MPs demand The Treasury reveals all of the Government's contracts with Fujitsu

The Treasury Select Committee has written to the Treasury and 21 affiliated public sector organisations demanding they reveal any contracts they have with Fujitsu, the Japanese firm responsible for creating the Horizon IT system that led to hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters being sent to jail. “It’s clear that Fujitsu has questions to answer over its conduct,” Harriet Baldwin MP, Committee Chair, wrote. In her letter - which is known to have been sent to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Debt Management Office and the National Infrastructure Commission, among others - she also asked if contracts went through proper tender processes and if the impact of “reported issues with the Horizon system were taken into account in any contracts awarded or not awarded to Fujitsu.”

As anticipated, Tata Steel confirmed on Friday it will axe 2,800 jobs at its Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, 90% of them within the next 18 months, as part of a restructuring programme to transition to ‘greener’ steelmaking. The Government is providing Tata with a £500m grant to help it switch from the current fossil-fuelled blast furnaces to ones using renewable electricity, while Tata, part of Indian conglomerate Tata Group, is providing a further £750m, with the aim of reducing Tata's UK CO2 emissions by 5m tonnes per year, and the country's by 1.5%. "The course we are putting forward is difficult, but we believe it is the right one… We must transform at pace to build a sustainable business in the UK for the long-term," TV Narendran, Tata Steel's CEO, said. The news was met with dismay by trade unions, who had proposed that one blast furnace remained open until both electric arc furnaces came onstream. The GMB and Community unions called the decision "an absolute disgrace", adding that Tata and the UK government were "intent on pursuing the cheapest instead of the best plan for our industry, our steelworkers and our country". Unite said it was ready to use "everything in its armoury to defend steel workers and our steel industry". Port Talbot currently employs around 4,000 people and is the region's largest employer.

A British nuclear startup has dropped plans to build a pioneering power plant in Cumbria and will invest £4bn in France instead. The Telegraph says that while Newcleo was lobbied personally by Emmanuel Macron, the firm was blocked from participating in the UK’s design competition for mini nuclear reactors. Newcleo, which is developing an advanced modular reactor (AMR) that will use nuclear waste for fuel, had hoped to invest £2bn in a waste reprocessing factory at Sellafield, creating around 500 jobs, as well as developing a similar facility in France. But Stefano Buono, Newcleo’s CEO and founder, told the newspaper: “Now, we will double the capacity of France and we are not investing in the UK.” Buono also told the paper that Newcleo was invited to last year’s Choose France business summit at the Palace of Versailles, where he was lobbied repeatedly by Macron in face-to-face meetings, yet has never been offered an in-person meeting with a British prime minister.  

The Labour Party’s plan to ban new oil and gas drilling if it forms a government is “economically senseless,” a major North Sea operator has told The Telegraph. Amjad Bseisu, CEO of Enquest, said blocking new drilling licences would put jobs and investment at risk, and bring forward shutdown costs for the taxpayer, thereby hitting The Treasury with extra costs earlier than expected, as oil companies receive tax breaks for decommissioning.

NHS plans to trial delivery of medical supplies by drone in the north of England have been thrown in to doubt by the Ministry of Defence, which claims they could disrupt military exercises at RAF Spadeadam, a training facility in Cumbria. Commercial drone trials require airspace to be reserved exclusively for the aircraft and prevent activity such as jamming GPS signals, which are used by the RAF in defence exercises, the Telegraph explains. The plans are also facing opposition from local pilots over fears the trial will shut down local airfields.

Ofcom will outline possible options for reform of Royal Mail's Universal Service Obligation on Wednesday this week, Sky News reports. Royal Mail has warned it will be not able to survive without Government subsidies if it continues to be required to deliver letters nationwide six days a week, as well as meet challenging targets, given that it is now delivering only some 7bn letters a week, down from 20bn when the scheme was devised. Ofcom is expected to put forward a consultation paper, with a 90-day call for input, with formal proposals expected to be set out later this year. In a letter to MPs last week, Martin Seidenberg, CEO of Royal Mail's parent company, International Distributions Services (IDS), wrote: "Delivering the current Universal Service requirements - in a financially sustainable way - is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve as the mix and number of parcels and letters changes. The bar set by the regulations is unrealistic given the market realities."

Mothers are missing out on pension savings of nearly £92,000 if they only work part time until their child reaches secondary school, while mums who give up work altogether for the same period sacrifice up to £183,000, according to research from Royal London. The pensions, investments and life insurance provider cites data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which shows that still the most common arrangement among families in the UK is for the father to work full-time, while the mother works part-time, until the youngest child in the family is 11. More than nine in 10 (92.1%) fathers with dependent children work compared to three in four mothers (75.6%), with over twice as many - nearly 3.6m - female part-time workers than men. “Reducing hours or stopping work altogether to care for children means pension saving takes a hit and it might also mean that they don’t have the 35 years of national insurance contributions or credits needed for the full State Pension,” Royal London pensions expert Clare Moffat warned.

