OBR chair ‘mortified’ by budget leak as ex-cybersecurity chief called in to investigate

The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said he felt “personally mortified” by the early release of its budget documents and said the former boss of the National Cyber Security Centre will be involved in an investigation into the incident.Richard Hughes said he had written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and the chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, to apologise, and launched the inquiry.“I felt personally mortified by what happened. The OBR prides itself on our professionalism. We let people down yesterday and we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme

US banks announce UK expansion projects hours after budget

Two of Wall Street’s biggest banks have announced substantial expansion plans in the UK, hours after they were spared increased taxes in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget.JP Morgan on Thursday revealed plans to build a 3m sq ft tower in Canary Wharf, which will serve as its new UK headquarters and house more than half of its 23,000 UK staff. It is understood the London project will cost £3bn.The US rival Goldman Sachs said it would expand its Birmingham office and hire 500 staff, in a move that would more than double its workforce in the city.Banks dodged a tax raid in the chancellor’s budget, having lobbied hard against a higher levy that lenders argued could force them to curb lending and cancel out the benefits of regulatory reforms meant to spur growth

New rules crack down on high risk loans as Australian property market heats up

A crackdown on risky lending will limit banks’ capacity to extend highly geared mortgages, as the financial regulator launches a pre-emptive strike against the growing excesses of an overheated property market.The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority announced a 20% cap on the share of new lending that banks can do at a debt-to-income ratio above six – a mortgage worth more than six times the borrower’s income.While Jim Chalmers said the move would “help with financial resilience and housing affordability”, the Greens immediately criticised it as insufficient and experts said it would not curb the current rapid rise in lending growth and property prices.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe newly announced restriction lands amid a worsening housing crisis, with a recent report highlighting affordability is now at its worst on record and that a typical household needs to dedicate nearly half of its pre-tax pay to service the average new mortgage.An explosion in lending to landlords has been of particular concern to regulators

Gopichand Hinduja obituary

Gopichand Hinduja, listed at his death aged 85 as the richest man in Britain, was one of four brothers who took their father’s Indo-Iranian trading business and turned it into a vast international conglomerate. It spread across everything from motor manufacturing to their own banks and Bollywood film-making, and had a value put on it by this year’s Sunday Times Rich List of more than £35bn.The brothers – devout, acquisitive, secretive – positioned themselves across the world like latter-day Rothschilds: one, Ashok, in India and one, Prakash, in Switzerland, with Gopichand and his elder brother, Srichand, in London. There they lived in opulence in four interconnected mansions purchased from the Crown on Carlton House Terrace on the Mall. Two years ago, at a party celebrated with canapes covered in gold leaf and in the presence of royalty, Gopichand opened his £1

Relief for retailers as business rate changes in budget not as bad as feared

Retailers have breathed a sigh of relief after changes to their business rates bills in the budget were not as bad as feared, after the industry had warned for months that more punitive measures could lead to shop closures and jobs losses.The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on Wednesday revealed plans to permanently reduce business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties – although the discounts are not as generous as those that have been in place since the pandemic. About 750,000 properties in those sectors will see their bills set below the current standard level, with deeper discounts for smaller operators, according to the government.Businesses are still calculating what their ultimate bills will be, but the global tax firm Ryan calculated that there are 3,480 retail properties in England that have the higher rateable value and together would pay an extra £112m in business rates from April 2026. However, the government is providing billions of pounds of “transitional relief” to help those whose bills will increase dramatically next year

Labour is still in a muddle on North Sea oil and gas | Nils Pratley

Labour’s manifesto commitment on North Sea oil and gas production was a fudge. On one hand, it said no new licences “to explore new fields” would be granted. On the other, it said existing fields would be managed “for the entirety of their lifespan” in a way “that does not jeopardise jobs”.The formulation raised many questions. Where, exactly, would the line be drawn between a new field and an existing field? What would be the approach to protecting workers when, as now, North Sea jobs are estimated to be going at a rate of 1,000 a month according to analysis by Robert Gordon University?The thinking is only slightly easier to understand now