British Steel: Why are MPs having an emergency session? April 12, 2025 Westminster had begun to wind down gently on Friday afternoon. Parliament had concluded its formal business on Tuesday in advance of Easter. The news therefore came as jolt that the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, had agreed to a request from the government to recall the House of Commons to sit from 11.00 am on Saturday; [...]
Trump, tariffs and GDP: How do you forecast uncertainty? April 12, 2025 The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), one of the UK’s central forecasters, prepared itself for President Trump’s tariff war – or at least partially. At a presentation after Chancellor Reeves’ Spring Statement, OBR chair Richard Hughes admitted the fiscal watchdog’s central forecast risked being completely undermined by global events. Hughes came up with three possible [...]
UK growth in February smashes low expectations April 11, 2025 The UK economy grew by 0.5 per cent in February, official data has shown, beating forecasters’ expectations by a wide margin. A Bloomberg poll of economists predicted growth to come in at 0.1 per cent for the month. UK GDP grew 0.6 per cent in the three months to February, the Office for National Statistics [...]
Healey warns against ‘forgetting about the war’ at Ukraine summit April 10, 2025 Allies of Ukraine should guard against “jeopardising the peace by forgetting about the war” amid plans for a peacekeeping force from 30 ‘coalition of the willing’ nations, John Healey has said. Proposals for that peacekeeping force in Ukraine are “real and substantial”, the defence secretary said, at the start of a further meeting of the [...]
Cabinet Office to shed 2,100 jobs as government shrinks civil service April 10, 2025 The Cabinet Office will lose almost a third of its staff as Labour seeks to shrink the civil service, the government has announced. Around 1,200 jobs will go through redundancies and leavers not being replaced under plans unveiled to civil servants on Thursday, with another 900 transferred to other departments. The 2,100 job cuts represent [...]
UK-India trade deal reportedly 90 per cent agreed, businesses told April 10, 2025 The UK’s trade deal with India is reportedly 90 per cent agreed, businesses have been told, according to a report in the Guardian. Firms were informed on a call with trade negotiators this week that some remaining issues included cars, pharmaceutical drugs and the whisky trade, the newspaper reported, with India currently the largest overseas [...]
Starmer says UK government must ‘rise to the moment’ on tariffs April 10, 2025 The UK government needs to “rise to the moment”, Sir Keir Starmer said, adding that he would not “pretend” US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “good news”. Speaking this morning after Trump announced a 90-day pause in his sweeping global tariffs, while raising his tax rate on Chinese imports to 125 per cent, the Prime [...]
Exclusive: City firms matched with UK diplomats in growth push April 10, 2025 Top City firms including Big Four consultancies are hosting Foreign Office diplomats as part of the department’s efforts to become the “salesforce for UK plc”. More than 100 diplomats and representatives from professional services firms, including KPMG and EY, have been paired up in a bid to improve British business representation overseas. The scheme was [...]
Come back non-doms, all is forgiven April 10, 2025 I write this sitting in the morning sunshine in a cafe in central Milan, where I’m one day into my new life as a beneficiary of their special tax regime for high net worth individuals, meaning that in exchange for a mere €200,000 a year I can protect my overseas sources of wealth and income [...]
British Steel: Talks ongoing as hopes of ‘solution in sight’ for Scunthorpe April 9, 2025 Talks are ongoing as government ministers battle for the future of British Steel this week, with hopes of a “commercial solution in sight”. The firm has launched a consultation on the proposed closure of blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant and the government is in talks with the company’s Chinese owner Jingye. There have been [...]