IN THE NEWS TODAY: as the price of booze is set to go up and surfers prepare to clean up the beaches…oh, and the budget analysis goes on… and on...
THE GUARDIAN
COALITION TO SET MINIMUM ALCOHOL PRICE
By Patrick Wintour and James Ball
David Cameron will risk the wrath of the drinks industry and free marketeers today by announcing his government is to introduce legislation setting a minimum alcohol price of 40p a unit in England – enough to add £135 to the annual bill of a heavy drinker. In what is regarded as the biggest public health intervention since the Labour government's smoking ban, Cameron will also ban the sale of multi-buy discount deals in supermarkets. He is aware the policy may prove deeply unpopular, but thinks it will chime with those demanding greater social order. The alcohol strategy follows months of Whitehall infighting over the legality, effectiveness and politics of imposing a minimum price. The aim is to introduce legislation in autumn after a summer consultation, with the minimum price coming into force in 2014.
FINANCIAL TIMES
LLOYDS TO MISS BRANCH SALE DEADLINE
By Sharlene Goff, Retail Banking Correspondent
Lloyds Banking Group will miss its goal of agreeing the sale of 630 branches to the Co-operative Group by the end of this month after negotiations with the mutual proved more difficult than expected.
A particular sticking point has been the discussions between the Co-op and the financial regulator, which is yet to be convinced the mutual has the appropriate governance and systems in place to run a much bigger banking business. Buying the Lloyds assets – which are expected to fetch about £1bn-£1.5bn – would triple the size of the Co-op’s banking arm from about 340 branches to almost 1,000.
FINANCIAL TIMES
OSBORNE FIGHTS BACK IN ‘GRANNY TAX’ ROW
By George Parker, Andrew Jack and Chris Giles
George Osborne on Thursday hailed the creation of 1,000 jobs by GlaxoSmithKline as a vindication of his pro-business Budget as both he and David Cameron desperately tried to switch attention from the political storm over his £1bn-a-year “granny tax”. The chancellor spent the day in damage limitation mode while his opponents and pensioner groups attacked his plan to restrict the tax reliefs available for the over-65s – a policy savaged by Tory-supporting papers on Thursday. Conservative MPs privately questioned Mr Osborne’s political judgment, while party whips emailed backbenchers with “lines to take”. One MP said her office had received several worried calls from pensioners. In a welcome diversion, Mr Osborne hailed confirmation by GSK of its plans to invest more than £500m in manufacturing and the creation of a new factory in Cumbria – the company’s first new plant in the country for 40 years – as confirmation his Budget had “changed the view of Great Britain”.
THE SCOTSMAN
DRUG GIANT GLAXO CREATES 100 JOBS WITH £100M SCOTTISH INVESTMENT
By Peter Ranscombe
The decision by drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to pump £100 million into its Scottish facilities and create a further 100 high-quality jobs could attract other pharmaceuticals makers to Scotland, experts said on Thursday. GSK is beefing up its antibiotic production in Irvine to cope with rising demand from emerging markets, while its Montrose facility will become the first in the UK to make ingredients for its vaccines, as well as continuing with making respiratory medicines. Scott Johnstone, chief executive of the Scottish Lifesciences Association trade body, said other global drugs makers would sit up and pay attention to the large investment north of the Border.
THE SUN
BANDIT GEORGE HAS ROBBED OUR BANDITS
By Steve Hawkes, Business Editor
Treasury officials were yesterday branded liars by bookies furious over a new tax that threatens to cost the industry £100million. As the City reacted to the Budget, William Hill chief exec Ralph Topping blasted the Government for "speaking with a forked tongue". He told Sun City the Treasury had insisted last month that a planned shake-up would be "neutral" for the industry. But the Chancellor's new 20 per cent tax on gross profits from gaming machines, including fixed-odds terminals, one armed bandits and fruit machines, will clobber them.
THE TIMES
A MILLION MORE ARE PULLED INTO 40P TAX
By Sam Fleming, Jill Sherman and Roland Watson
More than a million people on modest incomes will be dragged into the higher-rate tax threshold, an influential think-tank has warned, as fresh doubts were cast over the effectiveness of George Osborne’s tax raid on the super-rich. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates that the number of taxpayers paying 40p in the pound will hit 5 million by 2014, up from 3.7 million today, in part because of the Chancellor’s decision to reduce the threshold at which the higher rate is payable. Describing Wednesday’s Budget as a “hotch-potch” of reforms, Paul Johnson, the IFS director, said that it smacked as much of “political expediency” as economic strategy.
