Special report(wp/reuters)::: A plan by Britain’s opposition Labour party to take the country’s energy networks back into state ownership would damage investment and delay the move to greener energy sources, National Grid said on Wednesday.
“At a time when there is increased urgency to meet the challenges of climate change the last thing that is needed is the enormous distraction, cost and complexity contained in these plans,” it said in a statement.
A Labour document, published via twitter, showed, if elected, the party plans to re-nationalise the country’s 60-billion-pound plus energy networks and establish a National Energy Agency to run the country’s energy systems.
Britain’s energy infrastructure, such as gas pipes and electricity cables, is owned by several firms including SSE, <National Grid and Spain’s Iberdrola.
Fears that the nationalisation would be below market value dragged shares in SSE and National Grid down by 1.1% and 0.6% respectively on Wednesday.
National Grid owns and operates gas and electricity transmission networks in Britain, along with other assets. It has a market capitalisation of 29 billion pounds.
It, and other network operators have been accused by Labour and Britain’s Citizens Advice bureau of generating “unjustly high profits” at a time when there is pressure to try to lower the cost of energy for households.
“Private ownership of energy networks has led to excess profiteering at the expense of investment in infrastructure,” the Labour document said.
British regulator Ofgem was told by parliament last year to cap energy prices after lawmakers said customers were being overcharged for electricity and gas. Prime Minister Theresa May had called the tariffs a “rip-off”.
The regulator also said it plans to trim 5 billion pounds from consumer bills over five years from 2021 by slashing the amount gas and electricity network firms can return to shareholders.
Data from Britain’s energy regulator Ofgem shows network costs make up around 25 percent of an average British household gas and electricity bill.
More than 120 MPs have written to the government asking for an inquiry into how family courts in England and Wales treat victims of domestic violence.
At least four children have been killed by a parent in the past five years after a family court granted access.
Dozens of parents have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme their abusive ex-partners were granted unsupervised contact with their child.
The Ministry of Justice said a child's welfare was always the priority.
"Where there is evidence of domestic abuse, the courts are bound by law to consider potential harm to the child and this overrides any presumption of parental involvement," an MoJ spokesman said.
'Toxic trio'
When parents separate and cannot agree arrangements for their children, a family court judge can make a legally-binding decision on contact - including whether visits to a mother or father should be supervised.
The fundamental presumption in law is that it is in the best interests of the child to have contact with both parents.
But it has led to the courts ordering children to have contact with an alleged or known violent ex-partner - including some convicted of rape, assault and drug offences, the BBC has learned from dozens of affected parents.
Due to legal restrictions the BBC cannot always view family court documents to substantiate the claims made by parents.
However, analysis of serious case reviews for England since 2014, shows four children have been killed during access granted by the family courts.
It indicates that four further children had been sexually abused or seriously injured, or both.
In all of the cases, social services had been aware of a history of domestic abuse allegations against the partner. The youngest victim was five months old.
In one incident, a father who went on to kill both of his children was granted unsupervised contact with them in an interim order. The case review found that numerous professionals - including a social worker, a teacher and an official from court support service Cafcass - had been too scared to be left alone with him because of his aggressive behaviour.
Other cases refer to a parent having what is known as a "toxic trio" of addiction, mental illness and a history of violence.
The number of children injured by a parent during court-ordered contact may in reality be much higher, as serious case reviews are generally conducted only in cases of serious harm or death.
They are carried out in order to find ways that local agencies can improve their safeguarding practices.
They do not investigate the family courts, so it is not possible to establish whether the courts' decisions led directly to the deaths.
Mary's story
"I was completely naive about the family courts," says Mary - not her real name.
She has spent £130,000 in legal fees to try to protect her children.
Her ex-partner has been awarded regular, unsupervised overnight contact with them.
She says they have since come home with injuries - and she has taken them to A&E.
Mary says her ex had previously been abusive towards her - which began when she was pregnant, "pushing, slapping, throwing me across the room".
After they separated, she called police when he turned up at her home uninvited and was aggressive towards her.
He later applied to the family court for unsupervised contact with the children, which was granted.
He had numerous criminal convictions for violent and drug offences.
"I assumed they'd see that to enable a violent man to have a relationship with his children, contact needed to be supervised," she says, of the family courts.
"But that's not how they see it at all.
"My solicitor told me, 'Unless he's beaten you black and blue, he'll be deemed a good enough father. Don't even bother trying.'"
Mary says her children now "wake up sobbing, and I just reassure them that no-one is expecting them to stand up to their dad".
She adds: "Nobody is saying that a child shouldn't have a relationship with their father. It just it needs to be healthy and safe."
The BBC has learned that 123 MPs from seven different parties have now come together to sign a letter to Justice Secretary David Gauke calling for an independent inquiry into the family courts "to establish the extent of the problem and if more fundamental reform is required".
The letter continues: "The lack of transparency in the family courts, while essential in maintaining the privacy of families and children, does not allow scrutiny and masks decisions that are made contrary to the interests of victims of domestic abuse, rape and violence - or their children".
Labour's shadow policing minister, Louise Haigh MP, said it was "horrifying that even in proven cases of sexual assault, severe domestic abuse, rape, murder in some cases, men are still being encouraged and granted access to their child".
She added: "If they're a known risk to mother or child, then we need to assume that contact probably isn't best for the child and grant it only in certain circumstances."
When there is a court-ordered contact, a parent can be at risk of being fined or going to prison if they fail to send their child on the unsupervised visit.
Barrister Charlotte Proudman, who specialises in cases involving violence against women, told the BBC she had witnessed a perception that mothers were preventing contact with fathers without good reason.
