Boots and superdrug . Ill be talking to two leading experts about about their views on this critical topic and who should pay critical topic and who should pay. And of course, the pay. And of course, the government this week has voted in favour of a new law that would ensure that cyclists are held accountable , particularly held accountable, particularly with regard to fatalities that they may cause in the same way as motorists. But actually, should cyclists just have to obey the rules like motorists do . I mean, why should they be allowed to, you know, ride recklessly on the road and cause chaos injury . I think they should be the subject of the same laws. Ill be joined by the law. And nick freeman , aka mr. Law. And nick freeman, aka mr. Loophole, as hes been described , and also britains most hated cyclist. Goodness me, thats quite a title, isnt it . See if the brakes should be applied on this law. And of course, the arts. Weve got the great Stefan Kyriazis, the arts editor, to talk us through his latest theatrical adventures and excitements. Before all of that, folks, its the headlines with sophia wenzler. Richard. Thank you. Good morning. Its 11 02. Im sophia morning. Its11 02. Im sophia wenzler in the gb newsroom. Wenzler in the gb newsroom. Chancellor jeremy hunt has vowed to compensate victims for the infected blood scandal with a £10 billion package. Hunt claimed it was part of a fulfilling a promise he made to a constituent who died after contracting hepatitis c. The scandal has been the subject of the biggest ever Public Inquiry in the uk , after tens of in the uk, after tens of thousands of people were infected with contaminated blood and blood products. Infected with contaminated blood and blood products. Nhs infected with contaminated blood and blood products. Nhs staff and blood products. Nhs staff will be told to work evenings and weekends under labour plans to slash waiting lists. Hospitals would be asked to share staff and pool waiting lists as part of a £1. 1 billion drive, providing an extra 40,000 appointments a week. Shadow Health Secretary wes streeting also promised to protect whistleblowers and cut the nhs reliance on Migrant Workers. £1. 1 billion paid for by clamping down on tax avoidance and also closing non dom loopholes as well. And that will enable us to put £1. 1 billion directly into the pockets of nhs staff to deliver those extra appointments at evenings and weekends , using an approach weekends, using an approach thats been tried and tested at the london hospital. I can literally see out of my Office Window in westminster and therefore an approach we need to see available to patients right across the country, not just in london. And that does come with a cost. And thats why weve made this commitment as our first step on the journey to busting the tory backlog and cutting nhs waiting lists , the cutting nhs waiting lists, the Prime Minister is set to warn the public about the risks of artificial intelligence. Rishi sunak will tell a major tech summit in south korea that managing the risks of ai is one of the most profound responsibilities faced by world leaders. The Prime Minister will be a virtual co host remotely from london alongside south korean president yoon suk yeol. Korean president yoon suk yeol. In other news, an israeli war cabinet minister has threatened to resign if Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu doesnt adopt a new plan for gaza. Benny gantz has set an 8th of june deadline for a plan to achieve six strategic goals, including the end of hamas rule in gaza. It comes after the Israeli Military says it recovered another body yesterday after the bodies of three israeli hostages were recovered from gaza on friday. Israel says it believes 100 hostages are still alive there. Defence secretary grant shapps told gb news he is pleased benny gantz has spoken out. It is vital, vital that for israel , of course, for israel, of course, for palestinians that there is a route in which they end up with a government which is which are not a bunch of terrorists, which is what hamas are, but people who can properly represent them. And israel needs to set that out, because there could be, if you put all of those pieces into place and combine it with normalised of relations with saudi arabia, for example , a saudi arabia, for example, a Better Future for that region, including for israel. So, yes, including for israel. So, yes, i do think its time to set that out. And we have been urging this step to take place. This step to take place. Northern ireland secretary Chris Heaton Harris has said he will not be standing at the next general election. The tory mp posted on ecs saying it has been an honour and a privilege to serve. Mr Heaton Harris has been the Northern Ireland secretary since september 2022. He announced his intention in a letter to Prime Minister rishi sunak , and history was made in sunak, and history was made in saudi arabia last night as Oleksandr Usyk became boxings undisputed world heavyweight champion after defeating tyson fury. The champion after defeating tyson fury. The ukrainian won on a split decision following the fight in riyadh. Fury was nearly knocked out in the ninth round but disputed the loss afterwards, seeming to suggest usyk only won on sympathy votes because of the war in ukraine. In response, usyk said he was ready for a rematch. Speaking after the fight , tyson fury ready for a rematch. Speaking after the fight, tyson fury said it was very close. It was a close fight, you know, i believed. I thought i did enough, but, you know, im not a judge. I cant judge a fight while im boxing. It you know, if they would have said to me in the last round or whatever, youre down, go out and try and finish him, i would have done that. But we believe everyone in the corner believed we were up. You know, also i had to do was just keep boxing and doing what i was doing. And, you know, i thought he was getting it. But it was what it was. Im not going to cry about spilled milk. Ive had plenty of victories and ive gave god the glory. Ive had this one loss and a close, close fight, you know, with a good, good man like usyk. And for the latest stories, sign up to gb news alerts by scanning the qr code on your screen or go to gb news. Com slash alerts. Now its back to richard. And a very good morning to you and thank you, sofia, for those News Headlines. Well, im with you for the next two hours, michael is having a well earned break this week, but weve got loads and loads to get through, some great debates, a little bit of politics, but also some other debates, including manners maketh man. But first up, a really important topic that has come to the fore this week because the labour party, as part of its plans, if it is elected in the government, wants to put vat of 20 on Independent School fees, and that estimates that it might generate as much as £1. 