Marketing Newscast

Heathrow Airport is closed because of a fire at the nearby North Hyde electrical substation that supplies it with power. The UK's busiest airport says it will remain closed all day today and is warning of "significant disruption" over the coming days. It is telling passengers not to travel "under any circumstances" until it reopens. At least 1,351 flights will be cancelled today according to Flightradar24. Some planes were forced to return to their departure destination mid-flight, while others were diverted elsewhere – London Gatwick Airport had accepted seven Heathrow-bound flights by 6am this morning. The fire has also left more than 16,300 homes without power and caused around 150 people to be evacuated from their properties. The cause of the fire is not yet known. It is being tackled by around 70 firefighters. National Grid said in a post on X that the fire has "damaged equipment, leading to a loss of power supply in the area". "We are working at speed to restore power supplies as quickly as possible and will provide an update as soon as we can," the statement added. The site has been evacuated.

Public sector spending has surged beyond expectations, outweighing tax receipts in February, and forcing the Government to borrow £10.7bn - £0.1bn more than in February 2024. The sum borrowed last month is the fourth-highest February borrowing since records began in 1993. This fresh financial data from the Office for National Statistics has laid bare a wide discrepancy between what the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast borrowing would be in the financial year to February 2025, and what was actually borrowed; the sum actually borrowed is £132.2bn, £20.4bn more than the OBR’s £111.8bn forecast. The OBR also forecast last October that the public sector would borrow £127.5bn for the whole of the financial year ending March 2025, but that already looks to be well overshot. It will publish an updated forecast on 26^th March 2025, the same day as the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement. Reeves has pledged to balance day-to-day spending against tax receipts and to get public debt falling by 2029/30, and deliver economic growth. However, it is widely reported this morning that the OBR’s economic growth forecast for the UK in 2025 is likely to be halved, from 2% to around 1%, in a further blow to the Government.

The Telegraph’s Deputy Economics Editor Tim Wallace writes this morning: “Rachel Reeves’ grand plan for Britain’s economy has already been blown off course. The Chancellor had hoped that a blowout public spending binge, funded by extra borrowing and higher taxes, would help her turbocharge growth and redraw the nation’s economic map. Instead, her ambitions lie in tatters. Not only has her tax-raising Budget trashed business confidence and stunted the economy, but a surge in borrowing costs has also wiped out her fiscal headroom”. And that is without considering Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, which has unleashed a wave of economic turmoil that Reeves has blamed for damaging growth”.

Worse may still be to come for Reeves, as the Bank of England (BoE) warned yesterday that inflation is on the rise and stood by its prediction that it will peak at 3.75% this year. The BoE held interest rates at 4.5% yesterday, also citing concerns over a global trade war. The Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) Swati Dhingra was again the lone member voting for a 25% basis point cut; the other eight MPC members voted for the status quo. “There’s a lot of economic uncertainty at the moment,” Governor Andrew Bailey said after the meeting, but added: “We still think that interest rates are on a gradually declining path.” Inflation stood at 3% in January. February’s figures will be released on Wednesday morning next week, ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement later that same day.

The ONS has also said this morning that British families are £2.2 trillion worse off than it initially thought, after revising how it values private pensions. It has subsequently marked down the total wealth of UK households down by 14%, reducing estimated household wealth from £6.4 trillion to £4.2 trillion, with older Britons aged 65 to 74 now appearing 38% poorer. Young people in the age group 25 to 34, however, are deemed to be 11% wealthier. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) responded to the revision saying the revision itself may be flawed. In a nutshell, it seems we cannot actually be sure just how wealthy households are - or not. This is latest in a series of issues bringing the reliability of ONS’s data into question. The official statistics has also admitted, for example, that it may not be able to say with complete confidence how many people are actually unemployed until 2027.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s Great British Energy ‘green’ start-up is to appoint a CEO on a salary of £525,000 a year, it has been revealed. The salary, three times that of the Prime Minister, revealed in a job advert from Miliband’s department, consists of a basic wage of £350,000 to oversee the quango, with bonuses of up to £175,000. The successful applicant will also be allowed to work from home two days a week. GB Energy was set up by Miliband to “own and invest in clean energy projects across the UK”. It has a £8.3bn budget and is based in Aberdeen. Miliband claims it will reduce consumer energy bills by £300 a year and create 1,000 jobs in the granite city. However, its own Chairman, Juergen Maier, has admitted it could take 20 years to create the jobs, and has refused to say when household bills will fall.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) has been fined more than £9m by The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for failing to properly manage a nickel trading volatility in March 2022. The price of three-month nickel futures contracts soared to $100,000 in the space of a day, more than double the previous closing price, forcing the LME to suspend the nickel market for eight days and cancel all trades that took place on 8^th March. Following an investigation, the FCA ruled that the systems and controls LME had in place to ensure orderly trading had not been adequate. Notably, only relatively junior trading operations staff were on duty between 0100 and 0700 GMT, the LME's Asian trading hours, and the FCA found they “had not been trained to recognise anything other than error trades or rogue algorithms as potential causes of a disorderly market". "That meant that when price rises in the nickel contract became increasingly extreme...it was not escalated to senior LME managers. Instead, staff took steps to accommodate the price rises, even disabling the price bands, during the most extreme period of volatility," the financial watchdog added. The case is the first ever enforcement action by the FCA against a UK recognised investment exchange.

