good evening. i'm sophia wenzler good evening. i'm sophia wenzler with your headlines at 6:00. with your headlines at 6:00. under—performing civil servants under—performing civil servants could be incentivised to leave could be incentivised to leave their jobs under government their jobs under government plans to overhaul the services. plans to overhaul the services. cabinet office minister pat cabinet office minister pat mcfadden says it's not match fit mcfadden says it's not match fit for what the country needs, for what the country needs, promising a shake up where top promising a shake up where top officials pay is linked to officials pay is linked to performance. the government performance. the government insists it will create a more insists it will create a more focused and productive civil focused and productive civil service, but unions say it's service, but unions say it's just a soundbite with no real just a soundbite with no real

plan for change. plan for change. mcfadden is expected to outline the reforms next week, alongside the prime minister's intervention on thursday. elsewhere, reform uk's deputy leader says it was right and proper to investigate bullying allegations in rupert lowe offices. richard tice insists the party had to act after mr low was suspended and reported to police over claims he threatened violence against the chairman. reform also says it has evidence of serious bullying and derogatory remarks about women. allegations mr low denies. nigel farage warns the party must avoid constant infighting, saying it has a duty of care to its staff. in other news, ministers are facing pressure over reports that an alleged palestinian gunman entered the uk illegally on a small boat. the mail on sunday claims abu wadee, a former militant, has called for the killing of jews and posed in pictures with ak 47 seconds.

he's believed to have been among 235 migrants picked up in the channel on thursday. shadow home secretary chris philp says the government must find and remove him immediately. now a 32 year old man has been charged with the murder of 16 year old nathaniel burrell, who was shot deadin nathaniel burrell, who was shot dead in stockwell in south london on tuesday. omar prempeh was arrested and charged on saturday and will appear in court tomorrow. nathaniel was found with gunshot wounds on paradise road but died at the scene despite paramedics efforts. police are reviewing cctv and urging witnesses to come forward as they keep an open mind about the motive. and the uk is marking five years since the start of the covid 19 pandemic with a nationwide day of reflection. bereaved families are walking the national covid memorial wall in

manchester, a commemoration in sheffield and a concert in belfast. and the uk has recorded the hottest day of the year so far, according to the met office. with parts of the country warmer than spain and italy. crosby in lancashire reached 19.7 degrees today but the mild spell won't last. temperatures drop from tuesday, with wintry showers returning in the north. some rural areas in scotland could even see lows of minus four degrees as the cold snap sets in. those are the latest gb news headlines. more in an hour. >> for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts.

>> good morning and welcome to the camilla tominey show on gb news. what a week it's been in westminster, not least within the reform uk party itself. i'm going to be joined by the deputy leader of reform uk, richard tice, to discuss the allegations made about rupert lowe's behaviour and about how the party has dealt with the events in the last 48 hours. the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, pat mcfadden, will be here. i'm going to be asking him about labour's plans to reform the civil service. is this sir keir starmer's attempt at america's coveted doge.7 i'll also be speaking to the shadow home secretary, chris philp, as the conservatives table, an amendment to prevent the human rights act interfering in policies to tackle immigration. people's deputy of ukraine, alexei goncharenko will join me from kyiv ahead of the ukraine. us peace talks in saudi arabia tomorrow. as ever, we've got 90 minutes of punchy politics to come. do not even think of going

anywhere. joining me now is the chancellor of the duchy of lancaster, pat mcfadden. minister, lovely to see you this morning. thank you very much for your time as ever. you've committed yourself to cutting the cost of the civil service, which has an annual salary bill of 16.6 billion. the workforce consists of half a million full time employees. which begs the question, how many civil servants are you going to cut.7 >> i don't want to set out a figure like that, camilla, because it's been done before and it hasn't worked. you might remember the conservatives said they would cut the number of civil servants by 90,000, i believe it was. and then hiring went up. what i want to do is something different, which is to make sure that we get the best bang for the buck, for the public, to make sure that where people want to see more people, for example, teachers in the classroom or police officers on

our streets, that we get the resources there. but we also use both new technology and good performance management to get the good civil servants, which is the vast majority of the people i work with to do their jobs better. and where it's not working out, where we can have a process where people leave. these are some of the reforms that we'll be setting out this week. it's really important that the state reforms itself while the state reforms itself while the private sector is changing. if we think of the way that we do business in the private sphere, we can't have the state left behind in all our interests. and that's what i want to do. >> all right. but surely you have to cut down the numbers here. we had 380,000 civil servants back in 2016. the country still ran okay. services were still provided. so why can't you bring the numbers down considerably? >> well, i think we can bring the numbers down. >> by how. >> by how. >> many you've read out there.

they they happened under the conservative government. and i sort of asked myself, you know what what were they? you know, what what were they? you know, what was the intention behind that? and when i ask, what's the, you know, behind the rise in that, that number two things are always quoted to me. people say brexit and they say covid. now, i understand that after brexit there was probably some bureaucracy that used to be done in europe. there's now being donein in europe. there's now being done in the uk and we needed more people for that. that will be part of it. i also understand that we hired more people during covid, but covid was five years ago and we're long past the pandemic now, so nobody from the previous regime has really been able to explain to me why they hired an extra 130,000 people. so i want to make sure that we get the best value for money for the taxpayer. the state has taken on some things it hasn't done before. there have been some changes in policy, for example in the probation service, which has meant

bringing some things back in—house. that will explain some of it. but what's really important is to get the best value for money for people, make sure these are good jobs that people want to do, and make sure that when we use public resources, it's where the public really want to see it. and that's why we fought the election, saying, let's hire more teachers, let's hire more police officers. let's make sure that when taxpayers are paying in, they get a good outcome. that's what we want to see. >> i know, but you can't afford to hire more frontline workers if you don't get rid of more civil servants. i don't understand why you can't even give us a rough idea of numbers. government sources have talked about 10,000, but that would only be a drop in the ocean, wouldn't it? >> let me talk about my own. let me talk about my own department, for example. it's grown hugely in size since the last time i was in government. we started a voluntary exit programme before christmas there that will get rid of about 400 people. there may be other similar things in

other departments too, but i don't think accrued headcount is the correct way to do it because what you want is a civil service that's the right size for your policies, rather than just saying we've got to have x number of people. are too many civil servants working at home. >> well, i'm a bit old fashioned on this, camilla, i have to say, and i prefer people to be in the office 1509 00