6 billion. Well, thats the theory. But have these proposals already backfired before theyve even been put into action . Because some recent figures shows that already. And ive actually got experience of this. Yes, less parents are this. Yes, less parents are signing up and putting their kids into private schools in the last year, way before this plan is put into action. Well, its an important debate and i want your views at home as well. Should the vat be added to school fees and you can have your say gbnews. Com yoursay ill take your views later on. Weve got a great panel to talk about it. And also, well, why just school fees . What about University Fees . I mean thats elitist as well to discuss this, ive got former labour adviser, head of policy at catch 22, stella kidu, and also the chief Political Correspondent for the times, aubrey allegretti, and the former adviser to michael gove. Charlie rowley. Ladies and gove. Charlie rowley. Ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you. This is a big topic. And aubrey, im going to start with you. Is this smart politics or is it just the politics of envy that sort of satisfies a bit of red meat to the communists on the left of the labour party . I think its probably helpful to start by sort of zooming out on this, because labour needs to go into this election offering substantial policies , things substantial policies, things that people will think make the country better. And theyve been accused of being quite lacklustre on that front of not having very many plans, of not being very ambitious or bold. Being very ambitious or bold. And i actually think this is a policy which labour can point to respond to those critics and say this is something that we do want to do. We do want to add vat to private school fees in order to fund the hiring of 6500 teachers in our public schools. So i think the sort of big opfics so i think the sort of big optics of this for labour are quite helpful. Do you think smart politics is really where youre at in terms of their sort of core voter base and well come on to actually whether it does generate any revenue at all, so charlie from aubrey , their smart charlie from aubrey, their smart politics, michael gove, he sort of flirted with this idea. Maybe its all your fault. Maybe youre responsible for this. Oh, i think, michael was education secretary a bit before my time, but, i agree with them, aubrey, to a certain extent, that, look, you know, labour do need to have more meat on the bone. They do need to present more policies because the public dont really know what they stand for. And i think that is an issue for them. So they come forward with with this one. Rachel reeves yesterday opened the door to rent caps. But but this is this is i mean, this is the starter. Its, its the politics of envy, isnt it . Youve got Great Schools and youre saying, well, actually, we want less people to be able to afford to go to them. Brilliant. And this is the thing, its the, the theory versus the reality. Its the campaign versus being in government. So like with the rent caps, the idea that just increases rents elsewhere and it removes people from the housing sector. So you dont have the supply. So you have even more demand. Prices go up elsewhere with this particular policy. It would it could potentially fund more teachers for the state School Sector sector that i was very happy to be educated in. However, what you will see are parents not sending their kids to private schools. Those kids will then also have to come into the state education sector. So the state education sector. So there will be even more. Lets just look at the numbers. Lets just look at the numbers. The labour party claimed that its going to raise about 1. 6 1. 7 billion gross on the fees, but schools can then reclaim the input costs. Thats about, 400 million. And then of course, lots of children are not going to be able to afford to go. Estimates 100,000. Lots of the Independent Schools are going to have to reduce their bursaries, which means more children maybe. I mean, very quickly its whittled down to the square root of nothing stellar. So this is just the politics of envy, isnt it . Richard, youve made so many points. There that i think are great spin for the Independent Schools council. I actually found the numbers that they gave out to be incredibly manipulative, and weve seen a lot of manipulative spin in the last week. I think this one takes the cookie really first mtly, states who rolls . The mtly, states who rolls . The numbers are falling anyway. They are projected to fall. To fall by 400,000 between now and 2028. Its irrelevant to the number. The number that the Independent Schools council. So this is Independent Schools themselves telling us this, right. They are marking their own homework and they are telling us there were 3000 less students, signing up for private schools this year than they were last year. To what extent what percentage of that would have already been dropped out because of the falling pupil numbers . We dont know. Now, the other the other argument that you made about, parents choosing not to go to private schools, the only independent studies that we have , both from the uk and the usa, shows us that private schools , shows us that private schools, private schools, are actually incredibly unresponsive , lviv to incredibly unresponsive, lviv to fee increases. And in the last decade, private schools have raised their fees over and over again. Again. And yet the same parents who think parents should got parents will just keep on paying. So. So are you a governor of. I think that i think that parents who make 100 k a year are the top 4 of the post tax. Thats about 4555. Thats about 4555. 