A former chief executive of Aston Villa and Liverpool is a surprise contender to become the inaugural chairman of the government’s controversial football watchdog.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Christian Purslow, who left Villa Park in 2023, is on a three-person shortlist being considered by Whitehall officials to chair the Independent Football Regulator (IFR).

Mr Purslow, an outspoken character who has spent much of his career in sports finance, was this weekend said to be a serious candidate for the job despite having publicly warned about the regulator’s proposed remit and its potential impact on the Premier League.

A former commercial chief at Chelsea Football Club, Mr Purslow spent an eventful 16 months in charge at Anfield, spearheading the sale of Liverpool to its current owners following a bitter fight with former principals Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

He joined Aston Villa in 2018 when the club was in its third consecutive season in the Championship, seeing them promoted via the play-offs at the end of that campaign.

It was unclear this weekend how much of the football pyramid would respond to the appointment of a chairman at the regulator who has been so closely associated with top-flight clubs, given ongoing disagreement between the Premier League and English Football League (EFL) about the future distribution of finances.

One ally of Mr Purslow said, though, that his independence was not in doubt and that his experience of working outside the Premier League would also be valuable if he landed the IFR chairman role.

Another senior football figure said Mr Purslow “would be welcomed by the football community as someone who has worked in football, and not as a civil servant or politician”.

In the past, Mr Purslow has both welcomed the prospect of further regulatory oversight of the sport, while also warning in a BBC interview in 2021, during his stint at Villa Park: “The Premier League has really always been the source of funding for the rest of football and the danger here is killing the golden goose, if we over-regulate a highly successful and commercial operation.

“I think we have to be very careful as we contemplate reform that it does not ultimately damage the game.

“We already have a hugely successful English football Premier League – the most successful in the world.”

Two years later, however, he told Sky News’ political editor, Beth Rigby: “I like the idea that the government wants to be involved in our national sport.

“These [clubs] are hugely important institutions in their communities, economically and socially – so it’s right that they [the government] are interested.”

The disclosure of Mr Purslow’s candidacy means that two of the three shortlisted contenders for what will rank among the most powerful jobs in English football have now been identified by Sky News.

On Friday, it emerged that Sanjay Bhandari, the chairman of Kick It Out, the football anti-racism charity, was also in the frame for the Manchester-based position, which will pay £130,000-a-year.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks, with the third candidate expected to be a woman given the shift in Whitehall to gender-diverse shortlists for public appointments.

The establishment of the regulator, which was originally conceived by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, has triggered deep unrest in the sport.

This week, Steve Parish, the influential chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a sports industry conference organised by the Financial Times that the watchdog “wants to interfere in all of the things we don’t need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with”.

“We have a problem that we’re constantly being told that we’re not a business and [that] we’re part of the fabric of communities,” he is reported to have said.

“At the same time, we’re…being treated to the nth degree like a business.”

Interviews for the chair of the football regulator took place in November, with a previous recruitment process curtailed by the calling of last year’s general election.

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will sign off on the appointment of a preferred candidate, with the chosen individual expected to face a pre-appointment hearing in front of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

The Football Governance Bill is proceeding through parliament, with its next stage expected in March.

It forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.

The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game wracked by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases over its financial dealings.

The government has dropped a previous stipulation that the regulator should have regard to British foreign and trade policy when determining the appropriateness of a new club owner.

The IFR will monitor clubs’ adherence to rules requiring them to listen to fans’ views on issues including ticket pricing, while it may also have oversight of the parachute payments made to clubs in the years after their relegation from the Premier League.

The top flight has issued a statement expressing reservations about the regulator’s remit, while the IFR has been broadly welcomed by the English Football League.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation.

“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”

Mr Purslow was abroad this weekend and did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Ex-Villa chief Purslow among contenders to chair football watchdog appeared first on World News Stories.

Sky News has learnt that Sanjay Bhandari is among three remaining candidates being considered by the government to chair the watchdog.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks, and the identities of the other two contenders for the high-profile post were unclear on Friday.

