Ministers prepare special administration for Liberty Steel’s Yorkshire plants
Jasper Jolly
The government has lined up special managers to run Liberty Steel’s South Yorkshire operations if it is put into administration, according to a dramatic revelation at London’s high court, report Jasper Jolly and Priya Bharadia.
London’s high court heard on Wednesday heard that creditors to Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), part of Liberty Steel, were seeking a compulsory winding up order. The company asked to adjourn the hearing in order to try to agree a “pre-pack” administration that would allow its owner, metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, to keep control of the insolvent company.
Counsel representing the creditors showed the judge a letter from the Department of Business and Trade detailing that the government had said its official receiver was ready to carry out a sales process if the company entered administration.
The insolvency and companies court judge Sally Barber said she was minded to give two weeks of extra time to decide what the consequences of each course would be. However, after a short pause, the creditors’ counsel then disclosed that lawyers for the government were present in the court. The barrister said he had just been informed that an application for the appointment of a special manager to carry out the administration had already been prepared in draft form.
The existence of a draft application suggests that the government is ready to step in immediately to secure the continued operations of SSUK. SSUK employs 1,450 people at the group’s operations at an electric arc furnace in Rotherham and another plant in Stocksbridge, both in South Yorkshire.
The court is expected to grant a short adjournment of a to give the parties time to provide evidence to the court of what will happen in either case.
Updated at 09.39 EDT
Key events
Show key events only
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Closing summary
The FTSE 100 index in London is scaling new peaks, currently 1% higher at 9,283.20, shrugging off higher-than-expected inflation data released first thing this morning.
Inflation rose to an annual rate of 3.8% in July from 3.6% in June, driven by higher air fares, petrol and diesel, and food prices, while the expected “Oasis effect” on hotel prices did not materialise.
On Wall Street, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has lost 1.3%. Traders are waiting for more clues on interest rate policy from the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium, which starts tomorrow. Fed chair Jerome Powell is due to speak on Friday
Ministers have lined up special managers to run Liberty Steel’s South Yorkshire operations if they are put into administration, according to a dramatic revelation at London’s high court.
The development shows the government is ready to step in immediately to secure the continued operations of the Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), which employs 1,450 people at the group’s operations at an electric arc furnace in Rotherham and another plant in Stocksbridge, both in South Yorkshire.
Creditors to SSUK are seeking a compulsory winding up order, the high court heard on Wednesday. The company asked to adjourn the hearing to buy time to try to agree a “pre-pack” administration that would allow its owner, the metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, to keep control of the insolvent company.
Counsel representing the creditors showed the judge a letter from the Department for Business and Trade detailing that the government had said its official receiver was ready to carry out a sales process if the company entered administration.
Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow to bring you the latest news. Take care – JK
Markets are expecting the Fed to cut rates at its next meeting in mid-September.
However, Atakan Bakiskan, US economist at Berenberg Bank, is forecasting no change. What can we expect at Jackson Hole? He said:
Jackson Hole or black hole? The annual Jackson Hole conference – running from tomorrow through Saturday – has often served as a platform for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to deliver clear signals on upcoming monetary policy moves. Powell is scheduled to speak at 10am EST on Friday.
This year may prove different due to the unusual series of events and persistent uncertainty that have unfolded since Donald Trump took office in January. Recent economic data offers no clear direction for the federal funds rate. One the one hand, core CPI inflation rose to 3.1% yoy as of July (up from 2.8% yoy in March).
On the other hand, job growth slowed sharply, even as the labour market remains broadly balanced. Powell may avoid sending a definitive message and instead stress the importance of August inflation and employment reports in shaping the next rate decision. Both will be released before the 17 September meeting.
If Powell sounds less dovish than markets expect, front-end [bond] yields will likely rise and traders will trim their September rate cut expectations. We maintain our call for no Fed rate cut in September. Of course, the risks to our non-consensus call tilt to the downside. A weak August jobs report could force the Fed to cut even in the face of elevated inflation.
While the FTSE 100 index is now almost 1% ahead, or 91 points, at 9,279, having hit a new all-time high of 9,283.2, Wall Street has opened lower.
The tech sell-off continues state-side amid concerns about the future of the AI boom, pushing the Nasdaq down by 1%.
The dollar has slipped 0.1% against a basket of major currencies, as Donald Trump called on Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to resign.
Traders are waiting for more clues on interest rate policy from the Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium, which starts tomorrow.
Here’s our full story on Liberty Steel:
ShareFTSE 100 index hits fresh record high
The UK’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares has hit a fresh record high, after dipping earlier on the surprisingly high inflation reading for July.
The index rose as much as 0.67% to hit an all-time high of 9,250.88.
