Marketing Newscast

The economy is estimated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to have grown by just 0.1% in November 2024, meaning there has been no growth whatsoever in the three months to November 2024. ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: "The economy continues to be broadly flat, having grown slightly in November following two small falls in the previous months. Services grew a little, with wholesaling, pubs and restaurants and IT companies all doing well, partially offset by falls in accountancy and business rental and leasing. Construction also grew led by new commercial developments, while production continued to decline in November with further falls across a range of manufacturing industries and oil and gas extraction." The pound fell again, nearly 0.2% lower against the US dollar to $1.222 following release of the data. In response, Chancellor Rachel Reeves reiterated her pledge to go "further and faster" to improve economic growth in order to boost living standards, declaring it was the "number one priority" for the Government. "That means generating investment, driving reform and a relentless commitment to root out waste in public spending," she said. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the latest economic growth figure was “a step in the right direction, but there’s much, much more we’ve got to do”. “It was always going to take time to turn around 14 years of economic failure under the last government,” he told journalists on his current visit to Ukraine. Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said on X: “Labour inherited the fastest growing economy in the G7, but this is the third month in a row of disappointing growth figures. The Chancellor seems content with burying her head in the sand, but this is a crisis made in Downing Street. We need an urgent change of course”.

Tax hikes on whisky are costing the Treasury £350 a minute and half a million pounds a day in lost revenue, an analysis of HMRC data by The Scotch Whisky Association has revealed. Tax raids on spirits by both former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who increased levies on spirits by 10% in 2023, and current Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who hiked the duty again by 3.65% in her October Budget, caused revenue from the tax to fall by £255m between August 2023 and November 2024, when compared to the previous year, Mark Kent, CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association said. The extra taxes are adding at least £12 to the cost of a bottle of Scotch and causing demand to dry up, he claimed. The data also shows “the industry has been proved right about how hiking tax rates leads to less revenue and stalls growth,” he added. Kent also highlighted a 2023 post on X by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in which he promised to “put growth at the heart of our Government and back Scotch producers to the hilt,” saying: “The commitment made by the Prime Minister was broken by the decision to further increase duty on the industry.”

Currys will be outsourcing more work to India as a result of Rachel Reeves’s “tax on jobs”, the CEO of the electricals retailer says. Alex Baldock said it will be forced to pay an additional £30m in costs to employ people in the UK as a consequence of her changes to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and the 6.7% increase in the minimum wage. “We’ve already got the best part of 1,000 colleagues in India – all the usual central and IT functions that you would expect – and they do a cracking job for us, and we’re delighted to have them,” he said. “You can expect, as UK people costs inflate, to see more of that, that’s just inevitable.” “The National Insurance tax is a tax on jobs that doesn’t benefit colleagues at all and actually depresses hiring and boosts offshoring and automation. We don’t want to employ fewer people in the UK. We don’t want to depress hiring in the UK. We want to employ more people. We want to be in the box seat for powering growth in this country. We want to invest more, hire more, and help the economy grow faster. What we’re asking for is the environment to allow us to do that,” he told The Telegraph, adding that there were also likely to be “unintended consequences” of Deputy PM Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill, which will give workers new employment and pay protections and more power to trade unions.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has also said it believes Government policies are “a hindrance” to hiring that are undermining its own pledge to boost employment to 80% and get 2m more people into work. REC CEO Neil Carberry said that while the full effects of the Budget on hiring may only become clear once employment figures for January and February become available, “at the moment, Government policy feels like more of a hindrance than a help in getting employment rates up.” However, REC data just released shows the number of vacancies in the UK economy has now fallen back in line with pre-pandemic levels. There were 1.44m active job postings in December, slightly more than the 1.41m open roles recorded five years ago. However, the number of new job postings fell by nearly 17% per cent in December, when compared to November but Carberry said this was partly due to seasonal factors. Demand for workers surged in the aftermath of Covid lockdowns, and the number of vacancies exceeded the number of people looking for work for much of 2022, but since then the number of vacancies has decreased for 29 consecutive quarters according to the ONS.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso), the quango overseen by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, has temporarily blocked new energy projects from joining the National Grid, the Telegraph reports. Neso claimed the move was necessary because of a huge backlog of around 2,000 connection applications from green energy providers that is leading to delays of up to 14 years. A Neso spokesman said it will “pause” applications received from new entrants as of 29^th January. including those submitted by wind and solar farms. Reform MP Richard Tice said the halt showed the system was falling apart: “Chaos is descending on our electricity grids as more, primarily foreign, private equity vultures seek to rip off British consumers,” he said. “They want ever more expensive renewable subsidies, to prop up Mr Miliband’s dangerous net zero plans. They want to carpet our productive farmland with millions of solar panels and tens of thousands of turbines and pylons. They can be warned: Reform UK will end this gravy train of abuse.”

Pub groups Fuller, Smith & Turner, and Mitchells and Butler (M&B), have both posted robust trading over Christmas and New Year. In the 41 weeks to 11 January, like-for-like sales ticked up 5.9%, at Fullers, and 10.2% over the five-week festive period, with "consistent" performance across all parts of the estate, it said. Toby, Harvester and All Bar One owner M&B, meanwhile, posted 10.4% sales’ increases over the three week Christmas period and 3.9% growth for the 15 weeks to 11 January. Despite the impact of “very cold and stormy weather over the last couple of weeks,” there were “numerous record sales performances through the estate and the brand portfolio" M&B said.

BT has scrapped a major electric car charging scheme after installing just one charging point. Last year, the telecoms giant outlined plans to convert old broadband street cabinets into electric vehicle (EV) charging points, and earmarked around 60,000 cabinets for possible conversion. But Etc, BT’s digital start-up unit, has abandoned the pilot scheme after converting only one cabinet. The site, in East Lothian in Scotland, will be decommissioned next month.

JCB's 'world first' hydrogen combustion engine programme has secured landmark rulings from eleven licensing authorities across Europe, allowing the engines to be used commercially in machines. Authorities in other countries are set to follow suit with certification this year, JCB said. It is the first construction equipment company to develop a fully-functioning combustion engine fuelled by hydrogen. For over three years, a 150-strong team has been employed on the £100m programme and more than 130 evaluation engines have already been built.

Drinks maker Britvic said yesterday that a high court judge has approved its £3.3bn takeover by Carlsberg. The acquisition was approved by Britvic's shareholders last August, and the Competition and Markets Authority gave the deal the green light in December.