Business

Downing Street is in talks with Macquarie Group, the Australian lender, to secure a headline-grabbing £10bn investment in British infrastructure that would represent one of the largest-ever such commitments by an overseas company. Sky News has learnt that officials at Number 10 have been negotiating with executives at the bank about the plan – which

The power industry is concerned some companies could be making massive profits on the occasional days when renewable electricity generation slumps. Generators which step up to fill those gaps are charging record prices to “balance” the supply of electricity as our power grid rapidly shifts towards net-zero. The costs are paid by the industry, but

The boss of British Gas owner Centrica has warned that household bills could see a further increase in the autumn on top of the 54% hike set to take place in April. Chief executive Chris O’Shea told Sky News that “nobody really knows” where the wholesale costs of energy – which are running about four

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has suggested that workers should not ask for big pay rises as it battles surging inflation. The Bank has acted to combat accelerating price growth by hiking interest rates to 0.5%. But if employees ask for wage increases to match the cost of living its task could be made

Households will be left in “deep peril” and older people will be “badly shaken” by the rise in energy bills, charities have warned. On Thursday, energy regulator Ofgem announced prices are set to soar by 54% for 22 million households from the beginning of April, adding £693 to the annual costs of a typical household.

It is hard to think of another day – certainly one outside a recession – when so much bad economic news came in one single torrent. Energy bills up by £700 (with more to come thereafter), interest rates raised, inflation set to exceed 7% for the first time in a generation and now households expected

The Bank of England has raised interest rates, slashed its growth forecast and warned that families are about to suffer the biggest fall in living standards since comparable records began three decades ago. On a red letter day in Britain’s cost of living crisis, the Bank said that households will see their post-tax disposable income

Millions of households will discover on Thursday how much their energy bills will rise this spring after the regulator brought forward its announcement of the new price cap. Ofgem will reveal what is expected to be an increase of up to 50% to the price cap for gas and electricity, adding around £700 to bills

Emergency traffic measures to control congestion at the Port of Dover have already been used as many times this year as in the first six months of 2021 combined, following the introduction of new Brexit border checks. Figures provided to Sky News by National Highways reveal the Dover Traffic Access Protocol (TAP), designed to prevent

A retail lobby group has warned it will be “impossible” for the sector to shield shoppers from rising costs in the months ahead as till prices hit their highest level for almost 10 years. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said there was no let-up in sight for the price pressures facing the industry which, it

Tesco said 1,600 jobs were at risk as it announced a further round of restructuring across its store network. Britain’s biggest supermarket said it was moving overnight re-stocking to the daytime in 36 large stores and 49 convenience stores. It is also converting 36 of its petrol stations to become pay-at-pump only sites during overnight

Wordle, an online word game which has seen a surge in popularity recently, has been bought by The New York Times. The deal, which saw the media company take over running the game from creator Josh Wardle, was for “an undisclosed price in the low seven figures”. Wordle sees players try and guess a five

Ryanair has warned of more COVID-19 turbulence ahead as it blamed “hysteria” over the Omicron variant for a collapse in bookings over Christmas and reported a quarterly loss of €96m. The airline said demand had improved since the recent lifting of travel restrictions but prices were having to be cut to fill up planes over

The owners of Virgin Media O2 have kicked off talks to raise hundreds of millions of pounds from investors to fund the rollout of fast fibre broadband to millions more British households. Sky News revealed on Sunday that initial discussions with infrastructure funds got underway in recent weeks, with the aim of selling a large

Plans to “breathe fresh life into disadvantaged communities” across England have been announced as part of the government’s Levelling Up White Paper. Wolverhampton and Sheffield will be the first of 20 areas picked to benefit from a “radical new regeneration programme” launched by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The chosen locations

Downing Street will next week unveil a gender-balanced line-up of business advisers to Boris Johnson, which includes the bosses of some of Britain’s fastest-growing technology companies. Sky News has obtained the list of members of the prime minister’s new business council, which is expected to be published as early as Monday. Half of its 28