Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to the latest business bulletin on Friday the 28th of March.
00:04WHSmith has agreed to sell its UK high street business to hobby craft owner Medela Capital.
00:10The deal's worth £76 million and stores will eventually rebrand as TG Jones.
00:15It excludes WHSmith's travel sites and does not include the WHSmith brand itself.
00:21In other retail news, retail sales volumes jumped unexpectedly in February.
00:26It was partly down to a sharp increase in selling from hardware stores,
00:29food sales fell back slightly but a jump in sales in other categories
00:33pushed the overall figure up by 1%.
00:37The UK economy grew slightly in the final quarter of last year too.
00:41GDP was up by 0.1% between October and December.
00:45That follows zero growth in the third quarter.
00:47The most recent data from the ONS shows GDP dipped by 0.1% in January.
00:53The Prime Minister said US President Donald Trump's decision to slap a 25%
00:58import tax on cars is very concerning.
01:01But Sakhir Starmer has confirmed the UK will not be jumping into a trade war with America.
01:05The tariff on vehicles imported to the US will come into effect on April 2nd
01:10in a blow to the UK car industry.
01:12And critics have warned the government's new workers' rights legislation is anti-business
01:16and will undermine economic growth.
01:18Shadow Business Minister Lord Hunt argued that Labour's 299-page Employment Rights Bill
01:24should be called the Unemployment Bill.
01:26The proposed new law includes a right to guaranteed hours, cracking down on zero-hour
01:31contracts without the offer of work, as well as introducing new restrictions on fire and
01:35rehire processes.
01:37That's all for today.
01:38More next week.