Thursday newspaper round-up: Public services, house prices, Rio Tinto

(Sharecast News) - Rishi Sunak's government has been warned that Britain's creaking public services will require at least £43bn a year in additional funding just to "stand still" amid the fallout from soaring inflation. The Trades Union Congress said next week's autumn statement needed to protect both public services and workers' pay from the highest rates of inflation since the early 1980s to avoid a further collapse in the quality of support for health, social care, education, justice, and the environment. - Guardian House prices stalled last month after more than two years of growth as a sharp rise in mortgage rates fuelled caution among buyers, according to Britain's official surveyors body. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) also predicted that rents will be 4% higher in a year's time due to an imbalance between strong tenant demand and the supply of homes to let. - Guardian

British households could be paid to help prevent blackouts in France this winter, under plans drawn up by National Grid. The company in charge of keeping Britain's lights on is prepared to ask households to cut their energy usage so that more power can be exported to the continent to avert blackouts there. - Telegraph

A shareholder vote on Rio Tinto's $3.3 billion takeover of Turquoise Hill Resources has been suspended indefinitely amid concerns over arrangements that could lead to some investors being paid a higher price than others. The FTSE 100 miner is seeking to buy the 49 per cent of the Canadian-listed Turquoise Hill that it does not already own, giving it control of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia, in which Turquoise Hill owns a 66 per cent stake. - The Times

A biopharmaceuticals business that develops drugs licensed by a British medical charity is to list in the United States via a so-called Spac or blank-cheque deal. The privately owned Conduit Pharmaceuticals plans to merge with Murphy Canyon Acquisition Corp, a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company, with a market valuation of $850 million, including cash of about $150 million. - The Times