UK pay on track to trail inflation for 15th month in a row as cost of living crisis bites March 13, 2023 Wages are on track to trail inflation for the 15th month in a row, underscoring how much pressure the cost of living crisis is piling onto household finances, official figures out on Tuesday are expected to show. Regular pay growth is projected to trim to 6.6 per cent over the three months to February, down [...]
London economy steams ahead to top UK growth league and on track to avoid recession March 13, 2023 London’s economy is racing ahead of the rest of the UK and is on track to power the country’s GDP out of its current slump, new figures out today show. The capital’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) shot up to 56 points last month, up sharply from 50.5 points and far above the 50 point threshold [...]
Silicon Valley Bank UK: What we know (and don’t know) on Monday morning March 13, 2023 Silicon Valley Bank UK was put into insolvency last night – with expectations that government would step in before Monday’s market open now looking more unlikely. The bank’s accounts are effectively frozen, meaning that firms will be unable to access their deposits – possibly leaving them unable to pay bills or salaries. SVB UK’s parent [...]
Hunt reportedly set to retain SMEs 19 per cent tax rate amid fears for tech March 12, 2023 Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are set to hold on to the 19 per cent rate of company tax amid concerns for the future of the UK’s tech sector, the Mail has reported. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will hand small and medium businesses major tax breaks to boost investment in the spring statement this week, [...]
Silicon Valley Bank UK: What we know (and what we don’t) on Sunday evening March 12, 2023 The Bank of England is set to put Silicon Valley Bank UK into insolvency as soon as this evening – with tech champions warning that the bank’s collapse could be an extinction-level event for a host of UK firms. This story has been updated as of Monday morning The bank’s accounts are effectively frozen, meaning [...]
Chancellor Hunt says he can’t rush into tax cuts before economy gets back to growth March 11, 2023 British finance minister Jeremy Hunt said he wanted to lower tax rates for individuals and especially businesses in the longer term but warned it would take time because the economy needed to grow more quickly first. Hunt, who is due to present his budget on Wednesday, said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that lower tax [...]
Housebuilder Berkeley on track to post £600m profits despite Truss’ mini-budget shocks March 10, 2023 Housebuilder Berkeley said it was on track to post a boost in pre-tax profits for the full year despite demand failing to fully recover from the shocks which came in the wake of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget. In a trading update this morning, the FTSE 100 firm said it expects to deliver a pretax profit [...]
UK economy ‘bounces back’ in another signal a recession is off the table but experts warn of stagnation March 10, 2023 The UK economy “bounced back” from a sharp contraction over Christmas and is holding up better than feared in another sign the country could avoid a recession, official figures out today show. Gross domestic product (GDP) jumped 0.3 per cent in January, better than the consensus forecast of 0.1 per cent growth, according to the [...]
The iron grip of Whitehall-think of keeping Britain’s productivity down March 10, 2023 Jeremy Hunt needs to keep the ship steady, but he’s also missing an obvious trick to allow Britain to build up it’s depleted productivity again, writes John Dickie
What do Aviva’s results mean for the insurer’s share price? March 9, 2023 British insurance giant Aviva today set out plans to buy back £300m worth of its own shares from investors, after posting what analysts and the firm itself described as “strong” results for 2022. Aviva’s announcement saw its share price jump by almost four per cent in trading this morning, before settling at a rate almost [...]