Business Live: BT shares slide

Philip Hammond told Today that that EU nationals would continue to be able to work in Britain during any Brexit transition period, provided they were registered.

He said the transition time was needed to put these new arrangements in place steadily to avoid a "cliff edge" exit.

I can envisage a situation where we start immediately after our exit from the European Union with many arrangements remaining very similar to how they were the day before we exited the European Union, but over time those arrangements moving steadily with the introduction of new processes and systems until we get to the new end state, that will be the new normal. That will be our long-term relationship with the European Union.

PA

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, says there's "broad acceptance" in the cabinet that there will have to be a transitional period when Britain leaves the EU in March 2019. He said the process could take up to three years - but had to be completed by June 2022 when the next election is due to be held.

People have talked about a year, two years maybe three years. There's a broad consensus that this process has to be completed by the time, the scheduled time of the next General Election which is in June 2022. So a period at the most three years in order to put these new arrangements in place.

BBC

Chancellor Philip Hammond said on Radio 4 this morning: "Next year that debt will start to fall for the first time in 10 years."

Remember he's talking about debt, which is the total amount the government owes, as opposed to the deficit, which is how much it borrows in a year.

If you look at the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) forecast for debt from the time of the Budget in March, it predicts net debt of £1,830bn in the current financial year and £1,885bn next year - so that's an increase.

It doesn't expect debt to fall until 2020-21.

The measure of debt expected to fall next year is debt as a proportion of GDP, that's the amount owed compared with the size of the economy.

This year it's expected to be 88.8%, falling slightly to 88.5% next year.

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The number of people facing unmanageable debts who have been declared insolvent fell in the second quarter of the year in England and Wales.

The total of 22,772 individual insolvencies was 9.7% lower than the previous quarter and 0.1% down on the same period a year earlier.

However, figures from Scotland and Northern Ireland show a rise compared with the second quarter of 2016.

Debt charities suggest a large number of people are just getting by owing, in part, to low interest rates.

This week marks 50 years since the law changed to decriminalise homosexuality, meaning that in England and Wales, if you were over 21, you couldn't go to prison for having sex with another man. But how has the business world changed in the last five decades, and what is it like now for gay people in the workforce?

Andrew Isiakpere, head of partnerships at My-G-Work, a career-networking site which allows LGBT men and women to search for jobs with employers who promote a diverse and LGBT-inclusive environment, was on Wake up to Money.

"There are still challenges that LGBTI and especially BAME LGBT representers face within the workplace," he said.

"We've recently conducted a study on My-G-Work of over 350 different LGBT professionals who overwhelmingly said that they don't feel that there is enough LGBT inclusion initiatives within their places of employment."

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Chris Ralph, chief investment officer at St James's Place, believes the drop in AstraZeneca share price following the failure of its lung cancer trial makes it vulnerable to another takeover.

The British drug maker fought off a takeover bid from American company, Pfizer in 2014.

Chief Executive Pascal Soriot must show the group has new drugs in the pipeline to ensure its future.

Mr Ralph, speaking on the Today Programme said: "I think it (a takeover) has to come back into play.

"It is difficult to say. What I've read about Pfizer is it is no longer interested in it but one would imagine other organisations will take a look."

Our passengers in our premium cabins, our first and business class, are growing significantly and this would not happen if we didn't do what our customers want. Yes, we get things wrong, I'm not trying to say everything we do is right... and where we get things wrong we try and correct them. But our performance is actually better this year than it has been for many years and will continue to improve.

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Data out of Japan today showed the country's labour market is the tightest in decades and that households are spending more. However, inflation continues to remain stubbornly low.

Core consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, rose 0.4% in June from a year earlier - far from the government's 2% target - which may drag on economic growth.

That added to a down day in the Japanese markets, with the benchmark Nikkei losing 0.6% to end at 19,959.84 while the broader Topix shed 0.35% to 1,621.22.

Elsewhere, a selloff in US tech stocks and concerns about corporate earnings results dragged on Asian share markets on Friday.

Korea's Kospi fell1.7% to shut at 2,400.99 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.4% to close at 5,702.80.

