An extra hour in school for some pupils in wales as heads try out changes to the Academic Year. The Winter Olympics torch relay kicks off in beijing as chinas capital gears up for the games. Good morning. Quite a lot of Cloud Producing Light Rain in the north and east. Not as windy as it has been but it is still going to be mild. Details later in the programme. Good morning. Its wednesday, the 2nd of february. The government will today set out its long delayed Manifesto Plan to level up the lives of millions of people across the uk. The proposals include a series of pledges to improve education, Public Transport and housing in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country. Labour have dismissed the project as more slogans and strategies. Our Political Correspondent Jessica Parker reports. We are a government committed to levelling up. It is absolutely what levelling up is all about. What were doing is levelling up. Level up across the whole of the uk. Ministers have talked about
Minister orders his officials to hold checks on goods coming to Northern Ireland from the rest of the uk. Russian troops on Ukraines Border now the United States is sending 3,000 troops to Eastern Europe to protect nato allies if war erupts. And the new patron of rugby union and rugby league the Duchess Of Cambridge takes over from prince harry. And coming up on the Bbc News Channel the womens team split from raith rovers and protest at the signing of david goodwillie. The former Scotland Striker was found by a civil court to have raped a woman. Good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six. The government has set out how it intends to fulfil its flagship manifesto promise of closing the gap between richer and poorer areas in the uk over the next eight years. The wide ranging plans laid out by the levelling up secretary, michael gove, include improving education and skills with a particular Focus On Raising Standards in 55 areas across england. A promise by 2030 to narrow the gap on
Approaches, the duchess of cambridge starts her new role as the patron of englands Rugby Football Union and league. Coming up in the sport on the bbc news channel, celtic and rangers go head to head in the Old Firm Derby at celtic park. Can the home side sealed the win to take them top . Good evening. Ofgem, the energy regulator, is set to announce the biggest ever rise in energy bills, with ministers understood to be preparing measures to ease the pressure on households. The announcement is due tomorrow. Every six months, ofgem reviews the maximum price that suppliers in england, wales and scotland can charge customers on a standard tariff. Around 15 million households saw their bills go up by 12 when the last update happened in october. The new cap takes effect in april and Industry Predictions suggest gas prices could rise by as much as 50 , taking the average annual bill to roughly £2,000. There is a separate Energy Market in Northern Ireland, where prices have also risen sharply.
And we find out what these adelie and Gentoo Penguins in antarctica have to tell us about global warming. Hello and welcome. We begin in beijing where the Winter Olympics torch relay has just got under way. Over the next three days, 1,000 people will carry the torch past chinese landmarks, including the Summer Palace and great wall. Its a scaled down event with very few spectators because of coronavirus restrictions. But despite the governments commitment to a zero covid strategy, the Omicron Variant is spreading. The Beijing Olympics organiser says 32 new cases have been detected among games related personnel in the last 2a hours. Lets go to beijing and our china correspondent stephen mcdonell. You are covering every twist and turn as these games are about to begin. Talk us through todays torch relay. This about to begin. Talk us through todays torch relay. Todays torch relay. This is nothina todays torch relay. This is nothing like todays torch relay. This is nothing like the todays
Hello, im sally bundock. It all sounds a bit fishy, we will get to that a little later stop. Lets get down to business, and we begin with the rising price of oil which is pushing up the cost of living globally. With tensions on the Ukraine Russia border not easing, markets are betting demand for oil could go up, and, recently, we saw the price of the black stuff hitting its highest level for 7 years, and this impacts everything from fuel to food bills. Today, the members of the Oil Cartel Opec and other oil producers, will meet. So will they change their Decision Making on Oil Production . And what pressure are they under as well. As you can see from this graph, though, oil has been on a steep upward trajectory over the past year with some analysts now predicting it wont be long before it hits 100 a barrel. Well, there are three main reasons. Firstly, theres now growing optimism about the speed at which the Global Economic will recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Secondly, geopoliti