Financial news

• Doctors accuse Steve Barclay of ‘bending the truth’ with £78k pension claim

  28-09-2023 23:06
  
  Exclusive: BMA’s Dr Vishal Sharma says the average consultant receives around half of what the health secretary claimsDoctors’ leaders have accused Steve Barclay of “bending the truth” after the health secretary exaggerated – for the second time – how much medics’ pensions are worth when they retire.The British Medical Association (BMA) has received information from the NHS body that oversees staff pensions that disproves Barclay’s assertion &ndash
  
  Read more

• Sunak expected to limit powers of councils in England to curb car use

  28-09-2023 20:43
  
  Exclusive: Potential plan to restrict measures such as 20mph speed limits and levying fines from traffic cameras alarms travel groupsRishi Sunak is to prioritise the interests of millions of car owners with a series of measures that will provoke environmentalists and curb the power of local councils.In a package expected to be announced at the Tory conference on Monday, the prime minister will set out his “plan for motorists” that will limit the number of 20mph speed restrictions and
  
  Read more

• Evergrande founder ‘being investigated for suspected crimes’

  28-09-2023 20:08
  
  Chinese group’s statement about chair Hui Ka Yan piles on the woe for once top-selling property developerThe founder of China’s Evergrande is being investigated over suspected “illegal crimes”, the group has said, as creditors become increasingly concerned about the prospects of the world’s most indebted property developer.Evergrande Group, which has more than $300bn (£245bn) in total liabilities, did not say whether Hui Ka Yan was still in a position to run t
  
  Read more

• Investigation launched into killings and evictions on World Bank tourism project

  28-09-2023 18:58
  
  Tanzania government blamed for violence against villagers in national park, while thousands more people face losing their homesThe World Bank is investigating allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions made by villagers living near the site of a proposed tourism project it is funding in Tanzania.The bank has been accused of “enabling” alleged violence by the Tanzanian government to make way for a $150m (£123m) project ministers say will protect the environment and attra
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Most new cars sold in UK will have to be fully electric by 2030, government confirms

  28-09-2023 17:56
  
  Green campaigners relieved after last week’s decision to delay ban on petrol and diesel carsThe government has confirmed the majority of new cars sold in Britain will have to be electric by 2030 despite Rishi Sunak’s decision last week to delay a ban on petrol and diesel cars by five years.Under the long-awaited zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate, 80% of sales must be fully electric, or another alternative, within seven years. Carmakers would have to pay £15,000 for each petr
  
  Read more

• John Lewis looks at sale and leaseback of 12 Waitrose supermarkets

  28-09-2023 17:52
  
  Retail chain hopes to raise £150m to fund store updates and invest in online operationsJohn Lewis is looking into raising £150m from the sale and leaseback of a dozen Waitrose supermarkets to fund investment in updating the business.The staff-owned retailer, which this month announced a half-year loss of £59m, wants cash to update stores, improve prices and invest in online operations, including expanding online grocery deliveries. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Will ditching inheritance tax make British society a fairer place? | Letters

  28-09-2023 17:35
  
  Richard Cooper, Miles Dean, Mike Holland and Timothy A Millea on the merits or otherwise of IHTScrapping inheritance tax sounds like a costly mistake, but it’s a noble idea (Scrapping inheritance tax would cost £15bn a year by 2032, says IFS, 27 September). If all personal income, including legacies and gifts, were taxed like wages, someone on an average income would pay the marginal rate, 20%, on a small legacy, but a company director on a salary of £150,000 would pay the top
  
  Read more

• Europe’s olive oil supply running out after drought – and the odd hailstorm

  28-09-2023 17:35
  
  Heatwaves around Mediterranean have damaged harvests and forced producers to import from South AmericaEurope has almost run out of local olive oil supplies and is set for more shortages, after extreme weather damaged harvests for a second year.The world’s largest producer has said it is having to import supplies from South America to keep up with demand. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Spare these London flats the wrecking ball. But no more eyesore tower blocks please | Simon Jenkins

  28-09-2023 17:19
  
  Whatever the outcome of this battle between developer and local authority, high-rise blocks should not be the futureThe demolition of two new apartment buildings at Woolwich’s Mast Quay would be daft. The claimed reason – 26 deviations from the development’s 2012 planning permission – cannot justify planners pulling down the £36m high-rise blocks, embodied carbon and all. The developer, Comer Homes, seems to have slashed the proposed roof garden and playground, and
  
  Read more

• People with HIV offered hope of self-injected drug at home

  28-09-2023 16:18
  
  GSK-controlled company works on developing patient-administered treatment by end of the decade One of the world’s largest commercial developers of HIV drugs is working on a treatment that can be injected by patients at home every two to three months by the end of the decade, saving them frequent visits to the clinic.ViiV Healthcare, a GlaxoSmithKline-controlled joint venture, makes 17 prescription HIV medicines, including the long-acting treatment cabotegravir, which was first approved in
  