4 of the population of the uk. So for these parents to then come and claim that they are the squeezed middle, i think there is a certain level of delusion going on. Let me tell you whats actually happening on the ground, because im a governor of an Independent School and i can tell you that already applications are reducing for this current year for september and beyond. And i think youre going to see a drop off of 10 to 15, potentially 20. Its already having an impact. Weve had inflation and youve got this threat of an additional 20. So youre likely to see 100,000 children going back into the state sector, which is going to add more pressure onto the already hard pressed. So surely we should be doing we should be doing the opposite. We should be easing the pressure on the states. Youve plugged that number out of thin air. Firstly secondly, you dont know. You do not know that this is how they will react. This is not how economics work. This is not how economics work. This is not how economics work. This is not how economics work works is what is not how. This is not how Human Behaviour works. You cannot say, im going to change this thing in the economy and this is how people will react. You do not know that. The other thing i would say is if we found space for 20,000 ukrainian refugees to go into our state schools with no problem, i do not see why we would struggle. So youre quite happy because especially because for the taxpayer to pick up especially, they will not be picking up anything because as i said , thats 100,000 children said, thats 100,000 children who rose each day, 7 million state school pupil numbers are already dropping. They are already dropping. They are already dropping. They are already dropping. And what you already dropping. And what you will see, what you will see in the next, in the next year or so, is that actually the private schools . They are very in the areas that they exist up and down the country. They are not all going to be concentrated. So so do you mind if, if, if private schools, small private schools, because theyre not all eton and harrow with loads of money, lots of small. Do you care if a good number of them have to close . Do you know what they spend their extra money, by the way . You think they spend it on bursaries , but its actually bursaries, but its actually just 4 of these business. Dont what about businesses . Do you care if these schools close and the teachers are made redundant and theyre not going to close . Do you know what theyre going to do . Theyre going to spend the money that currently the money that they spend on raising their fees, which they have been doing for the last decade, they spend it on luxurious, unnecessary facilities to put on their leaflets and to show to parents when theyre taking them out. Im telling you, im seeing the applications, aubrey. The applications, aubrey. Already numbers are starting to drop. Application numbers are starting to drop. And i guess the question is if you havent got the money, particularly in the day sector, where actually most parents are paying it out of essentially out of out of earned income, that extra money means that many aspirational parents, its going to tip them over the edge. I mean, its just bafic over the edge. I mean, its just basic mathematics, isnt it . I suppose so, but again, weve got to look at the numbers here. I mean, were talking about 3000 fewer pupils enrolling at at private schools in the last 12 months. Its a sort of drop in the ocean before. Yeah. Well, but we dont know necessarily that cost of living crisis. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. If the fees are rising, i think they rose by on average 8 last year, which again, the Independent Schools council was says thats because thats the point at which thats what inflation was running at. Im already seeing applications. We are down for the next two years, 10 to 15. But whos to say what the what the blame for that is that it is labours policy thats causing this. Is it the fact that its being quoted by parents on the ground . Yeah. But i mean, you know, youre getting a sample picture based on who you speak to. I went to a private school as well. I was very lucky to receive a bursary. So i was one of those kids that came from a background that couldnt afford it. But then managed to go. So i appreciate what private schools do and so, you know, the theory is that private schools are elitist and parents can afford anything but but surely the same should apply to universities. Should apply to universities. Theyre also charities, by the way. Lots of state schools are charities, but universities are charities, but universities are elitist. About 40 of young people go to universities, so surely we should be putting vat on University Fees. Theyre elitist. Labour so far says it doesnt want to do that. I suspect it thinks that university finances are a mess as it is, and they dont want to do anything that would, make that situation any worse. But this is a plan which, you know, it helps with stability. If labour announces its going to do this every year, there will be a sort of slow trajectory towards what private schools are bracing for. They dont want to hit universities with some random policy. As soon as they get into government and scare everyone , interesting. Charlie everyone, interesting. Charlie universities, theyre elitist , universities, theyre elitist, so well have to put vat on there as well. Theres no difference. Theyre charities. Difference. Theyre charities. But, 4 in 10 young people go to universities. So the maj