justice secretary robert shadow justice secretary robert jenrick had to say. >> this is an inversion of the rule of law. we on this side of the house believe in equality under the law. >> and coming up this hour, the prime minister will face tough questions from reporters in the northwest of england. will he change the law on soft sentencing for minorities? and is another white house visit on the cards? >> billions in cuts. that's what the chancellor will need to find, as her fiscal headroom has been wiped out by lower tax receipts and more expensive debt. but what's for the chop? and will labour really bear down on our bloated welfare bill? >> yes. and will they just borrow more? anyway, you are dead. those are the words of donald trump as he threatens hamas challenging the terror group to release all hostages alive and dead, or there will be hell to pay. we're monitoring this fast moving crisis.

>> it's not going particularly well for the chancellor. no, we have had huge tax rises, tens of billions of pounds in tax rises, and yet the tax receipts are not as high as the treasury was expecting. >> yeah. i mean, a lot of people warned that this might be the case, that if you threaten businesses with hikes on jobs, taxes on jobs, then you might actually lose some of those jobs and therefore lose some of those receipts. but there you go. they didn't listen. >> well, on top of that, it's not just that the tax receipts are lower than they were expecting. it's also that the borrowing costs, well, they're higher. the chancellor didn't just raise taxes at the budget last year. she also raised borrowing by tens of billions of pounds. and just as night follows day with tens of billions more in borrowing, the cost of that borrowing has gone up, too. and now we've wiped out that fiscal headroom, which means cuts, cuts, cuts.

>> you're just trying to upset us all, aren't you, tom? >> it's a happy thing. >> it's a happy thing. >> no, it's a thursday morning. it would be nice if we could talk about nice things, but, no, it does look like we're going to have billions worth of cuts. quite possibly. or what might be easier for rachel reeves, at least in the short term, might be to just say, you know what? i'm going to fiddle with these fiscal rules that i set and then changed, change them again and allow for more borrowing. >> and yet the risk of that, of course, is if britain is seen as a country that fiddles with its rules, that doesn't stick to clear fiscal objectives. well, what happened when liz truss did a did a similar thing with no obr oversight? international creditors weren't best pleased, weren't best pleased. and there was a bit of a bit of a wobbly fiscal time there. might we have might we have a. >> yeah. and she was shown. >> yeah. and she was shown. >> the door. well exactly. >> the door. well exactly. >> swiftly shown the door. >> swiftly shown the door. >> this is the thing. you can't have free money. you've got to pay have free money. you've got to pay for it somehow. you can't

just endlessly change borrowing rules and hope that it will be paid for by the never, never. you have to have some fiscal discipline. >> there's a lot of people out there who think you can just continue borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, as long as it's for investment, but it turns out everything can be labelled investment. even. you know, various benefits for adhd can be labelled investment. >> i might invest in a couple of pints this evening. actually. >> it's a good investment for your future, tom. good investment for your future. it is thursday, which is the new friday, apparently in the city at least. yeah. anyway, gbnews.com/yoursay, would you support rachel reeves to cut billions in benefits, or is that just ridiculous at this stage? i mean, it's her fault, isn't it, that we're in this mess? at least partially. gbnews.com/yoursay. but let's get the headlines. >> good afternoon. it's 12:04. i'm katie bowen in the gb newsroom. russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has today said that moscow would regard european peacekeepers deployed to ukraine as the official involvement of nato forces in

the war against russia. the kremlin has also been reacting to a speech from president macron today, labelling it as extremely confrontational, saying the speech was hardly the sort of speech by a leader who wants peace. that comes as european union leaders are gathering in brussels today to discuss ukraine and the threat of russia, with president zelenskyy in attendance. european commission president ursula von der leyen has labelled it a watershed moment. well, that comes as 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. the developments come as the defence secretary, john healey, is in washington today for talks with his counterpart, pete hegseth. irish taoiseach

micheal martin said his country will help sir keir starmer do anything to reset the uk's relationship with the european union. the prime minister has met with the taoiseach as part of the first annual summit between the two nations, with sir keir starmer saying the uk and ireland are opening the next chapter in their relationship. the leaders were in the north west with senior government members to discuss defence and the economy. minister for industry sarah jones spoke to gb news earlier ahead of the meeting. >> 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, conservative leader kemi badenoch said her party would back a change in the law to overrule the sentencing council 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 says she's written to the sentencing council, urging them to scrap the new guidance after the conservatives accused labour of creating two tier justice. 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 a 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. >> a child who died after she was struck by a car on a sports pitch in kendal, was a ten year old girl. cumbria constabulary has said an investigation into that death is continuing. officers were called to the collision at kendal rugby club shortly before 5:00 yesterday. a man in his 40s, the driver of a black bmw, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. cumbria police are treating the collision as an isolated incident and said there was no suggestion it was terror related. and from today, rail passengers in england are being shown how often trains are

cancelled and delayed at individual stations for the first time. transport secretary heidi alexander said the policy marks a new era of rail accountability for rail services. performance data is now available for more than 1700 stations and will be displayed on digital screens or accessed via qr codes. gb news reporter steve bennett spoke to commuters earlier on. >> i think certainly passengers feel that they're left in the dark a bit and turn up. trains don't turn up, you don't know what's going on, so anything that keeps you informed helps. >> i used the northern rail app, so i already know when something is cancelled or not, or if there's a delay, even if i'm 20 minutes out. so it's kind of reinforcing something they already had. >> those are the latest gb news headlines. now let's go 1520 00:08:48,192 --> 00:08