Bank of England must limit house price booms, says Rics. 13 September 2013Last updated at 10:14 ET Duncan Kennedy meets a first-time buyer and a seller, who have very different views on the idea The Bank of England should use its powers to limit house price increases to 5% a year to "take the froth out" of price booms, a surveyors' group says.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said that a 5% annual rise should trigger caps on how much people could borrow relative to their incomes or the value of the property. It is not suggesting that sellers should face a limit on how much they could charge for their homes. The Bank said it was being vigilant. Activity in the UK housing market has picked up in recent months after a few years of inactivity during the financial crisis. Nick Clegg claims credit for economic 'dawn breaking' 12 September 2013Last updated at 06:12 ET Mr Clegg hosts a weekly phone-in on LBC The economy would not be recovering had it not been for the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg has claimed.
An economic "dawn appears to be breaking", the deputy prime minister told LBC radio. He echoed other cabinet members as he warned against complacency, but said things were "moving in the right direction" because of the party's decision to go into coalition. Mr Clegg said he wanted to showcase the achievement at his party conference.
The Lib Dems meet next week in Glasgow for their annual autumn gathering. He said going into the conference he was "very proud" of sticking with the coalition and helping to "pilot the economy through its darkest hour". "A dawn appears to be breaking," he went on. Not about personality Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, warned earlier this week the government still had more to do to secure a recovery. 'Worrying' decline in oil and gas production. 21 August 2013Last updated at 06:14 ET The oil and gas industry's future is currently being reviewed The sharp decline in production of oil and gas from under British waters is "worrying" industry leaders.
Trade body Oil and Gas UK says there is record investment this year of £13.5bn. But its annual report on the industry's economic impact highlights the sharp fall in output of 19% during 2011 and 14% in 2012. It says the industry's latest estimates of the continuing decline suggest a further fall of at least 8.5% during this year, with no recovery next year. Only from 2015 should the current high level of investment begin to have an impact on raising output. However, the level of investment will fall from £13.5bn this year to between £8bn and £10bn from 2015. 'Premature decommissioning' Continue reading the main story If the full potential for extraction is to be reached, then the fields become more expensive to develop and run.
That's right: a trillion pounds. Read more from Douglas “Start Quote. UK wages decline among worst in Europe. 11 August 2013Last updated at 13:14 ET One think tank said this year that the drop in wages was "unprecedented" Wages in the UK have seen one of the largest falls in the European Union during the economic downturn, according to official figures.
The figures, which were requested by the Labour Party and collated by the House of Commons library, show average hourly wages have fallen 5.5% since mid-2010, adjusted for inflation. That is the fourth-worst decline among the 27 EU nations . By contrast, German hourly wages rose by 2.7% over the same period. Across the European Union as a whole, average wages fell 0.7%.
Only Greek, Portuguese and Dutch workers have had a steeper decline in hourly wages, the figures showed. Other countries that have suffered during the eurozone debt crisis also fared better than the UK. French workers saw a 0.4% increase, while the 18 countries in the eurozone saw a 0.1% drop during that period. 'Silent' staff stood by as £100m BBC IT project tanked – DG. 7 elements of radically simple OS migration The BBC's new director general Tony Hall says staff should have spoken up about the catastrophic Digital Media Initiative (DMI).
The utopian media storage project cost the BBC almost £100m since 2010 (and some £81m before then) before it was formally abandoned in May, with the corporation opting to use off-the-shelf software tools instead. "The thing that worried me most about DMI is the fact that people said we knew all about that, but no one said. That's a problem of culture where fingers are pointed and people don't feel they can own up and say something's wrong," said Hall in an interview, we learn from Ariel, the BBC's staff mag.