Published: 21 December 2022
By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight
Who is on strike today? Ambulance workers, for the second day (with a third strike on 28th December planned). Also driving test examiners, who are on strike for the rest of the week. Tomorrow Highways Agency staff will walk out until after Christmas; a fresh rail strike begins on Friday, lasting until 29th December; and some bus drivers are on strike on Saturday. Border Force and Royal Mail workers will also strike again from Saturday, for four days and two days respectively. Baggage handlers at airports will strike from 29th December until 1st January inclusive.
Meanwhile, train drivers have announced yet another one-day strike for 5th January, after members at 15 train operators voted for more walkouts. The ASLEF union said the strike would bring services on affected routes to a halt on the day before members of the RMT union begin another 48-hour strike. The two strikes mean Britain's rail network will effectively shut down for three days on 5th, 6th and 7th January.
The Office for National Statistics has published the latest government borrowing figures. Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks was £22bn in November 2022. This was £13.9 billion more than in November 2021 and the highest November borrowing since monthly records began in 1993. Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks was £2,477.5 billion at the end of November 2022, or around 98.7% of GDP. An increase of £125.9bn but a decrease of 0.3 percentage points of GDP compared with November 2021.
The Treasury has set out details of the temporary 45% tax on excess profits made by some electricity generating companies from 1st January 2023. "The levy will be applied to a measure of extraordinary revenues, defined as revenues from selling periodic output at an average price above £75 per MWh," the ministry said in a written statement to parliament. "It will apply to revenues from electricity generation in the UK from renewable including biomass, nuclear, and energy from waste sources and will be focused on the largest generators through a generation threshold of 50GWh of annual output," it said. The benchmark price will be indexed to CPI inflation from April 2024.
Britain has issued the final licences to Virgin Orbit for the first satellite launch take-off from UK soil, the Civil Aviation Authority said this morning. "Today we are one step closer to opening the UK's galactic gateway, with Virgin Orbit receiving a historic first licence to allow the UK’s first ever spaceflight launch," Transport Minister Mark Harper said.
London-listed Purplebricks Group, Britain's biggest online-only real estate agency, will cut more than 10% of its workforce to cut costs, The Times says this morning. The company will lay off more than 100 of its 800 staff of about 800 as part of the savings programme, which is set to conclude on Friday, the newspaper said.
Mortgage lender Nationwide is predicting house prices will fall by 5% next year.
JCB is set to create 500 new permanent jobs across its UK factories and has awarded a 10% pay rise to its employees along with a £2,500 cash payment for all workers in the group, including agency staff.
HSBC has offered around 18,000 of its 35,000 British branch, call centre and back office staff – those on its two lowest pay grades - a £2,150 pay rise, a similar offer to those made by rivals NatWest and Lloyds. The move follows negotiations with Unite. The union's national officer Dominic Hook told Reuters the offer has not been recommended to staff, who will be balloted on the terms, with a result expected in January. "Whilst we haven't made as much progress as we would have liked to achieve an inflation-proof pay rise for all, over 20% of staff will be getting a pay rise of more than 10% and another 60% will be getting a pay rise of 8-10%," Hook said. The bank has also proposed raising its minimum salary in Britain to £22,750 pounds a year. A HSBC spokesperson confirmed the details of the offer.
Asset manager Legal & General has called for Capricorn Energy's board to be given the boot, joining a growing revolt among key shareholders in the exploration and production firm. Legal & General, which holds an almost 4% stake in the FTSE 250-listed company, said it believes that "a change of directors" at Capricorn was now "warranted", according to The Times. Just 24 hours ago, Palliser Capital, Capricorn's third-biggest shareholder, called for an extraordinary general meeting in order to lobby for the ousting of seven of the company's nine directors, including long-standing CEO Simon Thomson. Shareholders recently turned on Capricorn after it sought out a highly unpopular merger with Tullow Oil, which it later abandoned in September in favour of a merger with Israeli natural gas group NewMed Energy, Sharecast News says.
Around 300 mostly Scottish offshore oil workers may have to spend Christmas in the North Sea after weather conditions cancelled more than 50 helicopter flights scheduled to take them home, the BBC reports. They are unable to leave platforms off Denmark because of a phenomenon called "triggered lightning" which is caused by polar air passing over a warmer sea surface. French firm TotalEnergies has denied reports it was refusing to reschedule cancelled flights and put extra transport on to get workers home for Christmas, which a spokeswoman saying: "Helicopter transports during wintertime around the North Sea are always challenging due to ice, fog, wind speeds and other factors.” She added that the company said it would never compromise on the safety of employees.
US manufacturing giant 3M has said it will stop making and using so-called "forever chemicals", common materials that have been linked to a range of health problems including cancer. The firm, which also makes Post-It notes, cited increased regulatory and consumer concern about the substances, known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to explain the move. The chemicals are used in many everyday items, including food packaging. Known for their water-resistant and non-stick properties, the substances are also in fire-fighting foams, mobile phones, clothing and non-stick cooking pans. Researchers have long been concerned about the chemicals because they do not break down under normal environmental conditions, and in August, the US said it was considering designating some "forever chemicals" - of which there are thousands - as hazardous. The UK and European Union has already taken steps to ban some of them, as have some local governments in the US. Companies are also facing pressure from lawsuits and campaigners, the BBC says. In announcing its decision, 3M stood by the safety of the chemicals, which CEO Mike Roman said "can be safely made and used". But, he said, the firm saw an "opportunity to lead" and was positioning itself for long-term growth by moving to phase out the substances. Campaigners called the decision a "win for public health".
Amazon has avoided a potentially significant fine after reaching an agreement with the European Commission over competition concerns. The Commission launched a formal investigation in July 2019 into Amazon's use of non-public market place seller data, followed by a second probe in November 2020 into how access was granted to the 'buy box' and Prime programme. The Commission concluded Amazon's reliance on marketplace sellers' non-public business data to "calibrate" its retail decisions distorted fair competition. It also concluded that the way the 'buy box' was managed led to preferential treatment of Amazon's retail business or of sellers that used Amazon's logistics and delivery services. Amazon has now committed to ensuring it does not use marketplace seller data for its own retail operations and that it grants non-discriminatory access to both the 'buy box' and Prime. The commitments, which are legally binding, cover all of Amazon's current and future marketplaces in the European Economic Area, excluding Italy, and will be in force for up to seven years. Should they be breached, the Commission could impose a fine of up to 10% of Amazon's total turnover.
And finally, after a year of news which seems to have been dominated by Elon Musk, the billionaire has said he will resign as Twitter's chief executive officer when he finds someone "foolish enough to take the job". 57.5% of tweeters voted "yes" to him quitting the role following the poll he launched at the weekend, the results of which he said he would abide by. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he said on the platform. Musk has also said future “policy-making” polls will be restricted to paid-up ‘blue tick’ subscribers. Now, of course, there is speculation as to his replacement: "No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive," he tweeted following the poll. Among those being mentioned are Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey, who resigned as CEO in November 2021. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's former chief operating office, Sriram Krishnan, engineer and close confidante to Musk, and Jared Kushner, US former presidential adviser and son-in-law of Donald Trump, are other names in the frame. Meanwhile, Tesla shareholders are said to be delighted at the news: for months leading investors have accused Musk of being distracted from properly running his electric car company. Its shares have plummeted more than 65% over the past year, notably because Musk has sold some $40bn worth of them this year, almost certainly to help finance his purchase of the social media company.
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