Coronavirus: London City Airport suspends all flights March 25, 2020 London City Airport has suspended all flights in and out of the airport for the foreseeable future. The airport will stop all commercial and private flights from this evening due to the fallout from the coronavirus. The airport only had a handful of flights today, with numbers sharply decreasing due to the travel restrictions imposed [...]
Rate cut reaction: Businesses welcome Bank of England emergency stimulus March 11, 2020 UK businesses, banks and academics have welcomed the Bank of England’s emergency interest rate cut and raft of other measures to support the economy as it slows amid the coronavirus outbreak. The Bank slashed rates to 0.25 per cent – the joint-lowest on record – at an emergency meeting this morning. It also offered banks [...]
More than £6bn of coronavirus grants given to English businesses April 21, 2020 More than £6bn of business grants have been distributed to English small and medium sized businesses through the government’s coronavirus grant schemes. A total of 491,725 grants, worth £6.11bn, have been distributed out of a pot of £12.3bn as of last night, translating into a 49.58 per cent delivery rate. Grants of £10,000 are available to [...]
‘More than three-quarters’ of UK hospitality firms could go bust within a year August 4, 2020 More than three-quarters of UK hospitality businesses are at risk of insolvency within 12 months, the leading British trade body announced today, as social distancing measures and local lockdowns continue to weigh on the sector. A new survey by UK Hospitality showed that one in five hospitality businesses are at significant risk of insolvency within [...]
Easyjet grounds all airplanes over coronavirus March 30, 2020 Easyjet has grounded its entire fleet of more than 300 aircraft in the wake of “unprecedented” travel restrictions over the global coronavirus pandemic. The budget flyer warned today “there can be no certainty of the date for restarting commercial flights”. It has grounded its entire fleet of commercial aircraft and put its cabin crew staff [...]
Boris Johnson tells UK to brace for mass unemployment June 3, 2020 Boris Johnson has warned of “many, many job losses” after the coronavirus crisis and has pledged to invest in retraining the UK’s young people. The Prime Minister said high levels of unemployment, as a result of the crisis, was “inevitable” and that his government would be “activist and interventionist” in dealing with job losses. The [...]
Startups’ coronavirus Future Fund is a ‘bad deal’ for founders May 4, 2020 The government’s flagship support scheme for startups hit by coronavirus, the Future Fund, has been described as “simply not good enough” and “a bad deal” by one of the UK’s leading tech entrepreneurs. Priya Lakhani, founder and CEO of education technology company Century, said the terms under which money could be accessed through the scheme are [...]
Coronavirus: Government prepared to give NHS ‘whatever it needs’ March 8, 2020 Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said the Treasury is prepared to give the NHS “whatever it needs” to combat the spread of coronavirus. Speaking just days before his first budget, Sunak gave his assurances that the government were prepared to spend as much money as necessary to stop the virus spreading further. It comes after concerns [...]
UK government considers buying equity in airlines to keep them afloat March 21, 2020 The UK government is considering buying equity stakes in airlines and other companies hardest hit by the coronavirus. It comes after warnings that the measures announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this week will not be enough to save them from collapse. The plans under consideration would see billions of pounds of taxpayer money injected [...]
Budget 2020: What does the Red Box mean for UK tech firms? March 11, 2020 Chancellor Rishi Sunak today unveiled a raft of new fiscal measures as he vowed to deliver on the government’s promise of “levelling up” the UK. Sunak, who took over at No 11 just a month ago, put the coronavirus front and centre of his new policies as the number of cases continues to rise. But [...]