Jim Ratcliffe chemical firms received up to £70m of UK state aid in last four years
Chemical companies owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe had already been granted as much as £70m in UK state aid in the past four years, before this week’s £50m government bailout for its Grangemouth plant in Scotland.State aid to Ineos in the last year alone was between £16m and £38m, according to government disclosures published this week.Since August 2022 the company has received between £28m and £70m.The government stepped in on Tuesday to give Ineos £50m to support Grangemouth, fearing that without it the UK would lose its last plant making ethylene, an important material for making plastics.The government also backed a £75m loan guarantee, while Ineos will invest £30m of its own money.
Ineos had already closed the next-door oil refinery in September 2024 with the cost of 400 jobs, in a huge blow to the community and a political problem for the government.Ratcliffe, who is worth $14.5bn (£11bn) according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index, asked the government for help in October.It comes at a time when the expansive group of Ineos companies, controlled by the 73-year-old, has been under financial pressure, in part because of the big increase in energy costs after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Fitch Ratings downgraded Ineos’s credit rating in September, in a sign of increasing concern over its ability to repay its debts.
Ratcliffe has also had to spend heavily on his off-road car venture, the Ineos Grenadier, as well as seeking to turn around Manchester United, in which he holds a minority stake,Most of the previous state aid to Ineos came in the form of tax breaks in return for “voluntary agreements to reduce energy use and carbon dioxide emissions”,The tax breaks for Ineos’s plants in Grangemouth and Hull are reported as ranges, rather than giving precise figures,An Ineos spokesperson said the aid was not “special treatment” for Ineos, but was “awarded against strict criteria, and available to any UK business that qualifies”,Ratcliffe this week welcomed the £50m support for the chemicals business in a statement included in a government press release.
However, Ineos issued a separate release that contained much more critical comments, in which the billionaire strongly criticised government policy, including carbon taxes that are paid by industrial users on their energy bills.“The answer is NOT decarbonisation by deindustrialisation,” Ratcliffe wrote.“Without a strong manufacturing base, the economy will continue to decline.High energy costs and punitive carbon charges are driving industry out of the UK at an alarming rate.”In further comments to media outlets this week, Ratcliffe described carbon taxes as “the most idiotic tax in the world”.
He argued that the taxes leave UK plants at a disadvantage to foreign rivals, which do not have to pay the extra costs.Most chemicals and plastics are not part of the UK’s initial carbon border adjustment mechanism, a tax on high-carbon imports such as steel, glass, cement and fertilisers.An Ineos spokesperson said: “Ineos has invested over £400m at Grangemouth in the last five years to keep it one of the most efficient chemical plants in Europe and to protect skilled jobs.UK chemicals have had a brutal year, yet everyone relies on this industry every day.If we don’t make these essential materials in the UK, they are imported instead, often from higher-carbon production abroad.
”Colin Pritchard, head of sustainability and external affairs for Ineos’s Olefins & Polymers division, this week said the money for Grangemouth would be devoted to improving energy efficiency, cutting its carbon emissions and improving performance.He said the site, which runs an ethylene cracker that takes North Sea gas and liquified petroleum gas from the US to make its petrochemicals, had been under “extreme pressure” from surging energy costs linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the UK’s carbon taxes.Ineos has previously received tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of euros from the EU.Ratcliffe was a prominent backer of the campaign to leave the EU.
‘The anxiety never disappears’: Monmouth businesses recover from severe flooding
“It was heart-wrenching,” says Andrea Sholl, recalling the Friday night last month when flood waters started rising inside Bar 125, the restaurant she and her husband, Martin, own in the Welsh border town of Monmouth.The Sholls and a couple of colleagues were still clearing up after a busy evening serving diners when the building started to fill with water at about 1am.They were able to carry some furniture upstairs to protect it, but lost all of their appliances including dishwashers and freezers, as well as fridges full of thousands of pounds’ worth of food.“It was like a huge fountain coming up through the drains. It went through the cellar, then through into the kitchen, then the higher kitchen, and then before we knew it, in the lower dining room it was up to about here,” Andrea Sholl says, pointing to the windowsill
Christmas ads put on a diet as UK ban on TV junk food advertising bites
The festive season is traditionally a time of national culinary overindulgence but eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that this year’s crop of big-budget Christmas TV ads have been decidedly lean and sugar-free.From Tesco and Waitrose to Marks & Spencer and Asda, the UK’s biggest exponents of extravagant festive food marketing have put their Christmas ads on a diet to comply with new regulations banning junk food products from appearing in TV ads before 9pm.The UK advertising watchdog will officially start cracking down on ads featuring junk food on TV – and in paid online advertising at any time of day – from 5 January. But the UK advertising industry voluntarily chose to start adhering to the new rules from October, making this TV’s first-ever low-fat, low-sugar and low-salt Christmas.Gone are shots of Christmas puddings and sweet treats, while healthy products have made a conspicuous appearance
Jim Ratcliffe chemical firms received up to £70m of UK state aid in last four years
Chemical companies owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe had already been granted as much as £70m in UK state aid in the past four years, before this week’s £50m government bailout for its Grangemouth plant in Scotland.State aid to Ineos in the last year alone was between £16m and £38m, according to government disclosures published this week. Since August 2022 the company has received between £28m and £70m.The government stepped in on Tuesday to give Ineos £50m to support Grangemouth, fearing that without it the UK would lose its last plant making ethylene, an important material for making plastics. The government also backed a £75m loan guarantee, while Ineos will invest £30m of its own money
Donald Trump promised a new ‘golden age’ for the US economy. Where is it?
Most Americans have yet to see this boom – but they’ve certainly heard a lot about it from the presidentMoments into his second term, opening his inaugural address, Donald Trump was unequivocal. “The golden age of America begins right now,” he declared.At a White House reception last weekend, a little over 10 months later, the US president appeared to acknowledge just how far his timeline had shifted.“We’re going to have … I say it’s the golden age of America,” Trump told his audience. “We have an age that’s coming up, the likes of which … this country has never seen
Retailers hope ‘panic weekend’ will bring Christmas cheer to UK sales
Retailers are hoping for a last-minute dash for the shops this weekend after a lacklustre run-up to Christmas, with UK households forecast to spend £3.4bn, up more than 12% on the same weekend in 2024.Almost 50m shopping trips will be made by last-minute Father Christmases over the weekend, according to research by analysts GlobalData for Vouchercodes.co.uk, the vast majority of which will be to retail destinations including high streets and shopping malls
Why is Truth Social owner Trump Media merging with a fusion energy firm?
Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, announced a merger on Wednesday with a company developing fusion energy technology.TAE Technologies, an energy company founded in 1998, will join with Trump Media via a $6bn merger that it promises will propel it to build “the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant” next year.The move signals that the president and his family continue to look for profit-seeking ventures outside of Truth Social, which remains tiny compared with rival platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).Here is what we know about the deal so far.The media company, which has dabbled in financial services, is engineering a huge pivot and diving headfirst into nuclear energy
UK supermarkets turn to European turkeys as avian flu hits supply
‘Bills keep going higher’: community ‘warm spaces’ on the rise in the UK
‘It can be quite a thankless job’: why driving examiners are quitting
Tinsel and Home Alone back in style as TikTok seeks comfort in #90sChristmas
Stokes vows to remain England captain as McCullum admits regret over Ashes preparations
Dominant Australia defeat England in third Test to retain Ashes – as it happened