Sharecast - UK restaurants are going bust at a faster rate than during the Covid crisis owing to a “toxic mix” of surging energy costs, staff shortages and falling bookings. Closures in the sector rose by 60%, with 1,567 insolvencies over 2021-22, up from 984 during 2020-21, according to a study by the advisory firm Mazars. The figure includes 453 over the past three months, up from 395 in the previous quarter. – Guardian
Shell (LON:RDSa) is reviewing plans to invest £25bn in Britain’s energy system after Jeremy Hunt raided the industry for £55bn in windfall taxes. David Bunch, Shell’s UK chairman, said the expanded levy announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement is forcing the company to re-examine a slew of projects in the pipeline, from North Sea investments to renewable energy schemes. – Telegraph
Waitrose is putting heat pumps in all its supermarkets as it brings forward net-zero plans in an effort to tackle spiralling energy prices. The company said it was replacing the gas boilers that have been heating its 332 stores with electric heat pumps. These require less electricity to run, and work by extracting heat from the air outside. – Telegraph
The Bank of England has delayed plans to move hundreds of staff from London to Leeds as the wider economic turmoil slows the institution’s plans to expand its operations outside the capital. Plans to strengthen Threadneedle Street’s northern hub have been delayed by at least a year as the central bank scales back ambitions to increase its presence across the UK. – The Times
Staff at the UK’s biggest semiconductor factory said that the government had “cast a dark cloud over South Wales” by ordering its Chinese-backed owners to sell the Newport plant, and declared the ruling was “beyond contempt”. In a letter to the business secretary Grant Shapps, the Nexperia Newport Staff Association expressed disbelief at the ruling which, it wrote, put employees’ futures “in jeopardy in the run-up to Christmas”. – The Times