Posted by Hari on Thursday, July 23, 2015 with No comments | Labels: Roundup

Osborne ousts regulator boss who imposed record fines on the banks
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne ousted the U.K.
finance industry’s top watchdog a month after saying the era of “ever-larger”
fines for bank misconduct was over. Under Martin Wheatley, the Financial
Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a record 1.47 billion pounds in fines last year.
In a speech last month, Osborne said that “simply ratcheting up ever-larger
fines that just penalize shareholders, erode capital reserves and diminish the
lending potential of the economy is not, in the end, a long-term answer.” The
government is keen to harness the financial system to drive growth. Wheatley
has transformed the FCA’s reputation during his tenure from a light-touch
regulator to a tough enforcer. The agency has taken action against banks over
multiple scandals including interest-rate and currency benchmark manipulation.
Last year, five banks were sanctioned more than 1 billion pounds for
foreign-exchange rate manipulation. Labour MP John Mann said Osborne’s move has
the effect of “rewarding wrongdoing in the financial services industry as it
undermines the regulator.” BLOOMBERG
HS2 chief hits out at
‘unjust’ division of rail assets between north and south
High-speed rail project’s chairman Sir David Higgins says
north of England is often shortchanged and given ‘crappy’ hand-me-down trains. “I
believe the north has been shortchanged. I look at expenditure per head, the
pass-me-down process – the offcuts from rolling stock always end up in the
north. Two hours from Birmingham to Leeds on a chugger, old crappy trains on
poor railway lines. We would not accept that from London to Swindon, and we
don’t: we insist on a huge amount of money going into commuter services,” he
said. Events of recent weeks have made many dubious that things will soon
change. The chancellor’s northern powerhouse was dubbed the northern powercut
after the government announced that rail upgrades, including the
electrification of the Midland mainline and the Transpennine railway, were to
be “paused”, citing cost overruns at Network Rail – despite manifesto pledges
made just weeks earlier. But Higgins insists that HS2 will attempt to address
this divide, with a first leg that runs from London to Birmingham, then a
second phase linking to Manchester and Leeds. Despite the criticism, Higgins
compared Britain’s attitude towards rebuilding its railways favourably to his
native Australia and elsewhere. He added: “It’s really encouraging that this
country has the courage to face up to these issues. I look at some of the
infrastructure issues in America and think, good God.” GUARDIAN
Student debt to rise:
poorest graduates 'will owe £53,000' after grants cut
Students from the poorest backgrounds in England will
graduate owing up to £53,000 after maintenance grants are replaced by loans, says
the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Changes to student finance announced in
the Budget will mean an initial £2bn annual saving for the government. But the
IFS estimates only a quarter of these loans will be repaid and the long-term
annual saving will only be £270m. More than half a million students from poorer
backgrounds currently receive a maintenance grant, at a cost to the taxpayer of
about £1.57bn a year. From 2016, these will be replaced with loans, which they
will be expected to repay in addition to loans for their tuition fees. The IFS
says the new loans will mean up to £550 more "cash in pocket" per
year for those students, but they will graduate owing up to £53,000 in total,
compared with £40,500 before maintenance grants were scrapped. A Department of
Business, Innovation and Skills spokesman said the extra £550 helped those from
poor backgrounds: "The changes announced in the Budget provide students
with more money in their pockets to help with living costs while studying... "Lifting
the cap on student numbers also means that more people will be able to benefit
from higher education than ever before." BBC NEWS
Ikea adopts the
living wage for UK staff in 'massive breakthrough'
The announcement that the home furnishing retailer will pay
its staff a minimum of £9.15 an hour in London and £7.85 across the rest of the
UK from April next year was described as a “massive breakthrough” by the living
wage campaign. It will mean a pay rise for more than 4,500 staff. In recent
weeks, pressure groups and individuals have been turning up at the annual
shareholder meetings of retailers such as Tesco, Next and Ocado to demand
better pay for workers. The foundation has accredited more than 1,600
businesses, including nearly a quarter of the FTSE 100 and well-known companies
such as Nestle, Nationwide and British Gas – but until now, the only household
name retailer that had signed up was Burberry. Ikea’s move comes less than a
fortnight after George Osborne used his post-election budget to announce that
the £6.50-an-hour minimum wage would be recast as the “national living wage”
and rise next April to £7.20 for people aged over 25, with further increases to
“over £9” by 2020. Last month, Tesco boss Dave Lewis told campaigners that the
retailer was in detailed talks with the trade union Usdaw about restructuring
pay packages to increase basic salary. GUARDIAN
Benefit cuts to hit
huge number of children, government figures show
More than 330,000 children from low-income families in Great
Britain will be hit by Conservative plans to reduce the benefit cap, the government’s
own impact assessment has concluded. The government wants to cut the cap on
benefits payments of £26,000 a year per household to £23,000 in London and
£20,000 in the rest of the country. The policy will take an estimated £300m out
of the pockets of the affected families in its proposed first full year of
operation in 2017-18, costing those who are hit an average of £63 per household
each week. The impact assessment also notes that single mothers will be hit
hardest as a group by the cap – constituting 59% of those affected by the
change; more than three-quarters of the households affected will be aged
between 25 and 44; as many as 37% of those affected may be ethnic minority
households – although the study says this cannot be precisely quantified. The
housing charity Shelter said the plans to reduce the limits to £20,000 (£385 a
week), or £23,000 (£442) in London, would mean that large parts of the
south-east and south-west, and some northern cities, would now be unaffordable
for many more families when it is introduced next April. Whereas previously the
most expensive London postcodes, such as Chelsea and Islington, were affected,
in the near future areas such as Portsmouth and Luton would be out of reach for
unemployed families who are reliant on housing benefit. In March, the supreme
court ruled that the £26,000 cap was in breach of the UK’s international
obligations on children’s rights. GUARDIAN
Limiting skilled
migrants just because they are easier to stop than illegals is a big mistake,
says CBI chief
David Cameron is risking the economic recovery by refusing
to lift the cap on skilled foreign workers coming to the UK, the CBI has said. The
monthly limit on visas was hit for the first time since it was introduced, in
June and already again this month. Up to 20 firms have complained that they are
unable to get the staff they need into the country. CBI director general John
Cridland said the 20,700 annual limit on Tier 2 business visas, introduced in
2011, was fine for when the country was in recession but was too tight for a
growing economy. Mr Cridland is concerned the government means to further
tighten the limit despite skills shortages in sectors such as professional
services, IT, science and engineering. He said the government should focus its
immigration efforts on tackling bogus asylum-seekers, over-stayers, criminals,
welfare-seekers and some unskilled workers. Instead, skilled migrants seemed to
have become "the first port of call" because they were easier to
target, he suggested. BBC NEWS
Supermarket price war
'hitting food supply firms'
The number of suppliers in significant financial distress
has risen 54% since last year, according to insolvency specialists Begbies
Traynor. In the second quarter this year, 1,622 food suppliers were struggling
to make ends meet, up from 1,052 at the same period last year. Of those, 89%
were small suppliers, showing that small firms are bearing the brunt of
supermarkets' efforts to try to regain customers from discounters. Part of the
pressure on food makers comes from supply agreements with big buyers, which can
involve large discounts, demands for rebates, and slow payments. Some
supermarkets still take more than a month longer than agreed to settle debts
with suppliers. Begbies Traynor said: "Unfortunately the retail
environment is set to become even bleaker for the UK's small food suppliers who
are facing the harsh reality that price slashing is not just a short term pain
but something that's here to stay." BBC NEWS
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