Marketing Newscast

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will this afternoon set out how the Government intends to reform the welfare state. In her speech to the House of Commons, she is expected to focus in particular on health-related disability benefits, which have burgeoned since 2020, in an attempt to cut the bill. Almost 2.8m people are economically inactive because they are classed as being too sick to work, up from 2m last year. Before Covid lockdowns in 2020, only 360,000 people were assessed as having limited capability for work and work-related activity. Last week, Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer said the benefits system as it stands cannot be justified on “moral” or “economic” terms.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves met with regulators yesterday, and announced various measures to cut bureaucracy. Among them are streamlining the environmental regulatory process for major projects including the Lower Thames Crossing and the future expansion of Heathrow airport. Environmental guidance, including hundreds of pages on the protection of bats, will also be reviewed, and environmental permits for some low-risk and temporary projects removed. Also, new medicines will be fast-tracked through a pilot programme providing parallel authorisations from healthcare regulators; there will be a review of the £100 cap on individual contactless payments; mortgage lending rules will be simplified to make it easier to re-mortgage with a new lender and reduce mortgage terms; a 'concierge service' will be set up to help international financial services firms navigate regulations; and the Civil Aviation Authority will allow at least two more delivery drone trials following the success of one the Government says has already cut travel times for blood samples between hospitals from 30 minutes to just two minutes.

Today, Reeves is hosting fintech executives, to canvass their ideas for economic growth. Sky News has learnt that bosses from Revolut, Stripe, Wise and Zilch will be among those attending today’s summit at 11 Downing Street.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has cut its predictions for UK growth to 1.4% in 2025, down from its previous forecast of 1.7%, and to 1.2% in 2026, down from 1.3%. However, the global think-tank’s forecast is more optimistic than that of the Bank of England, which earlier this month cut its UK growth forecast for 2025 to 0.75%. The OECD downgraded growth globally, from 3.2% last year to 3.1% in 2025 and just 3% in 2026, citing US President Donald Trump’s trade war and adding that especially punitive tariffs on Canada and Mexico are likely to cause the most pain.

The price gap between houses and flats has hit a 30-year high, according to Zoopla. In January, the average price of a house in the UK was £319,500, 67% higher than the average flat price of £191,300, a gap driven, Zoopla says, by an imbalance between supply and demand. In the first six weeks of 2025, the number of flats on the market rose by 14% year-on-year, but buyer demand increased by just 1%, whereas for houses, supply increased by just 5%, but demand rose by 16%. The average house price has now risen by 24% in the last five years, compared to just 7% for flats.

The Court of Appeal has backed Thames Water in a case involving campaigners and investors who were trying to stop it from accepting a £3bn emergency bailout. A group of the utility's secondary "Class B" creditors appealed against a High Court decision last month to approve the plan proposed by Thames Water Utilities Holdings Limited, to prevent it running out of money on 24^th March, saying the “eye-watering” loan servicing costs of 9.75% were not in the public interest. They argued instead that Britain’s largest water utility, which has been on the verge of collapse for months, awash with debt, should instead be renationalised temporarily under a special administration regime. They are now considering taking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying they will make a final decision once they have seen the detailed wording of the Appeal Court Judgement. Thames has 16m customers and 8,000 employees.

Tesco is increasing pay for its store staff by 5.2% but scrapping its 10% extra pay bonus for Sunday working. Britain’s largest supermarket said the hourly rate will go up by 43p to £12.45 from 30^th March and rise again to £12.64 from the end of August, above the national minimum wage which is set to rise to £12.21 per hour from April. The increase will cost Tesco £180m. The deal has been approved by the USDAW trade union which said workers in London will see their pay rate increase to £13.66 per hour, and then £13.85.

Hedge fund founder Crispin Odey has been fined £1.8m and banned from working in the City by The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) because of “a lack of integrity”. 66-year old Odey has been accused of a string of sexual assaults against women which led to the collapse of his firm, Odey Asset Management (OAM). The FCA did not comment on the truth of the assault allegations, but said Odey had “deliberately sought to frustrate” an investigation into them via the disciplinary processes of his hedge fund, and showed “reckless disregard” for its governance, causing it to breach certain regulatory requirements “to protect his own interests”. The FCA added it had concluded that “Mr Odey’s conduct demonstrated that he is not a fit and proper person to perform any function related to regulated activities.” Odey has “strenuously” denied the allegations against him.

Larry Ellison, the founder and Executive Chairman of US tech giant Oracle, has vowed to invest $5bn (£3.9bn) in Britain over the next five years, expanding its UK data centre infrastructure “to meet the rapidly growing demand for its cloud services in the UK” and to help more businesses adopt artificial intelligence (AI). Ellison, who with a $169bn fortune is the world’s fifth-richest man, has been a key backer of US Donald Trump, and is a close ally of Elon Musk. He once sat on the board of Tesla and invested in the billionaire’s takeover of Twitter.