‘Barbiemania’ has been responsible for a 72% increase in the number of pink cars being sold, according to the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). The trade body says 210 pink vehicles were registered in the UK in 2023, almost twice the 122 vehicles registered in the year before, when sales of the colour fell to a 13-year low because of its poor resale value. It seems wealthy buyers are even more likely to jump on the pink bandwagon: the SMMT said the Porsche 718, which starts at £58,000, was the most popular pink car registered last year, and a majority of all buyers - 10% - lived in the leafy home county of Berkshire.  Barbie is Warner Bros’ highest grossing film of all time, with revenues of almost $1.4bn (£1.1bn) to date.

Insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor is warning that nearly 50,000 British businesses are in “critical” financial distress, hence the UK economy is potentially facing a significant wave of businesses bankruptcies. The accountancy’s research suggests that the number of companies struggling in the final quarter of 2023 was up 26% on the previous quarter, which was in itself a 25% rise on Q2 2023. Businesses working in construction, real estate and property, and support services, as well as health and education were said to be especially at risk. Ric Traynor, executive chair of Begbies Traynor, said: “Later this year, we could see some respite for companies as inflation looks like it may reach more palatable levels… [but]… there are no signs of an easy fix and, with geo-political uncertainty continuing to rise and a hike in the national wage around the corner, the backdrop is hardly improving for an economy that is still firmly in recovery mode post-pandemic.”

British Gas has been unveiled as the UK’s least favourite energy provider, according to consumer champion Which?. In a customer satisfaction survey of over 9,000 Brits conducted in October last year, Centrica-owned British Gas received just two out of five stars for most categories and the lowest overall satisfaction score of 56%. Measures included accessibility (whether you can engage with your energy provider the way you want or need to), value for money, and accuracy of energy payments. Octopus Energy meanwhile, received its seventh consecutive Which? Recommended Provider designation and was the only firm to achieve a five-star rating for overall customer service.

Sainsbury's CEO Simon Roberts has told the Mail on Sunday he backs its call for the police to get tough with shoplifters, and for a change in the law to make abuse or violence towards retail staff a specific offence. “I see a report every day on the number of violent incidents and assaults on our people in our petrol stations, our convenience stores and in our shops. It definitely escalated through last year,” he said.  The newspaper has revealed that shoplifting costs stores £1bn a year, to which Roberts responded by saying: “The key point is that this should not be in any way just be overlooked. This is a crime. Stealing is a crime”.

John Lewis is warning staff that its turnaround proposals will involve “resetting” salaries, and so they will face smaller pay rises during the process. The partnership has also warned that fewer staff are likely to qualify for the highest tier of salary rises.

Retailers at Canary Wharf Group say they had a record number of visitors last year, with trading was strong across all days of the week, thanks to the growing number of residents and international students now choosing to live in the area, as well as improved connectivity since the Elizabeth Line opened. Some 67.2m customers visited in 2023, up 25% on 2022. Retail occupancy across its 300 outlets stands at 97%.

Compass Group, the FTSE-100 contract caterer, is in advanced talks to take over a rival business which provides hospitality services at landmark venues including Kew Gardens and the Royal Opera House, Sky News has learnt. The deal to acquire CH&Co. is said to be worth more than £400m.

Abrdn Property Income Trust (API) has announced proposals for an all-share merger agreement with Custodian Property Income REIT (CREI) which would see CREI acquire the entire issued and to-be-issued share capital of API through a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement. Following the merger, existing CREI shareholders would hold 59.7%, and API shareholders 40.3% of the combined group, with the CREI board expected to comprise eight directors, including two existing API directors. The combined group would consist of around 200 assets with a combined property value exceeding £1bn.

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has withdrawn his High Court libel claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday, and agreed to pay the firms £250,000 legal costs. The Duke sued over an article published in February 2022 about his legal challenge against a Home Office decision not to fund his security arrangements when he visited the UK. He continues to pursue a separate case against ANL in which he claims it unlawfully obtained information about him.

“After a campaign of pressure from investors, a chair that presided over one of the most monumental implosions of a listed company in recent memory has finally agreed to go,” City AM’s Charlie Conchie writes of Home REIT Chair Lynne Fennah. Fennah is stepping down from her role, leaving a “trail of destruction in her wake,” he adds. Social landlord Home REIT has all but imploded over the past 16 months since it was revealed that its property portfolio was in such bad repair it was worth only a fraction of what was claimed, and that several of its housing association tenants were heavily indebted to the company, having refused to pay rent in protest at the shoddy housing being provided. Fraser Perring, the head of Viceroy Research, the US short seller which uncovered the perilous state of Home REIT, said it was “laughable” that Fennah’s departure has taken so long. The whole of Home REIT’s board has agreed to quit en masse when it finally publishes its long-delayed accounts at an as yet undisclosed date. Fennah’s replacement Michael O’Donnell, chair of storage firm Big Yellow, “will now be tasked with steering the firm back to stability,” Conchie says.

And finally… Parcel delivery firm DPD has disabled its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot function after a frustrated user coaxed the system into composing a poem about how bad the company's customer service was, Reuters reports. There was once a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help," the bot wrote after Ashley Beauchamp gave up trying to get it to share a phone number for customer services and asked it to write a poem about bad chatbot service instead. "DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare," the bot continued before concluding: "One day, DPD was finally shut down and everyone rejoiced. Finally they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing." Beauchamp, a pianist and conductor, posted his exchange with the bot on social media platform X on Thursday, since when it has been viewed 1.1m times.