Yorkshire Water has been ordered by regulator Ofwat to spend £40m to fix serious failings in its sewage and wastewater systems. The order follows a lengthy investigation that began in 2021, at the end of which Ofwat found at least half of Yorkshire Water’s storm overflows were in breach of regulations, leading to excessive sewage spills. The £40m cost cannot be passed onto customers and must be met by the company and its shareholders.

Sports broadcasting heavyweights BT, IMG, ITV and the BBC have all been fined for unlawfully colluding to fix freelancer pay rates. In total, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has fined them over £4m for 15 illegal incidents between 2014 and 2021 where they shared sensitive payment information and details to ensure freelancers were paid less, by preventing competition for their services. Internal messages within each firm revealed explicit conversations to avoid bidding wars and align rates. Sky was also investigated by the CMA but avoided a financial penalty by reporting its involvement in the collusion, ahead of the probe. IMG and BT were each fined approximately £1.74m, while the BBC and ITV were fined £339,918 and £424,165 respectively.

The BBC is to cut off overseas access to scores of BBC radio stations and podcasts in a shake-up of its international output. Starting in a matter of weeks, the broadcaster will no longer allow access to Sounds – its audio streaming service – from abroad. Instead, international audiences will need to tune into radio and podcasts on a new advertising-funded service on BBC.com or the broadcaster’s app. Rights restrictions means some programming, including all music radio stations and some podcasts, will also be removed completely, while others will only be available through third-party subscription services such as Apple and Spotify. However, the BBC said access will still be available to talk radio stations such as Radio 4 and the World Service.

St Anselm’s School in Bakewell, Derbyshire, is closing at the end of the academic year, citing “unrelenting headwinds” faced under the Labour Government. The school, once named ‘the best in Britain’ by Tatler magazine, pointed to the 20% levy on school fees introduced in January; next month’s increase in National Insurance contributions; and the loss of business rates relief. Paul Houghton, Chair of the Bord of Governors, told the Telegraph: “We have simply been left with no alternative. Despite our best efforts it has proved difficult to secure a viable future given the headwinds we face”.

Shaftesbury Capital has sold a quarter of the £2.7bn Covent Garden Estate to Norwegian oil fund Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) for £570m. The same Norwegian fund completed a similar deal with Grosvenor Estates earlier this year, snapping up a £306m 25% stake in its Mayfair estate in London. NBIM owns a stake in Regent Street as well as the Pollen Estate, near Saville Row.

Rathbones group CEO Paul Stockton is retiring after six years in the job, and 15 at the FTSE 250 asset manager. He is succeeded by Jonathan Sorrell who will join the business as CEO designate, subject to regulatory approval, on 1^st July. Stockton had previously told Rathbones’ board he planned to retire on his 60th birthday, which will be in the second half of 2025.

Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertrucks in the US because of a defect that could cause exterior trim panels to detach while driving, creating a potential road hazard. The recall is the latest in a series of setbacks for the EV maker which has seen its Wall Street shares slide by 42% this year, reflecting investor concerns over both operational setbacks and founder Elon Musk's role in Donald Trump’s administration. As head of the newly-founded US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk is charged with uncovering fraud and making cost savings. Tesla showrooms have been targeted by violent anti-Trump activists, who have torched cars and vandalised buildings and equipment. Mass protests are planned at Tesla showrooms around the world on 29^th March.