Published: 06 June 2023
By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight
Former Autoglass CEO Gary Lubner is set to donate £5m to Labour to bolster its coffers ahead of the next election battle, the Financial Times said yesterday. He told the newspaper he had wanted to help Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer get the party into power “for a long time”. “In the long list of Tory failures in the last 13 years, Brexit is top of the list. It’s a disaster. There’s nothing good about it. Nothing,” he said. Lubner gave £500,000 to Labour in the first quarter of 2023, according to Electoral Commission figures set to be released on Thursday. A £5m donation would make Lubner one of the party’s biggest individual donors, and set the party on course to exceed the £6m it raised in donations last year, City A.M. says, noting that former supermarket chairman Lord David Sainsbury recently handed Starmer £2m.
All Party Parliamentary Group on Crypto and Digital Assets have called for the appointment of a dedicated ‘crypto tsar’ to oversee plans to turn the UK into a digital asset hub. In a new report, MPs on the committee say they believe the industry has the potential to “significantly transform” the UK’s financial services industry and the “way we deal with money”. However, they also highlight the sluggish pace of regulation in the UK, hence the need for a “tsar” to “ensure a coordinated approach” across government. “Other jurisdictions are making significant headway in delivering legal and regulatory certainty and there is a real risk of the UK being left behind by more advanced and more cryptocurrency and digital asset friendly regulated markets overseas,” the report warned. “The government must move within a finite window of opportunity within the next 12-18 months to ensure early leadership within this sector.” This view is contrary to that expressed last month by the Treasury Select Committee which said: “Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have no intrinsic value and serve no useful social purpose,” and in their report highlighted instead the huge amount of energy used in cryptocurrency mining, and its use “by criminals in scams, fraud and money laundering”. The Treasury Committee also called for the industry to be regulated in the same way as gambling, saying “retail trading in unbacked crypto more closely resembles gambling than a financial service”. Crypto is set to fall within the remit of financial watchdogs later this year under new powers granted to them by the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader and co-chair of the interparliamentary alliance on China, has described a “appalling” HSBC’s closure of three bank accounts belonging to the League of Social Democrats, one of the few remaining opposition parties in Hong Kong, as well as those of some of its core members. Dickson Chau, vice chairman of the league, told the Hong Kong Free Press that the move “showed how difficult it is for civil organisations that did not opt to dissolve to survive now. It’s obvious that this is a political decision”. Speaking to The Times, Duncan Smith said: “HSBC is now very much a Chinese bank. They are not a global bank, they do get the protections of London, but they do exactly what they are told by China, so they have basically become part of the Chinese infrastructure”.
Britain’s services economy continues to improve, despite high inflation. The closely watched S&P Global and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply’s (CIPS) final purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the services sector, which generates about £2 in every £3 in the UK, came in at 55.2 points in May, well above the 50 mark signifying growth, albeit down slightly from April’s 55.9 point reading. Tim Moore, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: “Service sector businesses have experienced strong growth so far in the second quarter of 2023, fuelled by resilient demand for consumer and technology services, combined with a post-pandemic tailwind as households switched from spending on goods to services.”
British Airways (BA), Boots and the BBC have confirmed their staff have had personal details stolen in a cyber-attack on Zellis, a payroll provider used by hundreds of companies in the UK. The hack, which in some cases accessed bank account details, has affected eight companies in total, according to an unnamed source cited by the Daily telegraph which first reported the story. Boots, part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, confirmed the attack had accessed some of its employees’ personal details, including their names, surnames, employee numbers, dates of birth, email addresses, the first lines of their home address and national insurance numbers. It said a "very small number" of employees may have had other data compromised. “Our provider assured us that immediate steps were taken to disable the server,” the high street chemist said. In a statement, BA said: “We have been informed that we are one of the companies impacted by Zellis’ cybersecurity incident which occurred via one of their third-party suppliers called MOVEit,” and said it had notified and was supporting staff affected. The Daily Telegraph, which first reported the story. Boots employs over 50,000 people in Britain, while British Airways has about 30,000 staff and the BBC more than 21,000. Microsoft said it believed the group behind the hacks was "Lace Tempest" - the nickname assigned to online extortionists who run the cl0p ransomware site. In an email to Reuters, the "cl0p team" confirmed it was responsible for the breaches, saying "it was our attack" and that victims who refused to pay would be named on its website.
Capita, the Government's largest software and IT services provider, is reportedly facing possible legal action after being hit by a cyberattack in March. According to The Times, law firms including Leigh Day are considering filing lawsuits after being contacted by people who believe they were affected by the attack, which resulted in client data being stolen by Russian hackers. The newspaper said Leigh Day had written to the Universities Superannuation Scheme, which is known to have been targeted, requesting more information about the breach on behalf of clients, and noted that Barings Law was appealing via social media for members of the USS to come forward if they believe they were affected by the attack.
UK new car sales grew 16.7% in May, with Ford's Puma and the Nissan Qashqai the most popular cars models among Britons, The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said yesterday. Petrol-powered cars accounted for 57.1% of all new registrations, while large fleet registrations were up by 36.9%, reflecting a regularisation of supply following challenges last year. In total, 145,204 new vehicles were bought last month, the SMMT said, marking the 10th consecutive month of growth. The sale of battery electric vehicles grew 58.7%, gaining 16.9% of the market share in May. However, growth still lags 21% below pre-covid levels.
Eurostar’s London to Amsterdam route will be suspended from June 2024 until April 2025 due to engineering works in the Dutch capital, it was confirmed yesterday. More than 2m British nationals visit the Netherlands each year, and half of those go to Amsterdam.
We will know by mid-afternoon today whether the scandal-hit Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has a future. Members are due to vote on whether changes the group is making to how it is run give them the confidence they need to continue to support it.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined broker ED&F Man Capital Markets Ltd £17.2m in connection with Europe's 'cum-ex' tax scam. It is the largest penalty yet handed down because of the scam, which flourished after the 2008 global financial crisis, and involved banks and investors swiftly dealing shares around dividend payout days, blurring stock ownership and allowing multiple parties to claim tax rebates. The FCA said yesterday the broker was fined for "serious failings" that led it to benefit from trading strategies designed to enable clients to illegitimately reclaim tax from Danish authorities. ED&F dispute the FCA's findings and agreed to settle, resulting in a 30% discount to the penalty applied.
Global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners is reportedly drawing up an offer to buy Center Parcs. Current owner Brookfield is hoping to reap between £4bn and £5bn for the holiday resort, which it put up for sale last month, having purchased it from Blackstone for £2.4bn back in 2015 before making considerable upgrades. A deadline for the bids is understood to have been set for June 20th, Sky News reports. Rival French private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners is thought to be one of a number of other infrastructure funds also considering whether to make a bid or not. According to Brookfield's website, around 2m guests stay in Center Parcs each year, and its six sites have an occupancy rate of around 98%.
Anglo-Russian gold and silver miner Polymetal says it is considering the sale of its Russian business following the resignation within its Russian arm of CEO Vitaly Nesis and CFO Maxim Nazimok due to sanctions by the USA.
Aldi has again been crowned the cheapest supermarket in the UK by the latest Which? survey which concluded shoppers at the discount retailer saved over £18 on a basket of items compared to Waitrose, its most expensive rival. At Aldi, a basket of goods cost £68.60 on average in May, £1.91 cheaper than nearest competitor Lidl.
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