Cebr’s Head of Environment, Infrastructure, & Local Growth Rowlando Morgan gave evidence last week at the Lords Digital Committee’s digital exclusion hearings. Drawing on work carried out by Cebr for The Good Things Foundation on the economic impact of digital skills and inclusion in the UK, the committee heard that an investment of £1.4 billion

Jeremy Hunt will send Britain in a “drastically anti-investment direction” if he forges ahead with a planned increase in corporation tax, BT has warned. The telecoms giant said the country was hurtling towards a “cliff edge deterioration in the tax environment for investment” ahead of an increase in the tax rate in April from 19pc to

Broadband should be made more accessible to people on benefits by encouraging them to use discounted deals designed for them, experts say. They told the Lords Digital Committee’s digital exclusion hearings that cutting VAT on broadband could help people who struggle with “digital exclusion”. Rocio Concha, of consumer group Which?, urged action to get more people on

Public sector net borrowing in the UK was in surplus of £5.4 billion in January 2023, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning.  Compared to a surplus of £12.5 billion in January 2022, the public finances were in a worse position on an annual basis. Aside from public sector net borrowing

China’s economic reopening will provide a limited boost to world growth this year and is unlikely to lead to a surge in global energy price inflation, a think tank has said. The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that China’s shift towards domestically generated consumer growth means there will be far more limited “spillover”

There is no doubt that the immediate economic picture for the UK is challenging and is likely to get worse before it will get better. Research shows SMBs will be instrumental to economic recovery in the UK.   There is no doubt that the immediate economic picture for the UK is challenging and is likely to

LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – British households’ expectations for their personal finances over the next 12 months recorded a record jump in January as wholesale gas prices fell, according to a monthly survey by market research company YouGov and economics consultancy Cebr. The overall YouGov/Cebr consumer confidence index rose by 2.4 points to 98.3, while

Liz Truss is on manoeuvres. She is spending lots of time where she is most comfortable, inside Westminster’s thinktanks, preaching her version of free-market economics. There are rumours she might assemble a new thinktank of her own, or work with an existing one, to set up an alternative to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth

Rising interest rates spell disaster for these debt burdened homeowners Older millennials are the age group most vulnerable to financial problems after taking on disproportionately large debts when interest rates were low. Buyers in their late 30s took out the largest mortgages in the 2021-22 financial year and will be under the most pressure when

Will the UK economy swerve recession in 2023? If you’ve paid any attention to the news over the last few weeks, the answer would seem to be a resounding no.  Yet the latest forecast from the respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIES) think tank is for mild growth in every quarter next year, and

Less than 20 per cent of people and businesses who can upgrade to Ultrafast Full Fibre across Newport have done so – with thousands still missing out on faster, more reliable broadband services. Following a £9.3 million pound local investment, Openreach engineers have been busy building the network to make ultrafast speeds of up to one gigabit per second

Competitive manufacturing centres are needed to ensure the cost of low-carbon technologies continues its precipitous fall over the past decade. If the energy story of the first two decades of this century was China, that of the period to 2050 will be India. Over the next two decades, the South Asian giant will see more

Small misjudgments can have real-world impacts – including the Chancellor’s decisions on tax and spending They call it the “dismal science” for good reason. The supposed oracles of economic forecasting have been forced to eat humble pie on more than one occasion. Christine Lagarde famously asked if she had to apologise “on my knees” to

Tens of thousands of teachers march in London Prime Minister Sunak condemns strike Government says big pay rises will fuel inflation Schools shut, most trains not running LONDON, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Up to half a million British teachers, civil servants, and train drivers walked out over pay in the largest coordinated strike action for

Modelling by the Centre for Economics and Business Research shows the direct cost of the single day’s action will be £94m, with a further estimated £100m hit to hospitality sectors as footfall vanishes Britain will be plunged into an effective “mini lockdown” on Wednesday as half a million workers go on strike and millions of