Thousands of workers at telecoms giant BT have walked out today

By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight

Thousands of workers at telecoms giant BT have walked out today in the first of two strikes over pay. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said the action is the first national telecoms strike since 1987. Engineers and call centre staff voted in favour of industrial action after BT offered a £1,500 per year pay rise.
 
Network Rail has begun a formal legal consultation with trade unions on maintenance reforms it says are needed to modernise the rail industry. Such reforms will lead to some 1,900 fewer jobs, and they are one of the sticking points that has prompted recent strike action. The RMT union has criticised the move, saying it is an attempt to push through the changes whether or not the union agrees. Network Rail's CEO Andrew Haines said he hadn't given up on finding a negotiated way forward but insisted "we can't continue to circle the same ground day after day, week after week and not move forward". "It is vital that we progress our modernisation plans to help put our railway on a sustainable financial footing for the future," he added. "The way people live and work has changed since the pandemic. On the railway, that means significantly fewer commuters and significantly less income". Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "While we still encourage RMT to join talks and find a solution to this dispute that is fair for all, it's clear now that no deal was ever going to be good enough for the RMT, and they have left Network Rail no choice but to go ahead with these essential modernisations with or without their support."
 
The number of British businesses concerned about soaring energy bills and input costs has risen, a new survey from the Office for National Statistics(ONS) has found. According to the ONS, 26% of companies reported input price inflation as their main concern for August 2022, while 20% said energy prices where their key challenge. The ONS economic activity and social change report showed the percentage of firms anticipating no concerns declined from 24% in July to 21% next month, indicating that inflationary pressures are broadening. The ONS also said one fifth of companies with at least 10 employees were hit by global supply chain disruption last month, while 16% of firms had to change suppliers or find alternative solutions to get the materials, goods, or services they needed.
 
A separate report by the ONS shows the prices paid by factories for materials and energy were 24% higher last month than a year earlier — the biggest increase since records began in 1985 — while prices charged by factories jumped by 16.5%. One in every four firms in the UK told the ONS they are planning to raise prices further, because of to the rising cost of energy.
 
British Gas owner Centrica has posted record half-year profits that are five times higher than a year earlier. Adjusted operating profit for the six months ending to June rose to £1.34bn from £262m a year earlier, mostly from the company's nuclear and oil and gas business, rather than from British Gas’ energy supply business which performed much worse. The energy price cap means it has been unable to fully pass on the rise in wholesale gas prices to customers, although British Gas has gained more than 200,000 new accounts in recent months, mostly because of having to take on those whose suppliers have failed and stopped trading. Centrica has also announced it is reintroducing its interim dividend, of 1p per share, after having scrapped it for the past three years.
 
British oil giant Shell has reported record profits for the second quarter of $11.5bn (£9bn). This is despite having previously suffered a £3.1bn hit over its exit from Russia, following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The company has also announced another $6bn share buyback programme for the current quarter, on top of the $8.5bn of shares it bought back in the first half of 2022.
 
Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said soaring profits from Centrica and Shell were "an insult" to people struggling to pay their energy bills. "The government must impose a tougher windfall tax on energy firms,” she said. “The bulk of these profits should be used to insulate our homes and help cash-strapped households pay for their heating this winter, rather than developing more fossil fuel projects that roast the planet."
 
Figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) show the number of vacancies in the sector fell to 14% in the second quarter of this year, up 0.1 percentage points on the first quarter and 0.5 percentage points better than the same period last year. This was the third consecutive quarter of falling jobs rates in the industry, the BRC said. Helen Dickinson OBE, CEO of the BRC, said: "Vacancy rates continued to travel in the right direction, with the third consecutive quarter of improvement, though rates remain almost two percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.” She also highlighted, however, that the north of England, Scotland and Wales still had a higher proportion of empty shops, although the “gap is narrowing, with greater improvement being seen in northern England," she said.
 
BT Group says it is pushing ahead with a 13% increase in its broadband price next spring. CEO Philip Jansen told The Telegraph that inflation-linked price rises would “absolutely” go ahead in April, citing the “very, very challenging” economic environment and rising costs. The rise will add around £53 per year to the cost of a typical BT Fibre Essential package — its cheapest standard broadband and phone tariff which costs £33.99 per month. The price increases will apply across the company’s broadband, EE mobile and BT Sport packages. Jansen’s announcement came as sales at BT rose for the first time in five years after the company increased prices and saw an influx of customers signing up for full-fibre broadband. The 1% rise in revenue in the first quarter to £5.1bn is the first rise since 2017. Profits were up 2% to £1.9bn in line with market expectations.
 