  Read more

• Rish! fails to lay it on the line as local radio demands HS2 answers

  28-09-2023 16:07
  
  Sunak refuses to speculate on his own speculation over future of Birmingham to Manchester legWhat goes around, comes around. Last September it had been Liz Truss’s turn to do the annual local radio round before the Tory party conference. Like most things Truss comes into contact with, it had quickly descended into a chaotic disaster. One for the ages. It turned out no one had warned Liz that local radio presenters might actually ask her questions. Tricky ones at that. Maybe she had thought
  
  Read more

• ‘Our work is changing all the time’: why no two days are the same for an emergency responder

  28-09-2023 15:14
  
  From assisting people fleeing the conflict in Sudan to supporting those affected by fires or floods, the British Red Cross is always ready to respond during a crisis. Here, two volunteers share the experiences that have shaped them
  Mohammed Abdulkarim remembers clearly the first time he was called out as a British Red Cross emergency response volunteer four years ago. A fire, thought to have been started by a discarded cigarette, ripped through a seven-storey student accommodation block in Bolto
  
  Read more

• Average five-year fixed mortgage rate in UK falls back below 6%

  28-09-2023 14:15
  
  First time since early July that average rate has been below 6%, with some deals now under 5%The average new five-year fixed mortgage rate has fallen back below 6% for the first time since early July, according to the sector’s leading data provider.Across all deposit sizes, the typical five-year fixed residential mortgage rate on sale is now priced at 5.99%, Moneyfacts said, down from 6.03% on Wednesday. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Big European insurers ‘underwrite 30% of US coal despite net zero pledges’

  28-09-2023 13:46
  
  Lloyd’s of London, Zurich and Swiss Re among top 10 insurers of largest US coalmines, study findsLloyd’s of London and other big European insurers are underwriting almost a third of US coal production despite their net zero pledges, according to research, with the Lloyd’s insurance market emerging as the second-biggest player.A report from the Insure Our Future campaign group found that Lloyd’s, Zurich and Swiss Re are among the top 10 insurers of the 25 biggest US coalmi
  
  Read more

• Rishi Sunak suggests fixing potholes in the north is a priority amid HS2 speculation – audio

  28-09-2023 13:30
  
  The UK prime minister spoke to Anna Jameson on BBC Radio Manchester about HS2. Amid speculation the government is planning to scrap the railway extension to Manchester to save money, Rishi Sunak refused to comment. Instead, he said: 'The majority of journeys that people make are in their cars. Making sure that we make sure our roads are well maintained is very important'UK politics liveSunak refuses a dozen times to say if HS2 Manchester leg will be scrapped Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Sainsbury's increases interest on fixed ISA to 5.7% and earns 'excellent' rating

  28-09-2023 13:14 via express.co.uk
  
  Sainsbury's new ISA deal has nabbed a "prominent" position in the savings market.
  
  Read more

• Robert Peston warns Rishi Sunak scrapping inheritance tax could spark 'serious' problems

  28-09-2023 13:10 via express.co.uk
  
  Peston fears that scrapping Britain's "most hated tax" would spark "serious ramifications" for the UK.
  
  Read more

• Sunak skirts more than a dozen questions over future of HS2

  28-09-2023 13:07
  
  PM remains tight-lipped about rail project’s Manchester leg and says his focus is on potholes and local busesUK politics live – latest updatesRishi Sunak has refused more than a dozen times to provide clarity over HS2’s future, but denied that scrapping the Birmingham to Manchester leg would be a betrayal of the north of England.Despite two weeks of uncertainty over the remainder of the project, the prime minister remained tight-lipped on whether HS2 would be pared back in a se
  
  Read more

• Average mortgage rates fall below 6% for first time since July - full list of best deals

  28-09-2023 12:28 via express.co.uk
  
  The typical five-year fixed mortgage rate on the market is 5.99 percent, Moneyfacts said.
  
  Read more

• Men have £20k more in their pension pots for retirement than women, research finds

  28-09-2023 11:59 via express.co.uk
  
  The findings revealed that men have a pensions pot of £63,222 - compared to the £43,117 that women have stowed away.
  
