Emergency traffic measures to control congestion at the Port of Dover have already been used as many times this year as in the first six months of 2021 combined, following the introduction of new Brexit border checks. Figures provided to Sky News by National Highways reveal the Dover Traffic Access Protocol (TAP), designed to prevent
Business
Tesco said 1,600 jobs were at risk as it announced a further round of restructuring across its store network. Britain’s biggest supermarket said it was moving overnight re-stocking to the daytime in 36 large stores and 49 convenience stores. It is also converting 36 of its petrol stations to become pay-at-pump only sites during overnight
Tesco has revealed that its Jack’s discount store experiment is to end, with seven of the 13 stores to be closed down completely, and that it is to shut down deli counters at hundreds of other sites. The UK’s biggest supermarket chain launched the Jack’s brand – named after its founder Jack Cohen – in
Ryanair has warned of more COVID-19 turbulence ahead as it blamed “hysteria” over the Omicron variant for a collapse in bookings over Christmas and reported a quarterly loss of €96m. The airline said demand had improved since the recent lifting of travel restrictions but prices were having to be cut to fill up planes over
The owners of Virgin Media O2 have kicked off talks to raise hundreds of millions of pounds from investors to fund the rollout of fast fibre broadband to millions more British households. Sky News revealed on Sunday that initial discussions with infrastructure funds got underway in recent weeks, with the aim of selling a large
Plans to “breathe fresh life into disadvantaged communities” across England have been announced as part of the government’s Levelling Up White Paper. Wolverhampton and Sheffield will be the first of 20 areas picked to benefit from a “radical new regeneration programme” launched by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). The chosen locations
Downing Street will next week unveil a gender-balanced line-up of business advisers to Boris Johnson, which includes the bosses of some of Britain’s fastest-growing technology companies. Sky News has obtained the list of members of the prime minister’s new business council, which is expected to be published as early as Monday. Half of its 28
Home Secretary Priti Patel has approved the extradition of a British entrepreneur to the US to answer criminal fraud charges. But Mike Lynch’s lawyers say they will file an appeal at the High Court as they fight the order which was earlier signed by Ms Patel following a midnight deadline. It comes on the day
UK entrepreneur Mike Lynch has lost a multi-billion pound fraud action brought over the sale of software company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard (HP) in 2011. The High Court judge found that HP had “substantially” succeeded in its bitter civil case but indicated that the US firm would get considerably less than the $5bn it had
The City watchdog has urged insurance firms and brokers to work with it to ensure bills are fair after communities secretary Michael Gove said residents of almost all flats were facing “crippling” premiums in the wake of the Grenfell fire tragedy. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Friday that it wanted to establish that
Supply chain bottlenecks have taken a bite out of McDonald’s profits as it was forced to spend more money on chicken, beef and packaging material – and warned the pressure would intensify. Quarterly earnings reported by the fast-food giant fell short of Wall Street expectations as it said operating costs rose by 14% on a
The competition watchdog has launched a wide-ranging investigation into the music streaming market. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed last October an intention to examine the sector but was yet to determine the full scope of its inquiry. It followed hot on the heels of a report by MPs the previous month that raised
The head of America’s central bank has declared there is “quite a lot of room to raise interest rates” as it stepped closer to a March hike. Jerome Powell, chair of the US Federal Reserve, made the remarks in a news conference after the bank declared that a hike would “soon be appropriate” – as
The chief executive of a major household energy supplier has cast doubt on whether the sector and government will be able to spare households from a huge spike in bills from April. Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, used a letter to the three million households on its books to explain the options facing
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has taken an axe to its global growth forecasts while listing a string of threats to the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The world’s lender of last resort downgraded a prediction, made in October, for 4.9% growth in collective gross domestic product this year, saying it now expected a
Interest payments on government debt hit a record £8.1bn for the month of December because of surging inflation, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the cost of servicing the country’s £2trn+ debt pile was almost 200% or £5.4bn up on December 2020. It is because half a trillion pounds worth