THE TELEGRAPH
OIL COMPANIES ENJOY UNINTENDED NORTH SEA TAX 'WINDFALL'
By Emily Gosden
Lobbying from the oil and gas industry saw the Chancellor use the Budget to reveal a doubling of tax breaks on certain small oil and gas fields. The new field allowances "should lead to exploration that would not otherwise have happened", the Treasury said. Less than 24 hours after the Budget, however, Premier Oil said it could now save up to $100m (£63m) in tax on fields it was likely to have proceeded with anyway. Speaking after posting full-year pre-tax profits of $142m, Simon Lockett, Premier's chief executive, and Tony Durrant, finance director, said the company hoped to save $25m in tax on a project already in the pipeline before the Budget.
DAILY MAIL
FAILED BANK CHIEFS FACE LIFELONG BANS FROM TOP CITY JOBS
By James Salmon
Former directors of failed banks could be banned from taking lucrative jobs in the City under explosive plans being drawn up by the regulator.
Yesterday the Financial Services Authority confirmed it is exploring various options to bar former bank chiefs ‘on the basis that the person’s previous role as a director of a bank that failed raises fundamental questions about their competence or general suitability to perform a similar role again’.
These proposals will be set out in a discussion paper in the first half of the year.
DAILY EXPRESS
NEXT TO EXPAND DESPITE SALES SQUEEZE
Retailer Next is to invest £160million in new stores in 2013 as it pursues a twin track strategy of opening space and growing its online and telephone shopping channel. Chief executive Lord Wolfson said the company intended to create 300,000 square feet of new space and continue pushing Next Directory as he predicted sales at stores open for more than a year would “remain negative” in the face of the continued squeeze on the consumer. Pre-tax profits increased 5 per cent to £570million for the year to January in the face of the “perfect economic storm”. Sales rose from £3.3billion to £3.44billion. The shares slipped 1p to 2914p.
FINANCIAL TIMES
TAX REFORM HELPS TO WOO INVESTORS
By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor
Ten to 15 multinational companies are considering locating substantial operations in Britain as a result of corporate tax reforms, according to PwC professional advisers.The firm said it was talking to companies in industrial and consumer products, retail, electronics and telecoms about establishing European operating hubs in the UK. Some were poised to make decisions over the coming year. If they all decided to centralise management functions in the UK, they would bring hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue into Britain’s tax net and move more than 1,000 senior and middle-ranking staff into the country.
THE GUARDIAN
IRELAND BACK IN RECESSION AS GLOBAL SLOWDOWN HITS EXPORTS
By Philip Inman, Economics Correspondent
Ireland ended last year in recession, according to figures released on Thursday, dealing a blow to the policy of economic austerity being forced on struggling eurozone countries by the European commission and the IMF. A dip of 0.2% in GDP in the last quarter of 2011 followed a steep fall in the third quarter, after an export drive was undermined by the slowdown in global demand. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. Ireland, which had become a poster child for austerity when its economy pulled out of its nosedive earlier last year, joins fellow eurozone countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Greece in recession.
And finally
THE INDEPENDENT – SPORT RELIEF SPECIAL
SURFERS TO TAKE PART IN BIGGEST EVER CLEAN-UP OF PLASTIC PACKAGING
By Martin Hickman
Around 1,000 surfers will swap their boards for rubber gloves and bags this weekend for their biggest ever clean-up of plastic packaging, drinks tins and other debris on beaches. The campaign group Surfers Again Sewage’s Big Spring Beach Clean on Saturday and Sunday will tidy up 40 beaches and raise awareness of how the public’s tendency to flush wet wipes, tampons and cotton buds down the toilet is marring beautiful stretches of nature. Surfers Against Sewage – SAS for short - has been trying to focus attention on the rising tide of sewage, associated sanitary items and general rubbish which pollutes the sea and Britain’s 11,073-mile shoreline for 22 years.
