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The UK government is to restrict the use of Chinese-made surveillance cameras in sensitive locations amid national security concerns. Cameras made by Hikvision or Dahua - which are both owned by the Chinese state – should be removed immediately, Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden said. Alicia Kearns, Tory MP and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the government should go further and ban Chinese-made surveillance equipment from all central and local government buildings. She added: “Any ban should also be backed up by a new national procurement framework that provides alternatives to Chinese state-backed tech that could be compelled to transfer vast amounts of UK citizen data into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party].” Hikvision denied being a threat to national security, arguing that it “cannot transmit data from end-users to third parties, does not manage end-user databases, or sell cloud storage in the UK.

 

City AM

Ongoing inflationary pressures will lead motor insurers to a loss this year and next, according to analysis by EY. Net combined ratios will reach 115% this year, EY says. This is the worst year since 2010 and they will go down only slightly to 114% in 2023. A ratio below 100% indicates that the company is making an underwriting profit, while a ratio above 100% means that it is paying out more money in claims that it is receiving from premiums. “While consumer premium rates have risen since the changes to pricing rules earlier this year, they are still well below the level needed to keep pace with inflation,” says Rodney Bonnard, UK insurance leader at EY. “This means that not only is 2022 almost certainly going to be unprofitable, but 2023 is also likely to be loss-making, given the business written this year has been on relatively low rates.”

 

City AM

Daily Mail

Tom Tugendhat, the minister of state for security, has rejected a proposed change in the law aimed at preventing super-rich oligarchs from using their wealth to exploit British courts to intimidate and silence investigative journalists. Mr Tugendhat refused to accept an amendment to the economic crime bill that would have given judges the power to dismiss legal cases brought against journalists if they found them to be strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps) designed to chill public-interest journalism. A cross-party coalition of MPs had called for the change in the law to “prevent the use of court processes to silence investigative journalists” with the threat of multimillion-pound legal costs, following an increase of Slapps seeking to “silence investigative journalists.” Liam Byrne, the Labour MP told parliament examples of Slapps included Roman Abramovich suing the journalist Catherine Belton over her book Putin's People and the Kazakh mining giant ENRC suing the FT journalist Tom Burgis over his book about “dirty money.”

 

The Guardian

The draft Online Safety Bill contains some of the broadest mass surveillance powers over citizens ever proposed in a Western democracy, according to a legal opinion written by barrister Matthew Ryder KC, of Matrix Chambers. Asked by Index on Censorship whether provisions in the Bill are compatible with human rights law, Ryder said it lacks essential safeguards on surveillance powers that mean, without further amendment, it will likely breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Online Safety Bill would give the designated Internet watchdog (Ofcom) greater mass surveillance powers than Britain’s security services currently have with no provision for ex post facto independent oversight. The Bill may also require service provides to use client side scanning to probe private messages that have been encrypted, defeating the whole purpose of end-to-end encryption.

 

Tech Crunch

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published its ‘Review of Stewardship Reporting 2022’. It found improvements across multiple areas of Stewardship reporting compared to 2021, including in the quality of activity and outcome reporting for engagement, collaboration and escalation. There were also improvements in reporting on contributions made to address market-wide and systemic risks and reporting on how signatories monitor and hold service providers to account. However, there still needs to be greater emphasis placed on activities and outcomes during the reporting period, using both quantitative and qualitative evidence.

 

Financial Reporting Council

Responsible Investor

The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors has urged Ofcom to require energy suppliers to have internal audit functions to limit the risk of collapses, such as those that have recently cost taxpayers billions of pounds.

 

Financial Times

One in three Polish key workers in the UK is planning to return to Poland or are undecided about staying, according to a study by researchers from Middlesex University, the University of Glasgow, and the University of Sheffield. The researchers found that 28% of those surveyed believed they had been discriminated against in the workplace, and more than half (55%) of the respondents said their mental health had deteriorated during the pandemic, while 40.2% found themselves in a worse financial situation. Middlesex University researcher Kasia Narkowicz said: "From our study, it seems that Brexit was a catalyst. Poles working here started thinking seriously about moving back," adding that "over 50% of survey respondents said that COVID-19 impacted their decision to leave" and many mentioned Brexit in the study interviews. Krzysia Balinska, coordinator for Polish Migrants Organize for Change (POMOC), observed:  "A critical issue for the Polish people after Brexit is the lack of clarity around the EU Settlement Scheme. Even people who received the Settled Status from the Home Office are facing difficulties that did not exist before Brexit."

