The number of female directors at FTSE-100 firms has increased by 50% in the last five years, and women now hold more than a third of roles in the boardrooms of Britain’s top 350 companies, according to the final report of a review into female representation at the top of business. Although men still […]Read More

As I gazed into my crystal ball a few weeks ago it struck me that vaccine passports were the future. After I announced my vision to the country, I was knocked back by the outright hostility I attracted from some quarters, especially from the vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi. Sadly, my efforts to […]Read More

Heathrow airport plunged to an annual £2bn loss in 2020 as the pandemic closed borders and the government restricted most international travel, underlining the impact of Covid-19 on aviation. Britain’s largest airport said the number of passengers who passed through slumped to 22.1 million last year, more than half of whom travelled in January […]Read More

Gordon Ramsay has suffered his own kitchen nightmare during the pandemic with his restaurant empire missing out on nearly £60m of trade. The celebrity chef said that in December his 35 UK restaurants had £10m worth of reservations “wiped out overnight” when coronavirus restrictions were reimposed. “As of 19 March to 3 February this […]Read More

Two thirds of small and medium-sized builders have reported falling or stagnant workloads, denting the recovery seen after the first national lockdown. A survey of smaller builders by the Federation of Master Builders found that 27 per cent had recorded lower workloads in the final quarter of last year, rising from 21 per cent […]Read More

As online businesses mop up the remnants of some of the high street’s biggest names, the retail industry is torn over the potential introduction of an online sales tax. While virtually every shopkeeper in Britain has been a vocal critic of the archaic business rates system, there remains little accord on how to level […]Read More

HSBC will nearly halve its office space in the coming years in one of the most radical calls on working trends in the wake of the global pandemic. Europe’s biggest bank will vacate 40 per cent of its offices in London and other cities around the world but keep its headquarters in Canary Wharf, […]Read More

Two former prime ministers and the anti-terrorism chief have called for laws to help the police to tackle a surge in online extremism. They have backed a study by the government’s extremism watchdog that warns that Britain’s failure to tackle online hate is creating an “ever-bigger pool” from which terrorist groups can recruit. The […]Read More

Rishi Sunak is preparing to extend the stamp duty holiday by three months until the end of June in an attempt to keep the property market firing as Britain emerges from lockdown. In July last year the government exempted most buyers from the levy if they completed their purchase before March 31, 2021. The […]Read More

The FTSE 100 hotel company behind the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza brands dropped into the red last year to the tune of $153 million after “the toughest time this company has ever seen”. Intercontinental Hotels Group reported a halving of group revenues to $2.39 billion while revenue per available room (revpar) — a […]Read More