Marketing Newscast

(Edited 22 April 2025)

The UK’s five largest business groups have joined forces to warn the Government’s Employment Rights Bill will be “deeply damaging” to economic growth and worsen living standards. Senior officials at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Institute of Directors (IOD), the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and manufacturing trade body Make UK, have written a joint letter to members of the House of Lords, urging them to scrutinise and reform five key elements of the Bill, which they said they will only further damage already plummeting confidence among business leaders. “Our collective position is that… the Bill will have deeply damaging implications for the government’s priority growth mission as well as their admirable focus on tackling rising economic inactivity,” the letter warned, saying that “taken together, [the policies are] a recipe for damaging, not raising livings standards”. The Bill intends to ban ‘exploitative zero-hours contracts,’ outlaw so-called ‘fire and rehire’ practices, make flexible working requests a default rather than an exception, and give new employees full rights to statutory sick pay, parental and bereavement leave from day one of their employment. It also gives stronger powers to Trade Unions, including a right to make pay demands at companies where just 2% of staff are members, compared to 10% now, a change the letter said was a “recipe for conflict”. “Removal of the statutory recognition and strike ballot turnout thresholds upends firms’ confidence that union representatives speak on behalf of staff,” it said, adding: “By empowering trade unions rather than empowering whichever party is behaving reasonably, this legislation will guarantee continued conflict and prevent the reset in industrial relations that is needed”. A spokesman for the Department for Business and Trade said: “We’ve consulted extensively with business on our proposals, and we will engage on the implementation of legislation to ensure it works for employers and workers alike.”

Gold prices just keep surging as investors push into the precious metal while apparently fleeing US government bonds. The latest rise in the price of bullion to $3,357 an ounce came after US Federal Bank chair Jerome Powell said the central bank was unlikely to make progress tackling inflation this year because of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. He told the Economic Club of Chicago last night: “The administration is implementing significant policy changes, in particular trade… and the effects of that are likely to move us away from our goals. So unemployment is likely to go up as the economy slows in all likelihood and inflation is likely to go up as tariffs find their way and some part of those tariffs come to be paid by the public.” “It seems that fewer countries are trusting the US — and therefore US Treasuries as a ‘safe haven’ asset class,” an analyst from Invesco told City AM. “This has resulted in greater buying of gold, which seems to have become the preferred ‘safe haven’ asset class of choice.” US Treasury yields have jumped significantly since Trump rolled out his sweeping tariffs earlier this month, with US 30-year government bond yields spiking as high as 5%. And, as gold reached a record high yesterday, the US dollar dropped to a six-month low.

Meanwhile, a White House official has told The Telegraph he believes a trade deal with the UK was expected “soon”. “Two weeks,” he said, “Or maybe three.” He also said Britain was in a good position for a fast deal because it imports more goods from the US than it exports, but cautioned that nothing can be taken for granted with President Trump’s unpredictable style.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says it will tear out up to 140 pages from its handbook in a bid to meet Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ ambitions to boost growth by slashing red tape. The financial watchdog has just opened a consultation on how it can safely reduce the regulatory burden on businesses, after Reeves wrote to it in November to urge more risk-taking and polices to support economic prosperity. Currently, its rulebook is round 10,000 pages long. The FCA has already said it intends to minimise data collection, and that around £1.3m annually will be saved by the 16,000 companies by scrapping some data update requests.

The International Monetary Fund is urging older people to keep working, telling ‘baby boomers’ born in the 1950s and 60s that that “70s are the new 50s”. Because older people today are far sharper and stronger than they were 25 years ago, the IMF says, they should stay in employment for longer. The statement comes after research into 41 countries revealing significant improvement in healthy life spans, including that someone aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000, and 70-year-olds demonstrating the same physical fitness as 56-year-olds 25 years ago. However, the fund also warned that “demographic forces seem to be casting long shadows over prospects for living standards and public finances,” rather suggesting a less positive motivation: that debt-laden governments cannot afford to let fit and sharp older people enjoy a long retirement. It said the combination of plunging birth rates and people living longer will contribute to knocking 1.1% off global economic growth each year for the next quarter of a century, compared to the pre-Covid average.

Sainsbury’s says it expects no profit growth in this financial year, because competition in the grocery market has intensified. Britain’s second largest supermarket has just reported retail underlying operating profit of £1.36bn in the 52 weeks ended 1^st March, up 7.2% from £966m last year, but warned that its retail underlying operating profit for 2025/2026 will come in at just £1bn as costs eat into its bottom line. Market leader Tesco also warned last week that group adjusted operating profit would fall next year due to a “further increase in the competitive intensity of the UK market”.

Moray East, one of Britain’s largest wind farms, is under investigation for allegedly overcharging customers to switch off its turbines. So-called ‘constraint payments’ are made when wind farms are told to switch off because the transmission grid cannot transport the excess power produced. Such payments, which are added to consumer bills, are meant to compensate solely for lost income. However, Ofgem is investigating claims that Spanish owner Ocean Winds over-claimed millions of pounds on behalf of Moray East, after allegations of such were made by charity the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF). It passed on its findings to the regulator, findings which included calculations Moray East was paid £100m in the two years to September 2023.