Mr Bhandari has chaired Kick It Out’s board of trustees since 2019, having been a partner at the professional services firm EY for more than a decade.

Money latest: Major banks grapple IT chaos

He is also an independent non-executive director of the Lawn Tennis Association, and chairs the Satellite Applications Catapult, which aims to aid innovation in the UK space industry.

In 2024, he was awarded an MBE for services to sport.

Mr Bhandari’s chances of landing the chairmanship of the IFR are unclear, although one source described his credentials as “strong”.

The establishment of the regulator, which was originally conceived by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, has triggered deep unrest in the sport.

This week, Steve Parish, the influential chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a sports industry conference organised by the Financial Times that the watchdog “wants to interfere in all of the things we don’t need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with”.

“We have a problem that we’re constantly being told that we’re not a business and [that] we’re part of the fabric of communities,” he is reported to have said.

“At the same time, we’re… being treated to the nth degree like a business.”

Interviews for the chair of the football regulator took place in November, and Mr Bhandari’s is believed to be the first of the three shortlisted names to be publicly disclosed.

The post was advertised with a £130,000-a-year salary, and will be based at the IFR’s new home in Manchester.

It is the second time a recruitment process has been run for a chair for the IFR, after an earlier hunt was curtailed by the general election.

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will sign off on the appointment of a preferred candidate, with the chosen individual expected to face a pre-appointment hearing in front of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

The Football Governance Bill is proceeding through parliament, with its next stage expected in March.

It forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.

Read more from Sky News:
Payday glitch chaos strikes again
Donald Trump opens door to US-UK ‘real trade deal’
Trump’s China tariff escalation spooks global markets
Council finances ‘becoming unsustainable’

The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game wracked by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases over its financial dealings.

The government has dropped a previous stipulation that the regulator should have regard to British foreign and trade policy when determining the appropriateness of a new club owner.

The IFR will monitor clubs’ adherence to rules requiring them to listen to fans’ views on issues including ticket pricing, while it may also have oversight of the parachute payments made to clubs in the years after their relegation from the Premier League.

The top flight has issued a statement expressing reservations about the regulator’s remit, while the IFR has been broadly welcomed by the English Football League.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation.

“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”

Mr Bhandari could not be reached for comment.

The post Kick It Out chair Bhandari shortlisted to head new football regulator appeared first on World News Stories.

Millions were exposed on Friday to varying challenges from slow app or online banking performance to being blocked out of their accounts altogether.

Users said the brands that had encountered issues – which did not appear to be related – included Lloyds, Halifax, Nationwide, TSB, Bank of Scotland and First Direct.

Money latest: How is my bank affected by banking glitch?

It marked the second month in a row for payday problems and no reasons have been given for the disruption.

The industry has been historically reluctant to talk about common challenges in digital banking provision but its mouthpiece, UK Finance, told Sky News there was help available and protections in place during times of disruption while acknowledging customer frustrations.

The body spoke up as MPs and regulators take a greater interest in the resilience issue due to mounting concerns over the number of glitches.

All this comes at a time when major lenders face criticism for continuing to cut branch services at a regular pace – blaming ever higher demand for online services.

The UK’s big banking brands have been shutting branches since the fallout from the financial crisis in 2008, which sparked a rush to cut costs.

The uptake of digital banking services has seen more than 6,200 sites go to the wall since 2015, according to the consumer group Which?

The latest closures were revealed last month by Lloyds – Britain’s biggest mortgage lender.

Its announcements meant that it planned, across the group, to have just 386 Lloyds-branded branches left, with Halifax down to 281.

Bank of Scotland would have just 90 once the closure programme was completed.

Critics have long accused the industry of failing to sufficiently invest their branch closure savings in better online services.

But a UK Finance spokesperson said: “All banks invest heavily in their systems and technology to ensure customers have easy access to banking services.

“Where issues arise, they work extremely hard to rectify them quickly and to support their customers.

“Banks have been posting information on their websites and social media accounts to ensure they keep customers updated.”