"I've heard judges say, 'Oh, it's just a little bit of domestic violence.' It's minimised rather than seeing the significance of that," she added.
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) said in a statement: "One of our most challenging professional tasks is to assess what level of parental involvement is safe and in the child's best interests, in cases where a parent has a history of domestic abuse.
"We must continue to reduce [the risk of parents harming children] by understanding these cases better and looking wider than the court process."
A spokesperson for the UK judiciary said judges were "required to consider all the evidence put forward and to reconcile any conflicting interests at a time that they know is exceptionally stressful for all those involved."
The Ministry of Justice said: "The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration of the family courts when making decisions about their upbringing".
It added that it would "continue to explore" ways to improve how the justice system deals with domestic abuse.
Business&Economy Reporter(wp/reuters)::: Revolut and TransferWise are signing up thousands of small businesses a month for foreign exchange payments, touting slicker service and lower fees as they try to take on banks in a sector with flows of $7 trillion (5 trillion pounds) a year.
The British money transfer firms have expanded by targeting the retail market with offers of cheaper and faster ways to send cash internationally.
But the much bigger — and lucrative — market for small and medium-sized businesses remains overwhelmingly with banks. Many small firms accuse them of using slow, outdated technology and charging fees as high as those for retail clients.
“Small businesses don’t get any better prices than consumers,” said Stuart Gregory, head of TransferWise for Business. “You’re not getting speed, convenience, you’re not getting a good price.”
Banks say they are overhauling their systems to offer faster, simplified services and cutting fees. And experts say lenders’ ability to offer a wide range of services — such as overdrafts and loans — means many businesses will still pick traditional financial institutions when making FX payments.
Small firms sent between $6 trillion and $7 trillion of cross-border flows globally in 2017, consultancy McKinsey said last year, compared with $400 billion to $500 billion in individual-to-individual payments.
TransferWise is signing up 10,000 new businesses a month, double the rate of late last year, and growth in TransferWise’s business customer base is outstripping that for retail clients, Gregory said, although many clients are micro firms.
It expects businesses to account within a few years for a quarter of its overall 3 billion pounds monthly flows, up from about a sixth, or 500 million pounds, today.
TransferWise, which is valued at an estimated $4 billion, has also been selling its platform to financial firms since November.
Customers include British digital bank Monzo and Dutch bank Bunq. It said it is also talking to Groupe BPCE about integrating its platform into the French lender.
Revolut, another rare example of a British fintech “unicorn” worth over $1 billion, expects monthly transaction volumes by businesses to top $1 billion in May, from $218 million in June last year.
It has attracted 100,000 businesses — up from 33,000 last June — and is adding 3,000 to 6,000 customers a month. TransferWise declined to give its overall business customer number.
Sukand Ramachandran, partner in BCG’s financial institutions practice, said fintechs had an opportunity — but only where volumes were small.
They face compliance and regulatory hurdles as they grow, raising costs. They may also become increasingly reliant on banks for the liquidity needed to serve their customers.
“As long as the ticket size is not too big, there is an opportunity. The banks may be happy to give away the smaller transactions,” Ramachandran said.
FIGHTING BACK
Small companies typically pay overseas suppliers, or foreign workers, via their bank, paying transaction fees and a “spread” on the forex rate.
International payment revenues across all customers top $200 billion-plus globally a year, according to McKinsey. Business-to-business revenues total $127 billion, although most likely comes from big lower-margin corporate customers.
Revenues from consumer-to-consumer payments totalled $26 billion, with a 6 percent revenue margin, McKinsey said.
Using the traditional SWIFT network, a bank-owned cooperative launched in the 1970s, payments can take days to reach their destination.
Marwan Forzley, co-founder of San Francisco-based transfer firm Veem, acknowledged that banks would continue to take the vast majority of volumes, but said the size of the market meant there was room to grow.
“It’s an industry that has been using the existing platforms for decades with no innovation,” Forzley said, adding that Veem had more than 100,000 users, 2-1/2 times more than in early 2018.
Ross Targett, CEO of Code Kingdoms, a startup that makes software for teaching coding skills, said using TransferWise had saved the firm $95,000 last year.
“We were getting $8,000 invoices, and getting $7,500 back,” he said. “Where’s all this gone? Bad FX rates, admin fees and the percentage (the bank) leverages on top of it.”
Banks are fighting back. In 2017 SWIFT introduced an initiative to leverage newer technology and accelerate transfer times — many payments reach beneficiaries in under 30 minutes.
“The big banks are trying to improve their customer experiences,” said Sulabh Agarwal, a payments expert at consultancy Accenture. “The challenge for banks is: How much do you cannibalise the existing business?”
BCG’s Ramachandran said the “biggest thing banks need to do is make it easier (to make payments). They don’t necessarily need to be the cheapest.”
Dutch e-scooter operator Dott chose Revolut because of the ease with which it could open a bank account and lower fees.
But CEO Maxim Romain said that should his business need more sophisticated services as it grows, it was possible “Revolut will be a little bit less relevant for us”.
Political reporter(wp/reuters)::: Brexit-supporting rebels in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s party said on Wednesday they would vote down her European Union divorce deal when she brings it back to parliament early next month.
Brexit had been due to take place on March 29 but lawmakers rejected the withdrawal agreement that May struck with Brussels three times. The United Kingdom is now scheduled to leave the EU by Oct. 31.
May will bring a Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which implements the departure terms, in the week beginning June 3 - the same date that U.S. President Donald Trump begins a state visit to Britain at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth.
Brexit supporters in May’s divided Conservative party said her deal was as dead as her crisis-riven three-year premiership.
