Category Archives: Business

Switching energy deal can save £200 as price cap falls, say experts

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Households on a default dual-fuel tariff in Great Britain could cut costs by moving to a fixed deal

Experts have told households whose energy bills are pegged to the price cap not to “rest on their laurels” as they could save more than £200 a year on a fixed deal.

This week, Ofgem said the price cap in Great Britain would drop by 7% from April. This usually only matters if you are on a default tariff, but this time the reduction applies to everyone because the government is removing green charges from bills.

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Ocado failing to deliver on its potential as one of UK’s great technology hopes

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Firm’s automated warehouses are struggling to compete against swift deliveries from stores by bike riders

Only six years ago, the boss of Ocado Group was writing the obituary for supermarkets as he predicted that a surge in online grocery shopping during the pandemic had brought forward the hi-tech future.

“Not every store will disappear, but there will be a dramatic shift,” Tim Steiner said at the height of the Covid pandemic, when shopping from the sofa became the only option for many.

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Ocado to cut 1,000 jobs in £150m cost-saving drive

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Major restructure by retail technology business will lead to reduction of about 5% of global workforce

Ocado is to cut 1,000 jobs as the retail technology business attempts to slash costs by £150m in a major restructure.

The group confirmed about 5% of its global workforce is being cut, with about two-thirds of the job losses affecting its UK operations.

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Diageo slashes dividend and vows to address Guinness capacity constraints in London

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Drinks maker cuts annual sale and profit forecast for second time in four months amid weak demand in US and China

Diageo has slashed its dividend and cut its annual sales and profit forecast for the second time in four months, as the maker of Guinness warned of capacity constraints affecting drinkers of “the black stuff” in London pubs.

The world’s largest spirits maker – which owns brands including Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Don Julio tequila – reported weak demand in the US and China in the first results released under the new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis.

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Ineos said to be in talks to sell parts of business to tackle rising debt

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Talks reportedly focused on assets of owner Jim Ratcliffe’s vinyls business Inovyn as group scrambles to cut costs

The chemicals empire owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is in talks to sell parts of the business in the hope of raising hundreds of millions of pounds to tackle its rising debts, according to a report.

The talks are at an early stage but have focused on selling assets from Ratcliffe’s vinyls business, Ineos Inovyn, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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Channel 4’s Dirty Business is a clarion call to nationalise the water industry

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As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead

There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling.

Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage.

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Trump warns Netflix of ‘consequences’ unless it pulls top Democrat from board

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US president calls for removal of Susan Rice as streaming platform pursues takeover of Warner Bros Discovery

Donald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences”, while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD).

In comments posted on his Truth Social platform, the US president described Rice – who served as national security adviser to Barack Obama and UN ambassador and White House adviser under Joe Biden – as a “political hack” and accused her of having “no talent or skills”.

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Australia will ‘examine all options’ to avoid new 15% tariffs announced by Donald Trump

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The trade minister, Don Farrell, says Australia has ‘consistently advocated’ against the ‘unjustified tariffs’, after the US president announced new levies

Australia will “examine all options” after the US president Donald Trump announced a temporary 15% tariff would apply to US imports from all countries.

The US president’s move came less than 24 hours after the US supreme court overturned his original 10% import tariff. Shortly after the ruling, Trump announced he was reinstating the 10% duties using a different law before raising it again to 15%.

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Australia news live: SA Labor pledges $100k stamp duty waiver for ‘empty nesters’; Burke says Hanson’s Lakemba comments a national security risk

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The home affairs minister says the One Nation leader was frustrated with the Muslim community because it ‘didn’t give her what she wanted’. Follow live updates

Police investigating the mistaken kidnapping of grandfather Chris Baghsarian are appealing for information about suspicious car fires that could be related to the case, AAP reports.

Hopes are fading of finding the 85-year-old alive, who was taken captive more than a week ago when three men stormed his Sydney home and bundled him into an SUV.

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Trump raises tariffs to 15% on imports from all countries

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President announced increase from 10% using different authority from mechanism that supreme court struck down on Friday

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would raise a temporary tariff rate on US imports from all countries from 10% to 15%, less than 24 hours after the US supreme court ruled against the legality of his flagship trade policy.

Infuriated by the high court’s ruling on Friday that he had exceeded his authority and should have got congressional approval for the tariffs he introduced last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the US president railed against the justices who struck down his use of tariffs – calling them a “disgrace to the nation” – and ordered an immediate 10% tariff on all imports, in addition to any existing levies, under a separate law.