Read more from Sky News:
Donald Trump opens door to US-UK ‘real trade deal’
Trump’s China tariff escalation spooks global markets
Council finances ‘becoming unsustainable’

Are banks doing enough?

Earlier this month, The Treasury committee of MPs wrote to bank bosses to request information on the scale and impact of IT failures over the past two years.

Their responses should have been received by Wednesday.

It followed an outage at Barclays which led to some customers being unable to access some services for up to three days from 31 January. The day marked HMRC’s self-assessment deadline alongside payday.

The Bank of England has also been taking a greater interest in the issue for financial stability reasons.

The MPs sought data from the banks on the volumes of customers affected by glitches – and the compensation that had been offered.

Committee chair, Dame Meg Hillier, said then: “When a bank’s IT system goes down, it can be a real problem for our constituents who were relying on accessing certain services so they can buy food or pay bills.

“For it to happen at a major bank such as Barclays at such a crucial time of year is either bad luck or bad planning. Either way, it’s important to learn what has happened and what will be done about it.

“The rapidly declining number of high street bank branches makes the impact of IT outages even more painful; that’s why I’ve decided to write to some of our biggest banks and building societies.”

The post Banks defend digital banking investment as payday glitch chaos strikes again appeared first on World News Stories.

The 74-year old, who was forced out of the lender in 2013 amid claims of inappropriate expenses and illegal drugs allegations, admitted 18 counts of fraud worth nearly £100,000.

Flowers, also a former Methodist minister, committed the offences against an elderly and vulnerable friend as executor of her will.

Manchester Crown Court heard how Margaret Jarvis trusted him because of his high profile public roles but he went on to plunder the cash to spend on drugs, holidays and gifts for himself once dementia took hold.

He continued to drain her funds following the spinster’s death in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, in 2016.

Flowers had previously made headlines for the wrong reasons after his three-year oversight tenure at the bank came under scrutiny in the wake of its 2017 rescue by US hedge funds.

He was later banned from the financial services industry by the City watchdog.

Flowers was fined £400 in 2014 after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine, ketamine and crystal meth – leading him to being dubbed “the Crystal Methodist” in the press.

He missed a previous sentencing hearing on the fraud charges a fortnight ago and handed himself in after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Passing sentence Judge Nicholas Dean KC, Recorder of Manchester, said: “This is a story of betrayal, no less than that.

“Betrayal by you of an old friend, someone who trusted you, who had every reason to believe she could trust you.

“In truth, you knew all along she could not, because of your own weaknesses and failings.”

Detective Constable Kate Riley, from Greater Manchester Police, said: “Flowers completely abused his position as a will executor and as a friend, fraudulently taking tens of thousands of pounds that he simply was not entitled to.

“The money should have been going to good causes, but instead went to satisfying Flowers’ indulgent lifestyle of holidays, cruises, and expensive food and wine.

“He and his victim had worked together on charitable projects, so he was fully aware of the importance of charitable gifts in her will.

“This self-serving behaviour has now rightly been punished, and Flowers has time behind bars to think about his deceitful actions.”

The post Disgraced former Co-op Bank boss jailed for three years appeared first on World News Stories.

Ed Woodward, the former Manchester United chief, has been approached about joining the vehicle which owns stakes in clubs including Crystal Palace and Olympique Lyonnais.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Woodward, who left Old Trafford in 2022, a year after United’s involvement in the ill-fated European Super League project, is being lined up as an independent director of Eagle Football Holdings as it prepares to list in the US.

Sources said on Thursday that it was not certain that Mr Woodward’s appointment would go ahead, but confirmed that he had been approached about his first mainstream football directorship since ending his long stint at the former Premier League champions.

Mr Woodward spent 17 years at Old Trafford, having played a key role in the Glazer family’s debt-fuelled takeover of the club in 2005.

Money latest: UK’s favourite DIY shops ranked

Eagle Football, which is controlled by the American businessman John Textor, is expected to file confidentially with US regulators for an initial public offering in the next fortnight.

The vehicle owns a 45% stake in Crystal Palace, which it has been trying to sell for months but may now retain as a result of the club’s improved performance in English football’s top flight.

