Business

Retail sales took an unexpected fall last month, according to official figures suggesting a slump to COVID lockdown levels with only online operators seeing growth. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a 0.3% decline overall in October 2023, following a fall of 1.1% in September. A rise in volumes of 0.3% had been expected

Public sector borrowing reached the second highest level for any October since records began, according to official figures, casting doubt on the prime minister’s pledge to cut debt and the chancellor’s capacity to cut taxes. Public sector net borrowing was £14.9bn last month, £4.4bn more than the same point last year and the second highest

The government has announced plans to remove benefits and step up monitoring of welfare recipients in an effort to bring more people into work. Job seekers will have benefits such as free prescriptions and legal aid removed if they’re judged not to be looking for work under the chancellor’s Back to Work Plan which aims

Hotel Chocolat has agreed to a £534m takeover offer from Mars, the maker of goods from Snickers bars to Pedigree dog food. The UK specialist chocolatier retailer said the offer represented a 170% premium to its London share price of 139p and the deal would allow its brand to expand internationally This breaking news story

Manchester United has confirmed its chief executive of two years, Richard Arnold, “has decided to step down” as part of a “management transition”. The development was revealed shortly after Sky News reported that Mr Arnold would be replaced by the club’s general counsel, Patrick Stewart, on an interim basis. The change is taking place as

The government will this week increase the price offered to offshore wind farm developers after the total failure of its last auction round left the UK’s net zero targets in jeopardy. The target price for the next auction round, known as AR6, is expected to be around £70-£75 per megawatt hour. That is a dramatic

Roughly 500 jobs are to go at pharma giant Pfizer’s Kent site. The roles are to be cut as Pfizer is discontinuing its pharmaceutical sciences small molecule (PSSM) operations at Sandwich in Kent, the company confirmed to Sky News. It’s part of a company-wide cost-cutting program, Pfizer said. Affected staff were notified on Tuesday morning

House prices have grown in 70 local authorities across Britain despite an overall UK-wide fall, according to the latest analysis from a subsidiary of the UK’s largest mortgage lender. The area with the largest increase was Powys in Wales, which is Wales’s largest and least densely populated county, containing most of Bannau Brycheiniog, formerly known

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by the industry regulator for missing targets covering both first and second-class deliveries. Ofcom said that for the 2022-23 financial year – a time when it was hit by 18 days of strikes by frontline workers – Royal Mail’s reported performance results showed that it had only delivered 73.7%

An infrastructure investor owned by Schroders, the fund management behemoth, is in pole position to buy a solar farms operator that received hundreds of millions of pounds from a scandal-hit local authority. Sky News understands that Schroders Greencoat has become the leading contender to acquire Toucan Energy, which collapsed into administration exactly a year ago.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) wants government action over escalating baby formula prices that are “exploiting” UK families. In an interview with Sky News, WHO called out the “profit-driven” multinational manufacturers for “manipulating the price” of their baby formulas. The most recent research shows prices in the UK have risen 24% over the past two

Nigel Farage will next week begin a formal legal fight with NatWest Group and its former boss as he seeks millions of pounds in damages over the debanking scandal which escalated into a crisis for the state-backed lender. Sky News has learnt that Mr Farage, the former UKIP leader, has instructed London-based Grosvenor Law to

£7.6m is a lot of money to leave on the table by anyone’s standards. NatWest Group, the taxpayer-backed bank, hopes that headline-grabbing number will persuade stakeholders that it has taken a tough line on the severance package handed to Dame Alison Rose, its former chief executive. Indeed, Dame Alison herself might claim that she herself

Families “should feel optimistic” that the worst of the cost-of-living crisis is over, the chancellor has told Sky News. Acknowledging households have “suffered enormously” from energy, food and fuel inflation in the last 18 months, Jeremy Hunt said they should now feel some relief despite the UK economy slowing to a halt in the third

Former NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose is to lose £7.6m of her payout as the bank group seeks to draw a line under the debanking row sparked by the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts accounts. However, she will still receive around £1.7m. Dame Alison stepped down in late July after admitting she discussed the former

The UK economy has flatlined but has avoided a recession this year. Fresh data from the Office for National Statistics shows that gross domestic product (GDP) – which measures the value of goods and services produced – rose by 0.2% over the month, although growth in August was revised down to 0.1% from 0.2%. While

More than 3,000 jobs are at risk despite a deal, backed by the government, preserving the future of the country’s biggest steelworks. Tata Steel in September confirmed details reported by Sky News that it had secured taxpayer cash to support the Port Talbot plant in South Wales transition to cheaper, greener steel production. Job losses

A regulator has outlined concerns about the “intensity of competition” between fuel retailers. In its first monitoring update since finding that drivers were overcharged by supermarkets last year, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was yet to receive crucial data on fuel margins covering September and October. It said that while margins –

US actors union Sag-Aftra has agreed a “tentative deal” with Hollywood studio bosses to end a historic 118-day strike. In an announcement on Wednesday, the union said the longest walkout in its history will end at 12.01am US Pacific time on Thursday following a “unanimous vote”. The union, which represents around 160,000 members of the

The Barclay family has renewed its efforts to persuade Britain’s biggest high street lender to regain control of the Telegraph newspapers after restating an offer to repay the bulk of the debt it owes to the bank. Sky News understands that the newspapers’ former owners wrote to Lloyds Banking Group again last week to repeat