0 Have your say I KNOW a week is a long time in politics, but it seems aeons since the Prime Minster announced that she was on a “personal mission” to solve Britain’s housing crisis. In fact, it was back in November at the time of the Budget. It’s been three months since then. And it’s all gone very quiet. With the Prime Minister’s mission in mind, people were expecting great things for housing from the January reshuffle.Instead, Dominic Raab, MP for the distinctly leafy constituency of Esher and Walton in Surrey, was appointed Housing and Planning Minister, the seventh incumbent in the past decade, and his boss Sajid Javid’s title had the word ‘housing’ added to his brief as Communities Secretary.It doesn’t take a political genius to work out that this rapid turnover at the helm says a lot about why this Government never seems to make any sustained headway on housing.So far, Mr Raab has been rather quiet (other than … [Read more...] about Jayne Dowle: The scandal of sub-standard rental property
Standard
Stanley must maintain high standards insists boss
JOHN Coleman has urged his Accrington Stanley side to maintain high standards and work ethic, because promotion will not be handed to them on a plate. The Reds are riding high in League Two, with a recent winning streak firing them up to second. Coleman admits confidence is coursing through the camp. But the Stanley boss knows it can quickly transfer to cockiness, and is determined his players will not cross that line. “You’ve got to be mindful of the fact you don’t get too flippant about it and you think it’s just going to happen because you’ve been winning games. You’ve got to play well to win games,” said the Reds’ chief, who felt his players rode their luck for a spell in Tuesday night’s win over Crewe. “You can get away with it now and again. “I think I can probably count on two hands since 1999 the amount of times we’ve played badly and won, so generally when we play well we have more chance of … [Read more...] about Stanley must maintain high standards insists boss
Food standards must not fall victim to cheap imports after Brexit, MPs warn
High animal welfare, environmental and food standards “must not be sacrificed on the altar of cheap imports”, MPs warned as they called for post-Brexit clarity for agriculture. The Government must not allow imports that have not been produced to UK standards, and should improve country of origin labelling and introduce mandatory “method of production” labels for food after Brexit, they said. They warned there needed to be more clarity on the future of the food and farm industry, including a sector-by-sector analysis, and urged ministers to consider setting up a fund for the food-producing industry to adapt to Brexit. The European Union is the most significant trading partner for the UK’s £110 billion a year agriculture and food sector, accounting for 60% of exports and 70% of imports, a report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee said. Despite Government intentions, there is no guarantee of a future … [Read more...] about Food standards must not fall victim to cheap imports after Brexit, MPs warn
Lloyds killed plan for £300bn Standard Life insurance merger
Britain's biggest high street bank killed off secret plans for a life insurance merger administering roughly £300bn of client assets following a row over the new venture's ownership structure. Sky News has learnt that Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) had reached an advanced stage of talks about pooling their respective life insurance operations into a subsidiary of the bank.The venture would have been roughly 60%-owned by Lloyds, with the remainder owned by SLA.The bank would have supplied both its chairman and chief executive, according to insiders.Stock exchange announcements made this week by the two companies revealing Lloyds' decision to terminate its arrangement for SLA to manage £109bn of Scottish Widows and wealth management assets failed to mention the insurance merger plot.Edinburgh-based SLA, which was only created last year by the £11bn merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life, saw its shares hit by the move following … [Read more...] about Lloyds killed plan for £300bn Standard Life insurance merger
Margaret Taylor: Widows gets one up on arch rival Standard Life
AT FACE value the loss of the mandate to run £109 billion of assets for Scottish Widows is a major blow for Standard Life Aberdeen - and one that calls into question the rationale for the £11bn merger that created the business last year. The purpose of bringing together Aberdeen Asset Management and Edinburgh’s Standard Life was, after all, to help stem the seemingly endless outflow of funds both businesses were experiencing. Now, as a direct result of that deal, the enlarged firm is not only going to have to kiss goodbye to its largest client but to 15 per cent of the assets it manages too. Loading article content Yet the fact that most of the Scottish Widows cash is invested in cheap-to-run passive strategies is likely to soften the blow, with the 15 per cent reduction in assets expected to result in just a five per cent contraction in revenues and eight per cent drop in profits for Standard Life Aberdeen. That may be small beer for a firm that turns over … [Read more...] about Margaret Taylor: Widows gets one up on arch rival Standard Life