Last summer, Sky News revealed that Eagle Football had hired investment banks including Stifel and TD Cowen to advise on the IPO, with Bloomberg News adding this week that UBS is also working on the deal.

The Eagle Football board is understood to have added Mr Textor’s former FuboTV colleague Alex Bafer, the Trilith Studios president and chief executive Frank Patterson and finance executive Sam Lynn as directors in recent weeks.

Its lenders are currently represented on the board, although these directors are expected to step down in the event of the company becoming publicly traded.

If the IPO proceeds, Eagle Football is expected to try to raise several hundred million dollars at a valuation of more than $2bn.

The vehicle also owns the Brazilian champions Botafogo, RW Molenbeek in Belgium and FC Florida.

Last year, Mr Textor held talks about buying Everton FC, but was eventually outbid by the AS Roma owner, Dan Friedkin.

Had he been successful, Mr Textor would have had to complete the sale of his Palace stake under Premier League ownership rules.

Raine Group, which handled the sale of Chelsea in 2022 and a minority stake in Manchester United to Sir Jim Ratcliffe the following year, has been overseeing the potential disposal of Eagle Football’s Crystal Palace stake.

A number of parties have expressed serious interest, including a group advised by the football financier Keith Harris.

However, a transaction is not thought to be imminent.

In the past, Mr Textor has spoken about his belief that public ownership of football teams provides fans with greater transparency about the running of their clubs.

He has described this as the democratisation of ownership – an issue likely to be at the heart of a bill on football regulation when it is reintroduced to parliament by the new Labour government.

If Eagle Football’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission proceeds in the coming weeks, its stock would be expected to commence trading several months later.

Mr Textor could not be reached for comment, while Mr Woodward did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The post Ex-Manchester United chief Woodward pitched Eagle Football role appeared first on World News Stories.

Standing in front of the slogan “reimagine”, scrawled freehand and lowercase in a shade of green, Bernard Looney, the lean and charismatic then-leader of the British-based oil giant, announced that BP “would become a very different kind of energy company”.

His pitch was striking and very much of the moment.

A multinational that began as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 would move away from its core products, cutting annual oil production, investing in renewable energy, and even suggested leaving some of its assets in the ground, unexploited.

Money blog: How much do you need to earn to be wealthy?

The aim, Mr Looney said, was to make BP net-zero by 2050, and to help the world do the same, an aspiration environmental campaigners never dared to imagine they would hear from a fossil fuel giant.

For all the styling, this was not an altruistic move from Mr Looney and the BP board.

With global leaders signed up to cutting carbon emissions and consumers increasingly enthusiastic about the alternatives, they saw money in the pivot to alternative sources.

COVID, only just beginning its circumnavigation of the globe when Mr Looney got to his feet in February 2020, may have reinforced faith in his bet, as skies went quiet and commuters stayed at home.

One fundamental question remained unanswered: Could BP continue to fund the dividends and return to shareholders by which markets, not activists, judge oil majors, and on which many investors depend for retirement funds to thrive?

Five years on the answer is no, and the climate has changed, in every sense.

Mr Looney is gone, dismissed for being a little too charismatic in undisclosed relationships with employees, and his successor, Canadian Murray Auchincloss, has seen the wind turn against his company and its chosen course.

COVID was followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a spike in energy prices that delivered a windfall to oil and gas majors and their shareholders.

BP delivered a profit of $13.8bn but comparison with its competitors, notably Shell, is unflattering.

Read more:
Who’s given Ukraine most aid – and does it have enough rare earth metals to ‘pay back’ US?

Its share price has lagged as oil and gas have proved both cheaper and more profitable than wind and solar in an inflationary environment.

Its debts meanwhile have grown, swollen by borrowing to fund major investments in renewables, while Shell’s have been cut courtesy of post-Ukraine profits.

With investor sentiment turning, accelerated by activist fund Elliott, which has built a reported 5% stake, Mr Auchincloss has slammed on the brakes.

Under pressure after five quarters of unreliable revenue, profit and debt forecasts, he is taking British Petroleum back to petroleum.