Chinese stock markets in Hong Kong and Taiwan are also trading in negative territory in the afternoon session.

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It was put to Willie Walsh that the 70,000 people who were affected by BA's IT failure in May would not think that the airline was putting customer service first.

"I would accept that we let those customers down, we've apologised, we've said we got it wrong," he said.

"The customers' compensation claims are being processed, we are paying compensation in line with our commitments under EU regulations, we are doing everything we can to make good the disruption that the customers experienced, but it was an isolated event and I think you've got to focus on the fact that BA's passenger numbers continue to increase,he added.

"We're seeing record number of customers flying with us, the customers flying with us are exceeding the growth and the capacity that we're adding and this would not happen if, in the main, we were not doing what customers want which is to provide an excellent network... at prices that cusomers are clearly willing to pay us. "

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More on those IAG results now and on the Today programme chief executive Willie Walsh denied that BA had "lost the plot" in terms of customer service.

"I know we have had some individual issues and we clearly need to address those and apologise to our customers who were disrupted," he said.

"But the truth is BA's underlying performance is actually very good, as are the performances of the other airlines within the group, so this is a very strong set of results and reflects a focus that IAG has on providing customer service at prices that customers are willing to pay.

Reuters

Disappointing results from a major lung cancer trial wiped more than 15% of AstraZeneca shares yesterday.

Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Stephen Godwin, a director at the independent pharmaceutical research company, Planning Shop International said the failure of the immuno-therapy trial appears to have taken the science community by surprise.

But he said this area of medicine, which uses the body's own immune system to fight cancer, is seen as the future.

"There is probably more enthusiasm for immuno-oncology now than there even was a couple of years ago.

"It is building. It is becoming very exciting. It is the thing.

"It is moving into liquid cancers. Blood cancers as well.

"So I don't think by any means it is the end of the story. I don't really think it is even the start."

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Shares of Singapore Airlines are taking off after the carrier returned to profit following a business review.

Operating profit at the airline, which is in the process of revamping its business, rose to $207m (£158m) in the three months to the end of June due to increased passenger numbers and air cargo traffic.

The results mark a turnaround for Singapore Air following a surprise loss - its first in three years - in the first quarter.

“The business outlook for the airline industry remains challenging as the uncertain global economic climate and geopolitical concerns,” Singapore Air said in a stock filing.

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More from Tim Jeans who was on Wake up to Money to discuss BA's results which are due out soon.

He said a low of damage was done to the airline's reputation as a result of the IT meltdown in May and the brand had a lot of work to do to rebuilt trust.

"The reputational damage was probably far greater than the operational disruption and the costs of that on the day," he added.

"Those operational disruptions are possible to recover from, you take a one-off hit and you carry on but the reputational damage to BA just seems to have lingered on.

"They've had a run of bad publicity, not just that event but the cabin crew strike... the withdrawal of free food and drink in economy on short haul flights just seems to have been a drip, drip, drip of bad news for BA and it has affected their reputation.

"You only need to talk to anybody in the street and BA are not a brand on the way up."

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Magnus Bocker, the former chief executive officer of Singapore Exchange, has died from cancer aged 55.

Mr Bocker ran Singapore's stock exchange from 2009 to 2015 and is credited with leading it through the global financial crisis.

He attempted to make it a global player by launching a $6.6bn takeover bid for Australia's ASX. However the deal blocked by the Australian government.

“We will remember him for his infectious optimism, fresh insights, and energetic approach to just about anything, from music to cars to the exchange business,” Singapore Exchange said in a statement on Friday.

Reuters

BA-owner IAG will release its half year results within the hour, They are expected to reveal the impact of that catastrophic systems failure in May which grounded thousands of flights over a Bank Holiday weekend, and the current BA strike by cabin crew.

Tim Jeans, chair of Newquay Cornwall Airport and ex-managing director of the airline Monarch was on Wake up to Money.

Despite BA's problems he said it probably wasn't a "disastrous half year for IAG and BA, but difficult times".

"Overall the IAG group may well have had quite a decent half year."

IAG also owns Spanish airline Iberia and that has been "on the road to recovery for some years and will contribute to the numbers," he said.