Live coverage of business, economics and markets as Jonathan Haskel says UK ‘inflation will remain above target for quite some time’

Rachel Reeves has pledged to “get Britain building again” after saying the government will introduce mandatory housing targets in her first major speech as UK chancellor.

Local authorities will retain the power to decide on planning applications “in the first instance”, but can be overruled nationally if they fail to meet their targets. “The answer cannot always be ‘no’,” said Reeves, who is the first woman to be chancellor in the UK.

The deputy prime minister will take an interventionist approach to make sure we’ve got the housing that we need.

There is no time to waste. We will end the prevarication, and make the necessary choices to fix the foundations.

Attempts by Harland & Wolff to restore the city’s industrial prowess could be dashed as the new government beds in, but the famous firm is already in choppy waters elsewhere

The Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard in Belfast is famous for having built the Titanic, the largest passenger ship of its time before it hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. But things have moved on since 1912. In recent weeks Samson, one of the two yellow gantry cranes that dominate Belfast’s skyline, has been straddling a giant oil processing vessel.

This is the Canadian-owned SeaRose, which is being upgraded by H&W in a contract worth more than £90m. The SeaRose is even larger than the Titanic, weighing in at 150,000 tonnes. The sight of a massive ship in Belfast harbour recalls the city’s glory days as a shipbuilding superpower. H&W collapsed into administration in 2019, but now the shipyard is back at the centre of British hopes to restore something of the industry’s past glories.

Party wins seat that includes financial district and much of central London for first time in its history

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The City of London has been the centre of a global empire and one of the great hubs of globalised finance. But a Labour constituency? Not for nearly a century.

Yet on Friday morning, under a grey pall of cloud and heavy rain, the Square Mile was coming to terms with a new Labour MP, Rachel Blake, as part of a landslide victory led by Keir Starmer.

UK Steel says British firms paid prices in spring well over double French and Spanish equivalents

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British electricity prices were double those paid in France and Spain in the spring, with the steel industry saying the disadvantage could hinder UK efforts to switch to greener technology.

UK companies paid nearly £66 a megawatt hour (MWh) for wholesale electricity in the second quarter of 2024, well over double the French and Spanish equivalents in the same period, according to analysis of industry data by the lobby group UK Steel.

Banking sector suggests ‘two-way commitment’ that would require subsidies and tax breaks to be clawed back

The British banking sector has called for the next government to penalise startups that take state aid and then list abroad amid concerns about young companies choosing foreign stock exchanges over London.

UK Finance suggested subsidies and tax breaks could be clawed back, arguing in a paper published this week that companies in receipt of government help should have “a two-way commitment”.

Figures are a relief for the recovering industry but the growth is almost entirely business and fleet buyers

Carmakers have sold more than a million cars in the UK in the first half of the year for the first time since before the coronavirus pandemic as the sector gradually recovers from years of turmoil.

Sales in the first six months of 2024 rose by 6% to just over 1m, compared with 949,000 in the same period last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the UK industry’s lobby group.

Workers and politicians fear steep job cuts at Northern Ireland’s Spirit AeroSystems, which has about 3,500 workers

Much has changed in Belfast since the 1930s. Yet through the second world war, decades of Troubles and the steep decline of heavy industry, the Short Brothers factory has continued to make planes and parts.

Yet now a takeover by US planemaker Boeing of the factory’s owner, Spirit AeroSystems, has raised questions over its future. Workers and politicians fear a new ownership structure could lead to steep job cuts at one of Northern Ireland’s main manufacturers, which has about 3,500 employees.