Back to basics

The contrast with Mr Looney’s strategic reset could not have been more marked. Speaking on a webcast with only a small in-person audience, the sober Mr Auchincloss stood next to a new slogan: “Growing shareholder value”, in a mixed-case, formal typeface.

His analysis was equally clear: “In 2020 we made some bold strategic changes, accelerating into the energy transition while progressively reducing our hydrocarbon business.

“We then saw COVID, the war in Ukraine, a recession and the shift in attitudes of markets and governments have a fundamental impact on the energy system… Our optimism for a fast (energy) transition was misplaced, and we went too far, too fast.”

His alternative can be summarised as back to basics. Oil production will increase, almost to 2019 levels, and capital investment will be focused on oil and gas, 75% of it on “upstream” extraction, and less than 5% spent on renewables.

Mr Auchincloss’s case is that oil and gas will be in “robust” global demand until 2035, and his message to shareholders is he intends to exploit it for their benefit.

No consensus

Not all shareholders agree, with 48 UK investors demanding a vote on the reset, and the UK Sustainable Investment Finance Association denouncing it as a retrograde turn away from the energy of the future that could leave BP saddled with stranded assets.

Coming on the same day the UK government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) painted a picture of an inexorable transition to low-carbon energy, driven by electrification of home heating, cars and industry, it is an unsentimental bet on the carbon status quo, and on short-term returns.

By the 2040s, says the CCC, electric vehicles will be so ubiquitous that petrol stations will be hard to find.

Mr Auchincloss appears to be banking on BP forecourts being among them.

The post Five years on from BP’s ambitious pledge, the climate has changed in every sense appeared first on World News Stories.

Oil and gas giant BP has again slashed its renewable energy investment and announced more funding for greater fossil fuel production.

In a further row back of climate targets the company has said renewable energy investment will fall by $5bn (£3.95bn) a year to just $1bn to $2bn (£790m to £1.58bn). Less than half that investment will go to low-carbon energy.

Funding for further oil and gas extraction will grow to $10bn (£7.9bn) annually as the business shifts focus back to its original mission of extracting fossil fuels. The majority (70%) of the funding will go to oil with the remaining 30% funding gas projects.

Money blog: BA named joint worst airline out of 19 for long-haul flights

New “major” oil and gas projects are to start by the end of 2027 with eight to 10 more to begin by the end of 2030.

The company also said it will have “selective” investment in biogas, biofuels and electric vehicle (EV) charging and “capital-light partnerships” in renewables like wind and solar.

Under the tenure of old chief executive Bernard Looney, BP had dropped its 2020 goal of cutting production, revising it down in 2023 from 40% to 25%. The aim of dropping its oil and gas output by 2030 has been axed.

The International Energy Agency has said no new fossil fuel project is compatible with the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5C.

But BP now aims to grow production to 2.3 million to 2.5 million barrels of oil a day in 2030.

Why is this happening?

“Today we have fundamentally reset BP’s strategy,” chief executive Murray Auchincloss said.

“This is all in service of sustainably growing cash flow and returns.”

BP went “too far too fast”, Mr Auchincloss said, due to “misplaced” optimism on the pace of energy transition and decarbonisation which was not as fast as he envisioned.

This latest scaleback comes as BP faces pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which reportedly took a 5% share of the company.

Elliott is renowned for forcing changes in companies to increase the share price and was reportedly pushing for a sale of BP’s renewable arm.

BP’s share price had dipped below the all-time high in February 2023 and company profits have come off the record level in 2022.

Dividends and company performance have been lower at BP than at its energy-producing peers.

The current CEO Mr Auchincloss announced plans in January to cut BP’s workforce by 5% – reducing the headcount by 4,700 – as he sought to achieve $2bn (£1.62bn) of cost savings.

It comes as the world breached the key 1.5-degree threshold in the 12 months from June 2023 to May 2024.

Countries including the UK signed up to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to the 1.5 target.

There’s been a sector-wide retreat from green investment, however, as US President Donald Trump pledged to “drill baby drill”.

