Ten UK energy firms to pay £7m in compensation after overcharging error

Ten UK energy suppliers including EDF, E.ON and Octopus are to pay £7m in compensation and refunds after overcharging customers, after a review by the energy regulator for Great Britain.Ofgem said the suppliers had agreed to pay more than 34,000 customers compensation and refunds because of erroneously billing them more for standing charges than is allowed under the regulator’s price cap. Standing charges are daily fees added regardless of how much energy is used.The affected customers all had restricted meter infrastructure, meaning more than one electricity meter point recording usage at their property, and were erroneously overcharged between January 2019 and September 2024

US-UK trade deal has saved jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, says Mandelson

The UK’s limited trade deal with the US has immediately prevented job losses at Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in the West Midlands, Britain’s ambassador to the US has said.“This deal has saved those jobs,” Peter Mandelson said in an interview on CNN. “That’s a pretty big achievement, in my view, and I’m very pleased that the president has signed it.”Government sources said JLR had plans for imminent cuts among its 30,000 staff in the UK but had not informed unions in the hope that a deal with the US could be struck to eliminate the 25% tariffs on exports of cars to the US.Donald Trump’s import taxes had threatened to cripple British high-end carmakers before they were reduced from 27

British Airways took £40m hit from power outage that closed Heathrow

The power outage that closed Heathrow airport for a day in March cost British Airways £40m, the national carrier has revealed.The airline said it was “assessing options” but said it had no recourse to compensation from Heathrow.Airlines were infuriated by the response and recovery time from the power outage, which came about after a substation caught fire overnight. A report from the National Energy System Operator on Thursday confirmed that Heathrow took seven hours to reopen after its power was restored, allowing only a handful of flights to operate.The BA chief executive, Sean Doyle, said there was no automatic form of recovery for the airline, either from insurers or in compensation from Heathrow, for the lost revenue, refunds and costs of looking after delayed passengers

Crumbs! How Britain fell out of love with the sliced loaf

Toast and jam, bacon sandwiches and boiled egg with soldiers may be at the heart of traditional British food culture but bread is making up an ever thinner slice of our diet – putting pressure on some famous brands.While still one of the most ubiquitous items in shopping baskets, the popularity of the packaged sliced loaf has been sliding downhill since the Hovis lad puffed up a cobbled street with his bicycle to the strains of a brass band in the 1973 TV ad.Now Hovis’s owner, Endless, is in talks with the owner of rival Kingsmill – Associated British Foods (ABF) – about a possible merger of the bakery businesses, which together account for just under a quarter of the packaged bread market, after both have struggled to get out of the red for several years.ABF’s chief executive, George Weston, was saying back in 2017 that its bakery division was “making an unsustainable level of loss” as it faced commodity price inflation, even before the full invasion of Ukraine and an accelerating climate crisis supercharged the price of wheat.As one bakery insider puts it: “The packaged bread industry is in inexorable decline

Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce share prices soar as manufacturers welcome US tariff cuts

British manufacturers have welcomed some tariff relief in the new US-UK trade deal, with the share prices of the sportscar brand Aston Martin Lagonda and jet engine maker Rolls-Royce rising.The US has agreed to cut tariffs on cars, jet engines and steel, although the 10% baseline levy will continue to apply to other products exported from the UK, the two governments announced on Thursday.Keir Starmer spoke to Donald Trump from the headquarters of JLR, the UK’s biggest automotive employer and one of the main exporters to the US.The US now has a quota of 100,000 British-made cars per year with a 10% tariff – significantly lower than the 27.5% rate Trump imposed in March, but more than the 2

UK interest rates fall to 4.25% as Bank of England announces a quarter-point cut

Bank of England policymakers have cut interest rates by a quarter point to 4.25% to cushion the UK economy against the impact of rising economic uncertainty.The widely expected move from the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), its fourth cut since last August, also carried a warning that the UK economy would slow by a further 0.3% over the next three years in addition to dramatic cuts to its forecasts made earlier this year.In a blow to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the MPC said a combination of uncertainty surrounding the impact of US trade policy on the global economy and clouds hanging over the outlook for the UK meant growth would be almost stagnant for the rest of the year