New laws to be considered after ‘harrowing stories’ from ex-Vodafone franchisees

The government will consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements in response to the “harrowing stories” of small business people running Vodafone stores.The move follows allegations of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn telecoms company, which were revealed by the Guardian on Monday.During Thursday’s business questions in the Commons, Justin Madders, a former minister, said: “I’m sure the department will have been aware of the coverage this week of some of the harrowing stories of the treatment of Vodafone franchisees … [The department] will no doubt recognise the power imbalance in that relationship and will they consider looking at some measures to redress that imbalance perhaps by a statutory code of practice or a national arbitration system?”Chris Bryant, a minister of state at the Department for Business and Trade, said: “I am happy to sit down with him and discuss whether there are specific proposals that we could bring forward which would address that issue of imbalance.”Outside the chamber another former business minister, Labour’s Gareth Thomas, added: “This case continues to raise disturbing echoes of the Post Office scandal and raises the question as to whether the law around franchising needs to be toughened up to ensure small-business owners are better protected.”On Monday, the Guardian revealed allegations that Adrian Howe, a former Vodafone employee who had agreed to become a franchisee in 2018, had taken his own life after becoming convinced his deal with the multinational company would prove financially disastrous

‘Squeaky bum time’ as Great Britain’s new rail timetable goes live this weekend

Billions of pounds of investment, years of engineering works – and now, the moment of truth. On 14 December a revamped railway timetable goes live across Great Britain, with the biggest fanfare and radical changes for the east coast mainline, where passengers are promised more train services, faster journeys and a new era of reliability.But the spectre of a previous, disastrous timetable change from May 2018 still looms over the railway. So will Sunday’s revamp be a great gift for passengers that the industry expects – or usher in a bleak midwinter ahead?LNER, the leading intercity operator on the line from London to Scotland, will have 60,000 extra seats a week in total, and cut the fastest journey times from the UK capital to Edinburgh to shortly over four hours, and to Leeds to a little over two, with six instead of five trains an hour out of Kings Cross most of the day.More TransPennine Express trains will run north of Newcastle upon Tyne and there will be more East Midlands services between Nottingham and Lincoln

Health and safety rules holding UK infrastructure back, says writer of government report

Overbearing health and safety rules are stopping Britain building new infrastructure, according to the economist whom Keir Starmer has cited as an inspiration for his growth strategy.John Fingleton, who recently wrote a report for government on how to encourage developers to build new nuclear power plants, told the Guardian regulators needed to change their attitude to risk if the country was to end its long economic stagnation.Starmer last week accepted Fingleton’s recommendations and said he wanted to use his approach to inform the government’s wider industrial strategy.Fingleton told the Guardian: “We need to have a more mature relationship with risk. Projects often do not go ahead because of concerns about safety but often all you are doing is moving the risk somewhere else

MPs announce inquiry into work of Office for Budget Responsibility

MPs have launched an inquiry into the role and performance of the Office for Budget Responsibility.The all-party Commons Treasury committee will investigate the independent agency’s forecasting performance and impartiality before considering whether reforms are needed 15 years after the OBR was set up by George Osborne when he was Tory chancellor.MPs on the committee are understood to be concerned after a row broke out between the OBR and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over budget briefings.Richard Hughes, the OBR’s then boss, complained to senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the budget about a flurry of leaks he said had spread “misconceptions” about the agency’s forecasts.He later cast doubt on claims that Reeves dropped plans to raise income tax in the budget because of rosier forecasts, pointing out that she knew about these well before the change of heart

Drax plans to convert part of its North Yorkshire power plant into datacentre

Drax has revealed plans to convert part of its power plant in North Yorkshire into a datacentre as soon as 2027 in response to the increase in demand for AI capability.The FTSE 250 company behind Britain’s biggest power plant told investors on Thursday that it had applied for planning permission to build a 100-megawatt datacentre at its site near Selby.The centre is expected to use the land, cooling systems and transformers that were once dedicated to the power plant’s coal generation before Drax converted its generators to burn imported wood pellets.The first datacentre to be built on its site will draw electricity from the UK’s national electricity grid, but in future there could be potential to use electricity from the Drax plant.The company set out the plans to safeguard demand for its electricity in its latest trading update, weeks after the government signalled that it would curb the amount of electricity it would subsidise from 2026

The UK’s pharma deal was vital – but the GSK boss is right about US dominance | Nils Pratley

That’s gratitude, eh? It’s not even a fortnight since the government agreed to raise the prices the NHS pays for new medicines and here comes the boss of GSK, Britain’s second largest pharma firm, to extol the virtues of doing business in the US.The US is “still the leading market in the world in terms of the launches of new drugs and vaccines”, said the chief executive, Emma Walmsley, in a BBC interview, explaining why GSK invests about three times as much over there as it does at home. Alongside China, the US is also “the best market in the world to do business development”.Her comments have caused a stir but, actually, are merely a statement of reality. It would be absurd to pretend the UK has suddenly shot to the top of the competitiveness table in life sciences as a result of the multipronged price and tariffs deal at the start of this month