The post BP slashes renewables investment and boosts fossil fuel production appeared first on World News Stories.

When compared to prices over the last three months, the new figure represents a 6.4% a year – or £9.25 per month – increase in the typical sum the vast majority of households face paying for gas and electricity when using direct debit.

It also means typical bills will be £159 more expensive than last year’s. It’s the first time the April cap has risen above the January cap since quarterly updates began in 2022.

Only those on fixed-rate deals – around eleven million homes – will see no change until their current term expires. An extra four million homes fixed the cost of energy units since November, Ofgem said.

The price cap limits the amount suppliers can charge per unit of energy and is revised every three months.

Energy debts have reached a record high, Ofgem also said.

Why are prices going up?

Ofgem’s energy price cap decision comes as a consequence of rising wholesale gas prices since the start of the year.

Europe has seen a price spike due to strong demand in recent months, driven by colder weather compared to recent years.

That, in turn, has sapped stockpiles and even prompted a warning last month from the owner of the UK’s largest gas storage facility that levels were “concerningly low”.

The UK is heavily reliant on gas for its home heating and also uses a significant amount for electricity generation.

It’s this reliance that has caused the increased cost, the regulator said. Only a small portion of the increase came from inflation and policy costs.

The government is investing heavily in more UK-based renewable energy, such as wind and solar farms, to ease the country’s current reliance on gas imports, targeting 95% clean power across the electricity grid by 2030.

When will prices fall?

Market analysts anticipate natural gas costs will remain elevated in the coming months due to Europe’s need to restock ahead of next winter.

But the prospect of a settlement between Russia and Ukraine has brought prices down slightly.

Bills are expected to fall in July.

Trusted forecasters Cornwell Insight see a slight fall to £1,756 as likely, but they caution that the forecasts will be changed to reflect market volatility in the coming months.

Widespread bill rises

Energy bills are just one of the cost increases consumers can expect in April.

Council tax and water bills are to rise then. Some people may be in a better position to meet those costs as the minimum and living wages will rise then.

For employers, their national insurance contributions also go up during the month.

The post Energy bills for typical household to rise to £1,849 a year from April appeared first on World News Stories.

It might feel a bit pointless, given how much chat there is right now about the end of the Ukraine war, to spend a moment talking about economic sanctions and how much of a difference they actually made to the course of the war.

After all, financial markets are already beginning to price in the possibility of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Wholesale gas prices – the ones which change every day in financial markets as opposed to the ones you pay at home – have fallen quite sharply in the past couple of weeks. European month-ahead gas prices are down 22% in the past fortnight alone. And – a rare piece of good news – if that persists it should eventually feed into utility bills, which are due to rise in April, mostly because they reflect where prices used to be, as opposed to where they are now.

But it’s nonetheless worth pondering sanctions, if for no other reason than they have almost certainly influenced the course of the war. When it broke out, we were told that economic sanctions would undermine Russia‘s economy, making it far harder for Vladimir Putin to wage war. We were told that Russia would suffer on at least four fronts – it would no longer be able to buy European goods, it would no longer be able to sell its products in Europe, it would face the seizure of its foreign assets and its leading figures would face penalties too.

The problem, however, is that there has been an enormous gap between the promise and the delivery on sanctions. European goods still flow in large quantities to Russia, only via the backdoor, through Caucasus and Central Asian states instead of directly. Russian oil still flows out around the world, though sanctions have arguably reduced prices somewhat.

The upshot is Russia has still been able to depend on billions of euros of revenue from Europe, with which it has been able to spend billions of euros on components sourced, indirectly, from Europe. Its ability to wage war does not seem to have been curtailed half as much as was promised back in 2022. That in turn has undoubtedly had an impact on Russia’s success on the battlefield. The eventual peace deal is, at least to some extent, a consequence of these leaky sanctions, and of Europe’s reluctance to wage economic war, as opposed to just talking about it.

A stark example is to be found when you dig deeper into what’s actually happened here. On the face of it, one area of success for sanctions is to be seen in Europe’s gas imports. Back before the conflict, around half of all the EU’s imported gas came from Russia. Today that’s down to around 20%.

