Business

The average household water and sewerage bill in England and Wales is to go up by an average 6% from April to help unlock “record investment”, an industry group has announced. Water UK said the increases, equivalent to £27 a year, would leave households with an average annual bill of £473. The body said the
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Jeremy Hunt has cast doubts over introducing big tax cuts at the next budget, saying he is unlikely to have the fiscal “room” he had in the autumn. Earlier this month, the chancellor hinted at further reductions come 6 March, saying the government’s plan of “prioritising tax cuts” was working, and that it would “stick
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The UK government is tabling legislation to end post-Brexit checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Significantly, the Withdrawal Act will also be amended, meaning EU law will no longer apply automatically in Northern Ireland. The details are contained in a government document which effectively details the deal to restore power-sharing at
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Plans by Amazon and vacuum cleaner maker iRobot to merge have been abandoned following concerns that the move would harm competition. The $1.4bn (£1.1bn) deal, which was first announced in August 2022, had previously been approved by UK regulators. But in November the European Commission expressed concerns the online retailer might give iRobot’s products preferential
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Superdry, the London-listed clothing retailer, is weighing a radical restructuring that could involve significant numbers of store closures and job cuts after reporting weak sales. Sky News has learnt that Superdry and its advisers at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) are initiating work on plans that could lead to a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) or restructuring plan, both
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The legislation being used to exonerate hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted over the Horizon IT scandal should include measures to protect the specialist finance sector which helped Alan Bates to overturn Britain’s biggest miscarriage of justice, according to an influential trade body. Sky News understands that the International Legal Finance Association (ILFA) wants ministers to
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Saga is exploring ways to release money from its ocean cruises operation which could involve selling its two flagship vessels or offloading the entire business under a licensing arrangement. Sky News has learnt that the heavily indebted company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, is working with advisers on a range of potential
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US aviation regulators have overturned their grounding of Boeing 737-MAX 9 planes following a mid-air panel blowout aboard an aircraft earlier this month but imposed an unprecedented restriction on the company. In an update on its work following the incident on an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 on 5 January, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said
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Drinks company Thatchers has lost a High Court trademark battle after it claimed supermarket chain Aldi “copycatted” one of its products. The Somerset-based cider maker sued the German discount chain for infringing the trademark of its Thatchers Cloudy Lemon Cider. It claimed that the supermarket had gained an “unfair advantage” by copying the drink in
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The UK’s largest building society is dropping its cheapest mortgage rate to an eight-month low and significantly under the Bank of England’s base interest rate. From Wednesday, Nationwide will offer new remortgaging customers a 3.84% rate on a five-year fixed deal. Existing mortgage holders can get the low rate on additional borrowing and switcher deals,
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