FCA’s first deputy CEO calls for stronger grip on vital tech firms

The City watchdog has said the UK needs to “strengthen” its grip on foreign tech firms providing critical services to banks, amid growing concerns over outages and cyber-attacks.Sarah Pritchard, who was appointed the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) first deputy chief executive this summer, said there had been “very frequent reminders” of how important it was for the banking sector to have “good, strong operational resilience and cyber controls”.“It remains an area that everybody should pay attention to because of the consequences if it goes wrong,” Pritchard said.Last month, Lloyds Banking Group and the London Stock Exchange were among more than 2,000 companies whose online services were disrupted by a glitch at Amazon’s cloud computing services operations in North Virginia.The episode sparked renewed warnings over the perils of relying on a small number of foreign companies for operating services across the internet, including crucial government and financial services

Joe Rigby obituary

My father, Joe Rigby, who has died aged 87, was a working-class Catholic boy from Birmingham. He left school at 15, but rose to be a television executive at Granada Television in Manchester.For 20 years from 1973, he was Granada’s head of programme planning, where he hired, inspired and nurtured the team of scriptwriters who wrote the on-air promotions for programmes. Many of them, including Andy Harries, David Liddiment and Dearbhla Walsh, went on to great success as television producers and directors.Joe was born in Erdington, north of the city centre, to Theresa (nee Byrne) and Charles Rigby, who worked in the family engineering company and as a barman

UK watchdogs need to step in on rip-off bills, which are bad for consumers and the economy | Heather Stewart

Ever felt swizzed by the small print in your mobile contract, bamboozled by a plethora of insurance products or locked into a subscription you signed up for by mistake?Then you are far from alone: a paper on the UK’s productivity predicament suggests the way the markets for some key services work is not only a monumental pain for consumers but bad for the economy, too.Rachel Reeves has promised to tackle the cost of living in her 26 November budget – alongside bringing in tax rises.Briefing in advance has suggested she and her colleagues are focused on cost-cutting levers they can easily pull from Whitehall: removing VAT on energy bills, for example.However, in their paper “getting Britain out of the hole”, the economists Andrew Sissons and John Springford suggest a much more muscular approach to making markets for key services work better.They argue that lack of proper competition for services is an important explanation for the UK’s frustratingly “sticky” inflation

UK budget watchdog in danger of strangling economic growth, says TUC boss

Britain’s budget watchdog is in danger of strangling growth and should be modernised to ditch its “hardwired” support for austerity economics, the Trades Union Congress has warned.Less than two weeks before Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget, the trade union umbrella group said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was at risk of being a “straitjacket” on growth in living standards.It called for an urgent review into the OBR’s role at the heart of the chancellor’s budget-setting process from the earliest opportunity after her 26 November tax and spending statement.Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, told the Guardian: “I don’t think the chancellor, whatever happens at the budget, wants to go down the road of austerity 2.0

Life as a food delivery worker: ‘Sometimes men open the door naked’

To earn a living as a delivery rider, some work 10-12 hour days, contending with low pay, exhaustion, accidents, injuries and harassment. Is this a new form of modern slavery?“I earn more cleaning toilets than I do from being a Deliveroo rider,” says Marina, a Brazilian woman who juggles two jobs to support her 12- and 18-year-old daughters.It’s a “bullshit, horrible job”, says Adam, from Sudan, who combines riding for Deliveroo with studying for a law degree. “On a good day I can earn £50 or £60, although it’s really hard doing deliveries using a pedal bike.”“As humans we are invisible to the people we deliver to,” says Mohammed, a Syrian refugee who also works as a Deliveroo rider

Half of all UK jobs shed since Labour came to power are among under-25s

Keir Starmer has been warned that Britain’s youth are in danger of becoming a “lost generation” on his watch as it emerged almost half of all jobs shed since Labour came to power are among the under-25s.With the government under fire before the autumn budget, Guardian analysis shows the dramatic leap in UK unemployment to the highest levels since the Covid pandemic is being fuelled by a youth jobs crisis.As many as 46% of the 170,000 jobs lost from company payrolls since June last year are from those under the age of 25 – the equivalent of more than 150 jobs lost per day.David Blunkett, the former Labour education secretary, said that while the government was taking action there was a danger an entire generation of young people would be let down.“I think we’ve got to get our act together