HOUSEBUILDERS TO FUND CLADDING REPAIRS

All nine housebuilders listed on the FTSE 100 or FTSE 250 have now agreed to the government's building safety pledge after Bellway and Vistry confirmed they had signed up (The Times).

The addition of these two firms means the cost of repairs across the major housebuilders will be around £1.86 billion, according to analysis by AJ Bell (This Is Money).

REGULATORS TO SUPPORT ENERGY SECURITY POLICY

The chancellor Rishi Sunak has asked the UK's financial services regulators to have regard to the UK's new energy strategy when it comes to regulating firms (Reuters).
The chancellor said regulators should not discourage new fossil fuel projects on green grounds if they are important to the UK's energy security (Daily Telegraph).

He also said that this was intended to supplement, rather than replace, previous guidance which called on regulators to support net-zero targets amid criticism the two could be seen as contradictory (Bloomberg).

NEWS IN BRIEF

Productivity rose by 1.3 per cent in the final three months of last year and is above pre-pandemic levels, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (The Times).

Companies hired permanent staff at the slowest rate in a year last month despite raising starting salaries by a record amount, according to a monthly survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (Reuters).

Half of all new cars must be fully electric-powered by 2028 under new government plans to accelerate the shift away from petrol and diesel vehicles (Daily Telegraph).

Nearly half of UK businesses expect the Russian invasion of Ukraine to result in lower sales and an increasing number are reducing their investment plans, according to survey data from the Bank of England (Financial Times).