Profits at transport operator National Express have hit a ten-year high. The firm said yesterday that group revenue had increased 33.6% to £1.32bn, a 54.3% improvement in group underlying earnings to £197.8m, and a 295% surge in underlying operating profits to £90.5m.
 
British Airways owner IAG has announced an order for 12 Airbus single aisle A320neo aircraft and and 25 A321neo jets, together with an option for another 50. In a statement, the airline said the orders would be fulfilled between 2025 and 2028 and be used to replace the A320ceos in its short-haul fleet. The order is, however, subject to approval from shareholders.
 
Aerospace, defence, and nuclear engineering services firm Babcock has returned to a first-half operating profit despite "geopolitical volatility" and a "challenging" economic environment. Babcock said it had delivered an interim operating profit of £226.8m, a marked improvement from the prior year's operating loss of £1.73bn.
 
AMTE Power, a leading manufacturer of battery cells for electric vehicles,has selected Dundee as the preferred site for its first £190m ‘mega-factory’ which will create up to 215 high skilled on-site jobs and 800 more across the supply chain.  
 
KitKat maker Nestle has put prices up again due to "unprecedented" increases in costs. The Swiss food giant said it had increased prices by 6.5% in the first half of this year. McDonald's and Coca-Cola have also announced price rises this week, the latter admitting to a 5% increase.
 
Car dealership Inchcape has announced the acquisition of Latin American automotive distributor Derco for £1.3bn. Family-owned Derco is the largest independent distributor by volume in Latin America and also has significant presence in Chile, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia. It has long-standing partnerships with global automotive brands such as Suzuki, Mazda, Chevrolet, Changan, JAC, Renault, Great Wall and Haval, Inchcape said.
 
Ocado is to appoint its COO Mark Richardson to the position of CEO of a new business unit aimed at extending Ocado's product offering into new market sectors. Sharecast News reports that Ocado noted it had expanded outside of its core grocery focus in 2020 with the acquisitions of robotics specialists Kindred Systems and Haddington Dynamics and with the upcoming launch of its Re:Imagined Ocado Smart Platform products, it will soon have a product range that will set "an unrivalled level of performance" both in price and throughput - not only in grocery but in automated storage and retrieval systems across "a wide range" of market sectors. "Ocado Group will soon start a new business segment that combines these activities and over the next few years will revolutionise the whole ASRS and robotic handling sectors," said CEO Tim Steiner. The FTSE 100-listed group said the new venture would be self-financing.
 
An investigation by consumer watchdog Which? has concluded that online platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Trustpilot are failing to to "filter out fake reviews" that have infiltrated the sites. Which? found it was easily able to use a fake reviews broker to supply numerous inauthentic positive reviews for a fictional business on all three platforms. One such broker told Which? they had created nearly 16,000 reviews for more than 550 customers worldwide. The average UK household spends around £900 each year on products they have bought having been directly influenced by online reviews. The government has already outlined plans for a Digital, Competition and Consumer Bill which will include a crackdown on fake reviews.
 
The US economy has shrunk for the second quarter in a row. In many countries, that would be considered an economic recession, however US President Joe Biden has told reporters that the economy was "not going to be in a recession," a statement that his Republican opponents say confirms he is attempting to redefine the term. Biden has tried to make the case that the economy remains sound, but the contraction, at an annual rate of 0.9% in the three months to July, has drawn widespread attention as worries about the economy grow, the BBC says. Prices for groceries, petrol and other basics are rising at the fastest pace since 1981 and there are fears that a recession is coming, even if the White House denies it has officially started already.
 
China says it may miss its annual economic growth target of 5.5%. The pursuit of “zero covid” by the world's second largest economy has led the 25-member Politburo, chaired by President Xi Jinping, to say only that it aims to keep growth within "a reasonable range" and will "strive to achieve the best results possible". "The 5.5% growth target is no longer a must for China," Iris Pang, chief China economist at ING Bank, told news the Wall Street Journal. China scrapped its official GDP targets in 2020.

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