 

Deutsche Welle (EN)

The Bank of England’s chief economist Huw Pill has warned that the surge in people leaving the workforce could force the Bank to further increase interest rates. “Rising inactivity among the working age population represents an adverse supply shock, which adds to the difficult shorter-term trade-offs facing monetary policy,” he said. However, Pill said there were some signs the labour market was beginning to “turn” as the economy falls into recession, including a stabilisation of jobs vacancies from historically high levels. “That will weigh against domestic inflationary pressure and ease the threat of inflation persistence,” he said. Elsewhere, former Bank of England chief economist and now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Andy Haldane, writes in the FT on how the UK’s adverse health trends are contributing to the flatlining of UK productivity. To slow this damage, much greater support for preventive health measures is needed, he says.

 

Financial Times

The Guardian

A deputy governor at the Bank of England told a conference on Thursday that interest rates may need to be cut if households and businesses come under greater financial pressure than expected. Sir Dave Ramsden said that although his preference is “towards further tightening” to bring inflation under control, it may be appropriate for the Bank to cut rates if the UK’s recession proves persistent. Separately, the Bank’s chief economist Huw Pill dismissed suggestions the Bank should pay less interest on lenders’ reserves at the central bank arguing that, although this would reduce the cost of covering losses on the QE programme, it would suck money out of the banking system. Gertjan Vlieghe, an economic adviser to the Government, said if ministers want to claw back losses from the Bank’s bond buying scheme they should force banks to pay more tax.

 

Financial Times

The Daily Telegraph

The Times

The pound strengthened to its highest level against the US dollar in three months on Thursday, driven up by a combination of the US Federal Reserve signalling it will slow its aggressive interest rate hike cycle and a near reversal of the mini-Budget introduced by ex-PM Liz Truss’s chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Sterling climbed 0.7% against the dollar to $1.21.

 

City AM

Proposals from the Payment Systems Regulator to force banks and building societies to pay back victims of scams will be scrutinised by MPs amid concerns lenders may sabotage the plans with misleading delays. “While the regulator’s proposals are certainly a positive move in the right direction, questions remain, particularly around the interaction between the regulator and the industry body, Pay.UK,” said Harriett Baldwin MP, Chair of the Sub-Committee on Financial Services Regulations. “We are worried that banks could attempt to delay reimbursing their customers.”

 

City AM

Administrators at PwC have revealed that Made.com collapsed into administration owing a total of £186.6m to unsecured creditors including about 12,000 customers and suppliers, including Google, Facebook and the operator of the group’s Antwerp warehouse. However, PwC said it expects to just pay out 1.6p in the pound to those creditors after satisfying Made.com’s main lender, Silicon Valley Bank, and its preferred creditors, which include employees and HM Revenue & Customs, which is owed £3.6m. PwC also revealed the online furniture retailer owes customers £17.1m. They have been encouraged to seek payment for goods that will not be delivered by making a claim with their credit or debit card provider rather than relying on a pay-out from Made.com’s administration. However, nearly 4,500 items already manufactured and shipped before the firm’s collapse are expected to be delivered. In their report, PwC’s administrators said: “Like many retailers, but in particular those selling ‘big ticket’ products, the company has been heavily impacted by the significant decline in consumer spending from cost-of-living pressures, rising import costs and continuing supply chain pressures.”

 

The Times

The Guardian

Durham-based online lender Atom Bank is delaying its flotation by at least two years. Having previously pencilled in 2022 or 2023, CEO Mark Mullen says the bank is now aiming for a “liquidity event” in 2024 or 2025. The move comes after it raised another £30m, giving it a post-deal valuation of £460m.

 

The Times

Standard Chartered has begun the search for a successor to its finance chief Andy Halford who is to step down next year. Mr Halford has been at Standard Chartered for nearly a decade.

 

Sky News

Twitter’s Brussels team has been completely disbanded, The Guardian reports, leading the paper to raise concerns about the company’s ability to enforce new EU rules intended to rein in the power of big tech and restrict hate speech. But a European Commission spokesperson said officials have many contacts with Twitter in Dublin, where the social media company has its European headquarters.

 

The Guardian

Members of the United Nations have agreed on a new resolution giving the body a mandate to kickstart intergovernmental talks on tax. The resolution was put forward by the African Group of states and will ultimately give the UN the authority “to monitor, evaluate and decide global tax rules,” according to the Tax Justice Network. Commenting on the development, Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, said: While the OECD has played an important role in these areas, it is clear after 10 years of attempts to reform international tax rules that there is no substitute for the globally inclusive and transparent forum provided by the United Nations.”

 

The Guardian

A tax inspector in France has been stabbed to death as he was trying to audit the books of a business owner in the north of the country. The suspected killer, a 46-year-old antiquities dealer, was then believed to have killed himself with a firearm, the prosecutors' office in the northern French city of Arras said. Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said "the republic is weeping for one of its own," calling it "revolting" that a public servant was killed "because he did his job."

 

Le Monde

The Daily Telegraph