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Don’t be fooled by recent good news, the UK economy is still in a precarious state

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Labour MPs may clamour for bolder spending, but – like their Tory and Reform counterparts – they ask for the unaffordable

Too many Labour MPs want it all, and no amount of pleading from the top of government about the depleted public finances seems to make a difference.

The mainly leftist MPs want all the wrongs of the last 15 years put right and quickly. Their next opportunity to demand more cash arrives when Rachel Reeves delivers her spring statement on 3 March.

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Australia-US minerals deal underpinned decision to allow Alcoa to keep clearing WA forest, document reveals

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Document also shows US miner had been unlawfully clearing land for 15 years despite warnings from department

The Australian government’s decision to allow the US mining giant Alcoa to continue clearing swathes of Western Australian jarrah forest despite past illegal clearing practices was made in part due to a critical minerals deal reached between Australia and the Trump administration last year, a new document shows.

The document also reveals Alcoa was unlawfully clearing land for its bauxite mining practices in the area south of Perth for 15 years, despite warnings from the federal environment department.

Conservationists have expressed outrage that an “unprecedented” $55m penalty announced by the environment minister was only applied to a six-year period in which the illegal clearing was alleged to have occurred.

Murray Watt said on Wednesday that the penalty – known as an enforceable undertaking – was for clearing that occurred from 2019-2025 in known habitat for nationally protected species without an approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

When announcing the penalty, Watt said he had granted Alcoa a national interest exemption to allow it to continue clearing in the northern jarrah forest for 18 months while the government considered a proposal for an expansion of the company’s Huntly and Willowdale mining operations to 2045.

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Asos co-founder dies in fall from 18-storey building in Thailand

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Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February

Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya.

Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February.

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Aston Martin issues another profit warning and sells F1 naming rights for £50m

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Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit sales

Aston Martin has warned that its losses will be worse than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.

The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024.

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Hinkley Point C nuclear plant delayed to 2030 as costs climb to £35bn

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French utility company EDF says operations in Somerset will start a year later as delay costs firm €2.5bn

Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation at the Hinkley Point C site will face further delay, at a cost of €2.5bn to the French utility company EDF.

EDF said the first reactor at the site in Somerset will begin operations in 2030, a year later than planned – almost 13 years after construction work began – after a series of delays to the project.

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Art and antiques help lift retail sales in Great Britain to biggest monthly rise since 2024

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January increase of 1.8% beats forecasts and was also driven by shoppers snapping up jewellery online

Retail sales in Great Britain rose 1.8% in January, the largest monthly increase in almost two years, according to official data, as heavy discounting and post-Christmas sales drew consumers back to bigger ticket purchases.

The rise easily beat forecasts of a 0.2% rise and was partly driven by sales of artwork and antiques sales in January, alongside continued strong sales from online jewellers, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. It was the biggest monthly rise since May 2024.

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Accenture ‘links staff promotions to use of AI tools’

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Consulting firm keen to increase uptake of technology and is reportedly monitoring adoption by workforce

Accenture has reportedly started tracking staff use of its AI tools and will take this into consideration when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase uptake of the technology by its workforce.

The company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted to leadership roles would require “regular adoption” of artificial intelligence, according to an internal email seen by the Financial Times.

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Ministers must end ‘barking mad’ restraints on civil service pay, union leader warns

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Exclusive: Prospect boss Mike Clancy cites problems retaining technical and digital experts

Ministers must end “barking mad” restraints on civil service pay or risk being unable to recruit the technical and digital specialists it needs to keep pace, a union leader has warned.

Mike Clancy, the Prospect general secretary, said the government should end the “rightwing trope” that restrained the pay of highly skilled civil servants and left government unable to compete with the private sector. He said it should be realistic for senior specialists in competitive fields to be paid more than the prime minister.

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Retailers in UK plan to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs

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BRC survey finds finance bosses expect technology to improve productivity, with 69% pessimistic about the economy

UK retailers are planning to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs and pessimism about the economy.

Almost two-thirds (61%) of finance bosses at retail companies said they planned to reduce working hours or cut overtime, according to the latest survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body that represents most big retailers. More than half (55%) said they would cut head office jobs and 42% said they would reduce jobs in stores.

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Household energy bills in Great Britain forecast to fall by £117 a year

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Consultancy’s prediction comes after Rachel Reeves said green subsidy costs would be removed from domestic bills

Household energy costs in Great Britain are expected to tumble by an average of £117 a year from April after Rachel Reeves announced in November’s budget that the cost of green subsidies would be removed from domestic bills.

The government’s quarterly cap on energy bills is forecast to fall after the chancellor’s decision to shift the levies used to support renewable energy projects into general taxation, and scrap a bill payer-funded energy efficiency scheme, according to Cornwall Insight, a leading energy consultancy.

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