But now consider what that gas was typically used for. Much of it was used to heat peoples’ homes – and with less of it around, prices have gone sharply higher – as we are all experiencing. But the second biggest chunk of usage was in the industrial sector, where it was used to fire up factories and as a feedstock for the chemicals industry. And that brings us back to the mystery product Europe is now importing more of than before the invasion.

One of the main chemicals produced from gas is ammonia, a nitrogen-based chemical mostly used in fertilisers. Ammonia is incredibly important – without it, we wouldn’t be able to feed around half of the population. And since gas prices rose sharply, Europe has struggled to produce ammonia domestically, turning off its plants and relying instead on imports.

Read more:
Payments watchdog could be abolished in PM’s purge of regulators
Russian oligarchs with links to Kremlin face UK ban under new sanctions

Which raises a question: where have most of those imports come from? Well, in the UK, which has imposed a clear ban on Russian chemical imports, they have come mostly from the US. But in Europe, they are mostly coming from Russia. Indeed, according to our analysis of European trade data, flows of nitrogen fertilisers from Russia have actually increased since the invasion of Ukraine. More specifically, in the two-year pre-pandemic period from 2018 to 2019, Europe imported 4.6 million tonnes, while the amount imported from Russia in 2023-24 was 4.9 million tonnes.

It raises a deeper concern: instead of weaning itself off Russian imports, did Europe end up shifting its dependence from one category of import (gas) to another (fertiliser)? The short answer, having looked at the trade data, is a pretty clear yes.

Something to bear in mind, next time you hear a European leader lecturing others around the world about their relations with Russia.

The post The product Europe has become more reliant on Russia for – despite sanctions appeared first on World News Stories.

Employment in green businesses and industry has also climbed 10%, supporting the equivalent of 951,000 full-time jobs (2.9% of total UK employment).

Politics latest: PM warns of ‘crucial moment’ in Ukraine war

The study – commissioned by thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) – found for every £1 of value generated by the net zero economy, an additional £1.89 was created in the wider economy.

It report was published as the government increases efforts to meet a legally binding goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero overall (that’s net zero) by 2050.

Some Conservative and Reform MPs have criticised net zero, electric cars and renewables, suggesting efforts to curb climate change are to blame for higher energy bills and the deindustrialisation of Britain.

But the report, with analysis from CBI Economics and the Data City, suggests the UK’s net zero economy is a significant driver of growth, innovation, and productivity.

Where is the growth happening?

Renewables, electric vehicles, low carbon heating, recycling and green finance are all part of the net zero sector.

Small and medium businesses with fewer than 250 employees are the main drivers of growth, and salaries are 15% higher than the UK average (£43,100, compared with £37,430).

Regions beyond London and the South East are where the net zero economy is growing significantly, the report found, boosting some of the country’s most deprived areas.

The West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, and southwest England were the largest contributors, each more than 5% of the national total, while Scotland’s net zero economy has grown by 21.3% since 2022 – now worth £9.1bn.

Read more:
Scientists condemn Reform MP
Warning over ‘unproven’ carbon capture

Tyne and Teesside was also highlighted as a hotspot thanks to a £1bn Nissan electric vehicle project, which includes a gigafactory for next-gen batteries. It is creating 6,200 jobs.

London and the South East are still leading the way, with £16.2bn and £13.1bn of green investment respectively.

Overall, the sector attracted £23bn of public, private and foreign direct investment – and each full-time job generated £105,000 in economic value, well above the UK average, the report found.

‘You can’t have growth without green’

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the findings showed “net zero is essential to growth, a strong economy, and money in working people’s pockets”.

Making Britain “a clean energy superpower” will provide “energy security, good jobs, and investment in our communities”, he added.

Louise Hellem, chief economist at the CBI, said “there are huge emerging markets for green technologies that the UK must capitalise on”.

“It is clear, you can’t have growth without green,” she said.

The post How net zero push is impacting Britain’s economy – including some nice salary bumps appeared first on World News Stories.