversion of the rule of law. we on this side of the house believe in equality under the law. >> he's right, isn't he now? trump gets tough. the us president stops all intelligence sharing with ukraine. the labour leader, the prime minister, rather sir keir starmer, insists he's still a reliable ally. >> and eu leaders, including president volodymyr zelenskyy, will meet in brussels today to discuss european security. >> net zero nightmare. the average household could face a nearly £1,000 rise in their

energy bills by 2030. it's all to do with net zero. >> and is it everjustified to do with net zero. >> and is it ever justified to smack your child? leading scientists want a complete ban on smacking in england, calling it a victorian era punishment. >> more women doctors. for the first time ever, there are more female than male in britain. have you noticed? and do you ever get to see one? >> and almost 1 million people in england speak little to no english. we'll be debating whether everybody in britain should be forced to speak english. >> so this softer sentencing has come out from an organisation called the sentencing council. ministers cannot apparently they say, overturn it. so from april, magistrates will be told, oh, you've got to think about their ethnicity or their faith or minority or what their minority

status before sentencing. what an outrage. >> it's extraordinary, isn't it? we're trying to work out the logic. i think the logic being that maybe if you've been a minority, you have had a tougher life. perhaps. but then if you look at all of the statistics, poor white boys do worse in this country than any other demographic educationally and in terms of prospects and chances of ending up in crime, etc. so let's dig into that a little bit. this morning we're talking to a lawyer about it aren't we? yeah, and a lot more this morning as well. gbnews.com/yoursay to let us know your thoughts. first though, here's the latest news with katie bowen. >> bev and andrew. thank you and good morning. it's 9:33. these are your latest headlines from the gb newsroom. president trump's administration has confirmed that they have suspended intelligence sharing with ukraine as france steps in to offer intelligence. the white house said yesterday that it is reconsidering its pause in funding for ukraine and talks

between the united states and president zelenskyy's country over a minerals deal are ongoing. well, also overnight, president trump said his administration had been holding secret talks with hamas in qatar to secure the release of hostages in gaza. it marks a major shift in us policy, which has long avoided direct engagement with the terrorist group. well, those developments come as the defence secretary, john healey, is in washington today for talks with his us counterpart, pete hegseth. that meeting comes as the prime minister will also meet the irish taoiseach as part of the first annual summit between the two nations. minister for industry sarah jones spoke to gb news earlier on. >> i think the role that keir starmer is playing as the honest broker with our eu allies, with our us allies who are so important and working with ukraine, supporting president zelenskyy, making sure we get a peace through strength. so the summit today is important. it's

important for the economy. we're announcing investment that will deliver 2500 jobs, which is good news for the uk. we're also announcing further work together on clean energy that we were just talking about. but look, security of course will be front and centre. and the taoiseach is meeting trump next week. we are all working towards giving ukraine the support they need and making sure we secure a peace through strength. >> elsewhere. shadow justice secretary robert jenrick has branded new sentencing guidelines as completely outrageous and ludicrous as the justice secretary, shabana mahmood, calls for a u—turn on planned changes that would make an offender's background a bigger factor in sentencing. miss mahmood said she's written to the sentencing council, urging them to scrap the new guidance after the conservatives accused labour of creating a two tier justice. accused labour of creating a two tierjustice. the changes, due in april, would place more emphasis on pre—sentence reports, particularly for

offenders from ethnic or faith minorities, young adults, abuse survivors and pregnant women. the sentencing council says its reforms aim to ensure consistency and avoid bias in the justice system. robert jenrick told gb news earlier on that the government needs to intervene. >> it's completely outrageous and ludicrous and it needs to stop. and frankly, the justice secretary should have known about this before, if indeed she didn't. she has her personal representative on the very sentencing council that issued these guidance. i've read the minutes. there was no objection raised whatsoever. the government have got to intervene and stop this, because i don't want a two tier justice system. >> and the 1975 neil young and olivia rodrigo. those are the glastonbury festival headliners announced this morning. in june, the festival's friday show will see the british band the 1975 perform as canadian singer songwriter young neil young leads saturday's line—up, and us

singer rodrigo takes the final sunday slot. sir rod stewart was already confirmed for the coveted legends slot on the sunday after the festival this yeah sunday after the festival this year. glastonbury is taking a fallow year in 2026 to allow the farmland to recover. those are the latest gb news headlines. now let's go back to bev and andrew. >> so we're just going to take a little moment this morning, i think, to reflect on the achievements of donald trump in the last six weeks, because he did this speech in congress sort of 24, 36 hours ago now. and it was powerful. it was punchy, the energy in the room. i mean, you know, the republican politicians were all whooping and cheering. we don't do that so much here, do we? but keir starmer has been in office for eight months now, and it doesn't often feel like there is much need for whooping and cheering. so we're just having a little look at what keir starmer has achieved since

coming to power. 5th of july, of course, cancelled the rwanda asylum. >> plan just to update you . this >> plan just to update you. this year alone, 3300 migrants have crossed the channel. now the rwanda asylum plan may not have stopped them, but i still think it might have been a deterrent. >> yeah, and of course, compare that to trump, who has put military on the southern border in america and has actually managed to reduce their illegal migration by more than 90% in six weeks. the message went out we will not tolerate you coming to our border. you're going to be gone. that's it. you will not be gone. that's it. you will not be let in. and guess what? it's worked. >> defence spending. the commitment in the manifesto was to raise defence spending to 2.5% of gdp. he's finally said he will do that last week by cutting international aid. we agree with that, but we're still not quite sure when this will impact. >> and you see, i don't agree with that because i'm not sure the public appetite at the moment is for spending more money on arms and munitions when so many domestic issues are

hitting people hard in the supermarket trolley in terms of our utility bills, etc. of course, the farmers is a big story that we've talked about here a lot. inheritance tax on farmers, which we have we have them on every week, don't we? saying that they think more than well, the government's estimate was more than 500 farms would 500 farms would go out of business. the farmers will tell you, and the national farmers union will tell you it is going to be much, much higher than that.in to be much, much higher than that. in the meantime, we spent a cent, £500 million to foreign farmers to help them. >> they're in south america, they're in africa and asia. unbelievable. now trump is also in that speech reminded people he's already ended diversity spending across the nation. >> that's right. straight away it's one of the first executive orders i think that he signed was to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies in any government organisation. people literally got an email to say, you've just lost your job. >> and we're still spending at least £50 million a year on diversity training in the nhs. have you been to a hospital lately? do you think we need to spend any money on diversity in

the nhs? it's the most diverse employer in europe. >> trump has withdrawn the america from the paris climate agreement. of course very controversial. ran on the ticket of drill baby, drill. we are going 1519