UK shoppers cut back on food spending last month, adding to concerns that the economy is heading for an inflation-induced recession later this year. Retail sales fell by 0.5 per cent between April and May and by 0.7 per cent when fuel is excluded, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Sales […]
The days of spending paper banknotes in the shops are numbered: 100 days, to be exact – so start hunting at home. Remaining paper £20 or £50 notes should be spent or deposited by the end of September, the Bank of England said. An estimated 163 million paper £50 banknotes and about 314 million £20 […]
The UK ranks third among European countries for the most money lost due to corporate tax abuse on a yearly basis. The European nation that loses the most money to corporate tax abuse is Germany where, on an annual basis, an estimated £27.3 billion goes unpaid. This is followed by France where tax abuse losses […]
Nine in ten businesses are concerned about costs of funding the transition to net zero amid a spike in energy prices, revealed the latest research from Npower Business Solutions (NBS). The company’s report – Business Energy Tracker – revealed nearly half of UK businesses believe the current crisis will harm progress towards reaching climate goals, […]
Cross-party MPs are forming a special group to scrutinise post-Brexit rules for City firms, amid concerns that the overhaul could result in a regulatory race to the bottom. The new subcommittee, which will be run by Treasury committee members and advised by a panel of experts, is meant to make up for the fact that […]
Brighton will become the first city in the UK to take action against second homeowners and holiday lets after a wave of buyers during the coronavirus pandemic pushed house prices to over £500,000. Councillors have voted to ask officials to draw up proposals which will ban new-build second homes and holiday lets in some areas […]
The UK economy could receive a boost of up to £1.6bn a year via a trade deal with six Gulf stations. Talks on such an agreement kick off today with a meeting in Saudi Arabia. Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan will meet representatives of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) in Riyadh to begin negotiations on a […]
The United Kingdom will likely host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, it has been announced. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) issued a statement this morning saying it will “begin discussions with the BBC” about broadcasting the event from the UK, as this year’s runner up to the […]
The Government could be forced to pay a compensation bill as big as the entire defence budget if a legal challenge launched today over the rejigging of the retail prices index succeeds. Analysts estimate that the Treasury could in theory be forced to pay compensation of as much as £40 billion to holders of index-linked […]
A major outage at content delivery network Cloudflare caused hundreds of websites across the internet to stop working and return a ‘500 Internal Server error’ message this morning. A content delivery network (CDN) is a distributed group of severs around the world that work in unison. Websites use these CDNs to deliver content from the […]