  Read more

• Childcare costs ‘soaring by £600-plus a month’ as firms insist on return to office

  28-09-2023 11:07
  
  Survey finds parents under pressure, as second study finds some are leaving workforce because of costsParents of nursery and primary school-age children are facing more than £600 of extra childcare costs a month, a study has found, as employers demand staff spend more days in the office.More than half of parents said they had come under increasing pressure to increase time spent at their desks, in response to a survey by the flexible childcare provider Pebble. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The austerity influencers of TikTok: ‘I wanted to share the things I have given up’

  28-09-2023 11:00
  
  Unboxing luxury makeup is out; offering money-saving tips is in. The cost of living crisis has led to a very different kind of social media starAdmitting that she couldn’t afford shampoo any more – that was the hardest thing. “People might think it was gross,” says 23-year-old Yash Jayachandran, a psychology master’s student and podcaster from Brisbane, Australia. “But I was like, this is just the reality of where I’m at.”It wasn’t that Jayac
  
  Read more

• Thousands of pensioners could claim £5,000 in back payments - check if you're owed money

  28-09-2023 09:59 via express.co.uk
  
  The Government is writing to mothers who have been shortchanged on their state pension due to a huge error.
  
  Read more

• 'Extremely worrying' pension warning as increasing withdrawal 'risk' raises alarm bells

  28-09-2023 09:47 via express.co.uk
  
  A staggering £12.9billion was withdrawn early from pensions by over 55s in the 2022.
  
  Read more

• China's economy in meltdown as property giant collapses in echoes of 2008 crash

  28-09-2023 09:43 via express.co.uk
  
  It comes after a bombshell report said the company's chairman had been placed under police watch, sparking more fears for the business's future.
  
  Read more

• Every time a project like HS2 becomes a costly fiasco, we wonder why. So let me tell you: it’s clientelism

  28-09-2023 09:00
  
  The relationship between those profiting from these big projects and those in power is such that no one truly costs or controls them In 2010, when a high-speed rail line from London to the north – HS2 – was proposed by the outgoing Labour government, I wrote an article arguing that the numbers didn’t add up. The environmental benefits had been inflated by a series of blatant accounting tricks and concocted figures. What the government called the “business case” for
  
  Read more

• Up to tenth of Amazon shoppers in Great Britain ‘bribed’ by sellers to offer good review, poll finds

  28-09-2023 08:00
  
  Which? survey suggests ‘unscrupulous’ sellers bombard customers with incentivesAs many as one in 10 Amazon shoppers could have been offered a “bribe” in exchange for a positive review of a product in the past year, research from the UK consumer body Which? suggests.The organisation claimed that unscrupulous sellers on Amazon were “bombarding customers” with incentives such as gift cards, free products and refunds “in order to cheat the system”. Ama
  
  Read more

• The EU may have some success getting tech firms to tackle fake news – but good luck with Elon Musk | Chris Stokel-Walker

  28-09-2023 08:00
  
  The EU report cards are in, and they must address the fact that one platform is falling far behind others in dealing with misinformationResults days for A-levels and GCSEs see pupils across the UK waiting with no small measure of anxiety for their grades. Big tech CEOs are having a similar experience this week, as the European Union announces the results of reports submitted by tech firms on the scale of fake news across social media. The reports were the first since the Digital Services Act gav
  
  Read more

• Drawdown disaster looms as Britons deplete savings by making record pension withdrawals

  28-09-2023 08:00 via express.co.uk
  
  Cash-strapped pension savers risk depleting their retirement savings and leaving nothing left for later life as they make record withdrawals to survive the cost-of-living crisis.
  
  Read more

• Suella Braverman and HS2 – Politics Weekly UK

  28-09-2023 06:00
  
  Suella Braverman has grabbed headlines yet again, this time with her speech saying the west faces an ‘existential threat’ from immigration. And after more than a decade could HS2 finally be running out of road? The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff is joined by political correspondent Kiran Stacey and North of England editor Helen Pidd Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• ‘I make £20,000 thanks to my thrifting side hustle and found a Marc Jacobs bag for £3!'

  28-09-2023 02:01 via express.co.uk
  
  Thrifting and reselling second-hand items is a popular side hustle among many people. Oliva Onho used her to fund a vacation to Disney World.
  
  Read more

• UK mortgage payers making big changes to meet higher payments, survey finds

  28-09-2023 01:01
  
  Britons are raiding savings or cutting pension contributions, KPMG study findsMortgage holders are making big changes to their finances – from cutting pension contributions to downsizing – to cope with dramatically higher monthly payments, a new survey shows.Faced with either the immediate reality of higher mortgage costs or the prospect of a sharp rise in payments once an existing deal has expired, more than 1,000 mortgage holders were asked this month by KPMG whether they had eithe
  
  Read more

• National Grid says blackouts less likely this winter

  28-09-2023 01:01
  
  Higher gas storage levels in Europe help leave Great Britain in stronger position, says operatorEnergy mix: how is electricity generated in Great Britain?The risk of blackouts in Great Britain will be lower this winter thanks to higher gas storage levels in Europe and more nuclear power imported from France, the company responsible for keeping the lights on has said.National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO) said Britain was in a stronger position heading into the coldest months tha
  
  Read more

Follow @financialnwsUK on Twitter!