The UK government has handed £1bn out to small firms via its start up loans scheme. The programme, created to help entrepreneurs start and scale up their business has now provided the funding to over 100,000 businesses across the country. Delivered through the state-owned British Business Bank, the Start Up Loan scheme was developed and […]
The state pension is likely to rise by 8.5% in April after data crucial to the so-called triple lock was published. The policy means the increase in the state pension is the highest of average earnings, inflation or 2.5%. Those earnings – which are total pay, including bonuses – were recorded at 8.5%, and the […]
A pint of beer during the busiest periods will cost drinkers 20p more under a “dynamic pricing” system introduced by Britain’s largest pub group. Stonegate Group, which owns chains including the Slug & Lettuce and Yates’s, said it was raising prices at 800 of its venues during peak times, such as weekends, to help cover […]
Thousands of high-value manufacturing jobs are at risk because Britain’s largest train assembly plant is due to run out of work by the end of the year after delays in the contract to build high-speed rolling stock for HS2. Ministers are being warned that if the factory, with a workforce of 2,000, is mothballed, 1,400 […]
Workers’ wages outstripped the pace of inflation for the first time in over a year in July, helping ease the strain on households who have suffered from an erosion in their real pay. Official statistics showed that average weekly earnings across the economy, when stripping out bonuses, rose by 7.8 per cent in the three […]
Jeremy Hunt has hinted that tax cuts are unlikely to be on offer before the next general election after warning that inflation had proved “stickier than was forecast”. The Chancellor told Bloomberg that he did not expect to have more fiscal headroom at the Autumn Statement — compared with the spring Budget — and “debt […]
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) says it is reporting the UK government to the United Nations watchdog on workers’ rights over a new strikes law. New rules on strikes will require some employees to work during industrial action – or face being sacked. The TUC said the legislation fell short of international legal standards. The […]
The Wilko name will disappear from UK High Streets as a rescue deal for the chain fell through. All of its 400 stores across the UK will close by early October, the GMB union has said. It means redundancies now look likely for all 12,500 staff at the family-owned business. It is understood no bidders […]
Increases in the state pension will cost taxpayers up to £45 billion a year by 2050, a think tank has warned, adding pressure on ministers to raise the official retirement age. New research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that since the pensions “triple lock” was introduced in 2010, it had increased pensions […]
The UK’s first fully electric, full-size single decker autonomous bus service is now operating between Didcot Parkway train station and Milton Park – a leading science, technology and business park in Oxfordshire between Didcot and Abingdon. Launching today, the free service marks the final phase of the Mi-Link autonomous bus trial. Operated by First Bus, […]