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BIZBBC News

The 'trillion pound' oil fund the government believes Britain could have built

Photo: BBC

Chancellor John Healey announced the creation of an Energy Wealth Fund at the Jackdaw gas approval announcement on Wednesday, with £2bn of funding diverted from the existing National Wealth Fund.

A selection of energy exporting countries, mainly in the Gulf, but also including Norway, over the years have amassed multi-trillion funds using oil and gas revenues to create epic national piggy banks.

It has been a long-standing debate in UK economic policy circles. If neighbouring Norway has amassed a $2.4tn war chest from the same North Sea, where exactly did the UK's sovereign wealth fund go?

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BIZThe Guardian

French borrowing costs hit 24-year high as civil unrest and budget fears spook markets

Yield on 10-year government bonds passes 5% amid failure to pass budget and fallout from violent street protests France’s borrowing costs have climbed above 5% for the first time in 24 years as political concerns and the government’s failure to agree a much-delayed budget spook the financial markets. With some civic buildings still smouldering from recent riots, a fresh bout of selling pushed up the yield – or interest rate – on bonds issued by the second largest economy in the eurozone.

BIZThe Guardian

‘Hunted like animals’: inside Trump’s war on the people who build America

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a house framer before he was killed by ICE agents. Countless other Latino builders in Texas live in fear of a similar fate Every morning long before dawn, while America sleeps, legions of Texas construction workers grab their fluorescent vests and hard hats, sling ladders and tools into their trucks, and head down the highway for another day of grueling labour under the blistering sun. Elsewhere, before the first flush of daylight settles over Texas’s concrete sprawl, a separate army gets on the move in a fleet of shiny…