News

The UK government’s flagship pledge to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 has been hit by inflation and officials are debating which projects to delay as the NHS capital budget faces a shortfall of close to £2bn by 2027/8. As Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, prepares for the Budget on March 15, people close to the

The Financial Conduct Authority has been blamed by some UK officials and SoftBank staff for London losing out to New York on the blockbuster stock market listing of chip designer Arm. SoftBank, the Japanese owner of the Cambridge-based semiconductor company, this week dashed Rishi Sunak’s hopes of retaining the homegrown tech giant, rejecting entreaties from

Germany and Italy have derailed the adoption of an EU ban on internal combustion engines from 2035. The rules were due to be approved next week but in a last-minute U-turn, the German and Italian governments thwarted the process, resulting in the EU vote being postponed indefinitely on Friday. The two countries want exemptions to

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Blinken and Lavrov spoke for about 10 minutes on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in New Delhi on Thursday, according to a state

Andrew Bailey has signalled that financial markets have been wrong in their growing belief over the past month that the Bank of England will need to impose many more interest rate rises to bring inflation under control. Speaking at a cost of living conference in London on Wednesday, the BoE governor said the central bank

Rishi Sunak has hinted the UK government will press ahead with his new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland even if it is rejected by the Democratic Unionist party, saying the agreement was not about “any one political party”. The British prime minister arrived in Belfast on Tuesday to sell this week’s agreement with the EU

Britain and the EU clinched a deal on Monday to settle the toxic dispute over post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland in a watershed moment for the two sides. Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, sealed the deal in the shadow of Windsor Castle after months of talks.

The record-breaking global bond market rally since the start of this year has fizzled out as mounting signs of persistent inflation force investors to reverse their views on the likely future path of interest rate rises. Investors rushed into fixed income in the first few weeks of 2023 as they became increasingly expectant that the

Joe Biden has said he did not think China would send weapons to Russia to help its military campaign in Ukraine, in comments that appeared to undercut claims from his top officials that Beijing was considering the idea. In an interview with ABC television on Friday that was aired on the evening of the anniversary

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to defeat Russia in 2023, as Ukraine marked the solemn anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion and a year that forever altered the country and upturned the global order. “A year ago on this day, from this same place around seven in the morning, I addressed you with a brief

The European Central Bank made no profits for the first time in 15 years in 2022 after suffering writedowns on its bond investments, with analysts predicting years of losses following the reversal of its ultra-loose monetary policies. The ECB said on Thursday it would have made an annual loss of more than €1.6bn if it

Citigroup has forecast that UK inflation will plunge from double-digit rates to close to 2 per cent by the end of this year as rapid falls in gas prices give Rishi Sunak’s government hope of solving some of its biggest economic challenges. Citi said on Wednesday that consumer price inflation was likely to fall to

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will suspend its last remaining nuclear weapons treaty with the US, a move western officials said spelt the end of the post-cold war arms control regime. In a state-of-the-nation address ahead of the first anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president said Moscow would freeze its participation in

US president Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday in a dramatic show of American commitment to Ukraine ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. His stopover, shrouded in secrecy owing to security concerns, comes at a pivotal moment in the war as Ukraine gears up for a counteroffensive and

The prime minister of Sweden has warned against delinking his country’s Nato membership bid from Finland’s, after the alliance acknowledged for the first time that the two might have to join separately owing to Turkey’s obstruction. Ulf Kristersson said in an interview that for strategic reasons, the two membership applications should be ratified at the

The US has formally concluded that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, vice-president Kamala Harris said on Saturday, vowing that those who had perpetrated crimes and their superiors “will be held to account”. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said that Washington had “examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and

The price of European natural gas has fallen below €50 per megawatt hour for the first time in almost 18 months, a landmark moment in the energy crisis as mild weather and ample storage helped temper once runaway prices. European gas prices have fallen as much as 85 per cent from their peak of more

Centrica insisted that Britain’s cost of living crisis could not be solved by one company alone as it sought to defend a more than threefold rise in operating profits to a record £3.3bn for 2022. The forecast-beating results prompted Centrica to announce that it would extend a £250mn share buyback programme launched in November —

Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National party after a backlash over her strategy for securing independence and a fall in popularity over proposed gender laws. Sturgeon, who has led the SNP for eight years, told a press conference in Edinburgh that giving everything to the “best job

UK wage growth accelerated more than expected in the three months to December but remained below inflation, according to official statistics that will be closely watched by the Bank of England ahead of its next interest rate decision. Growth in average regular pay, excluding bonuses, rose to an annual rate of 6.7 per cent in