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Friday newspaper round-up: Electric car sales, SSE, small businesses

(Sharecast News) - Rachel Reeves is paving the way for a multibillion-pound increase in public-sector investment at the budget after the government announced plans to commit almost £22bn over 25 years to fund carbon capture and storage projects. In what is expected to be one of the biggest green spending promises of the parliament, the chancellor, prime minister and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, will unveil the details on a visit to the Liverpool city region on Friday declaring a "new era" for clean energy jobs. - Guardian UK electric car sales hit a record high in September, even as bosses from big carmakers told the chancellor that government targets were putting too much pressure on the industry. The British industry sold 56,300 electric cars during the month, the highest on record, according to preliminary data published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group. - Guardian

Sadiq Khan has called opponents of more taxpayer spending on London "unpatriotic" as he pressed the Government to support as much as £10bn of new investment into the capital's railways. The Mayor said London was locked in a competition with cities such as Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, and must not be held back by squabbles over whether cash would be better directed elsewhere in the UK. - Telegraph

The first phase of a project to build one of the world's largest wind farms in British waters has been pushed back to the second half of next year. Dogger Bank A, which together with its two sister wind farms will have a combined installed capacity of 3.6 gigawatts, was due for completion during the six months to the end of September. SSE, the FTSE 100 energy group, has blamed stormy weather for further delays to the development, which had initially been expected to be finished this year. However, "project returns are not expected to be materially impacted", the company said. - The Times

Britain has lost half a million small businesses since its withdrawal from the European Union and the onset of the pandemic, official figures show. The total number of private sector businesses fell by 56,000 to 5.5 million in the year to the start of 2024, the Department for Business and Trade said in its annual official estimate. It takes the total decline to about 500,000 since the stock of businesses peaked at six million at the start of 2020. - The Times

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(Sharecast News) - California's home-insurance safety net does not have enough money to pay all of the claims from damage caused by the Los Angeles wildfires and has asked private insurers to contribute $1bn toward those claims. All private insurers operating in California are required to contribute to the Fair plan, a plan of last resort established so all Californians would have access to fire insurance. More than 450,000 California homeowners got their insurance through the Fair plan in 2024 - more than double the number in 2020. As of 4 February, the plan had received more than 4,700 claims from the Palisades and Eaton fires, almost half of which were for "total losses". - Guardian
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(Sharecast News) - Elon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for "all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors. The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. - Guardian
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(Sharecast News) - An increasingly complex tax system is burdening the government and businesses with hundreds of millions of pounds more in administration costs, Whitehall's spending watchdog has warned. The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) also said "poor levels of service" meant some taxpayers and their representatives were "finding it more difficult to deal with their tax matters and are losing trust in HM Revenue & Customs [HMRC]". - Guardian

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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