Meanwhile, the German and Italian stock markets have fallen by 0.4% and 0.3% respectively while the French bourse has edged 0.1% higher.
Updated at 09.19 EDT
Ministers prepare special administration for Liberty Steel’s Yorkshire plantsJasper Jolly
The government has lined up special managers to run Liberty Steel’s South Yorkshire operations if it is put into administration, according to a dramatic revelation at London’s high court, report Jasper Jolly and Priya Bharadia.
London’s high court heard on Wednesday heard that creditors to Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), part of Liberty Steel, were seeking a compulsory winding up order. The company asked to adjourn the hearing in order to try to agree a “pre-pack” administration that would allow its owner, metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, to keep control of the insolvent company.
Counsel representing the creditors showed the judge a letter from the Department of Business and Trade detailing that the government had said its official receiver was ready to carry out a sales process if the company entered administration.
The insolvency and companies court judge Sally Barber said she was minded to give two weeks of extra time to decide what the consequences of each course would be. However, after a short pause, the creditors’ counsel then disclosed that lawyers for the government were present in the court. The barrister said he had just been informed that an application for the appointment of a special manager to carry out the administration had already been prepared in draft form.
The existence of a draft application suggests that the government is ready to step in immediately to secure the continued operations of SSUK. SSUK employs 1,450 people at the group’s operations at an electric arc furnace in Rotherham and another plant in Stocksbridge, both in South Yorkshire.
The court is expected to grant a short adjournment of a to give the parties time to provide evidence to the court of what will happen in either case.
Updated at 09.39 EDT
No sign of Oasis effect in inflation data
Returning to today’s UK inflation surprise… Hotel prices – which many expected to surge amid the Oasis tour, similar to the Taylor Swift tour last summer – barely increased in July.
Economists at Goldman Sachs noted:
There was little evidence of a notable impact from the Oasis tour, with one night hotel prices in the North West rising only moderately.
James Smith, UK economist at ING, said:
UK inflation was undoubtedly hot in July, but as ever, the devil lies in the detail.
Services inflation – the bit usually most relevant for the Bank of England – rose to 5% from 4.7%. That was enough to drag core inflation up slightly too. But this was overwhelmingly down to a larger-than-usual rise in airfares. These are particularly volatile in July, depending partly on when the survey date falls relative to the start of school holidays.
These are things the Bank of England can safely ignore. We calculate the Bank’s preferred measure of services inflation, excluding volatile/indexed categories, to be essentially flat in annual terms. And at 4.2%, this measure is a fair bit below overall services inflation.
But that doesn’t mean the central bank will relax entirely, he said. Officials are keeping an unusually keen eye on food inflation right now – and this picked up further to 4.9%, from 2% at the end of last year. The Bank expects it to rise above 5% by year-end. However, Smith thinks concerns around services inflation and household inflation expectations
are overblown, not least because the cooling jobs market should exert further downward pressure on wage growth in the second half of 2025. And when it comes to services, we think inflation will be a little more benign than the BoE’s forecasts predict. Partly that’s because rental inflation should slow considerably as the year progresses; we saw more signs of that in July’s data, on account of less aggressive social rent rises.
That all leads us to think a November rate cut is still more likely than not, though it’s not a particularly high conviction call right now given the very evident division on the rate-setting committee. Much also hinges on the jobs market, where employment has fallen in eight out of the past nine months, but where the survey data is looking a little less worrisome than it did earlier this year.
For now, we expect a rate cut in November to be followed by two further moves next year.
Updated at 09.40 EDT
Holly Willoughby’s Roxy Media given more time at insolvency hearing
Priya Bharadia
The television production company set up by Holly Willoughby and her husband has been given more time to avoid being wound up over an unpaid tax bill.
HM Revenue and Customs filed a winding up order against the production company, Roxy Media, in early February, after the business allegedly failed to pay £377,000 in tax earlier this year.
The tax authority said the company submitted an appeal after the deadline. The company claimed that was due to negligence by previous accountants. This amount has since been settled, the high court heard in April.
At an insolvency hearing at the Rolls Building in London on Wednesday, Roxy Media’s legal team said they were seeking a dismissal of the case, and that HMRC had been aware that a new accountant had been appointed. Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Barber said she was not yet minded to dismiss the case, and adjourned it for 12 weeks.
Holly Willoughby at ‘Better Man’ film premiere, London, in 2024. Photograph: David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock
Roxy Media was set up in 2008 by Willoughby and her husband, Daniel Baldwin. The company deals with “television programme production activities”, according to its listing on Companies House.
It was the fourth hearing on the matter. The case at the high court has been adjourned for 12 weeks and will recommence on 12 November.
Willoughby was approached for comment.
Updated at 09.40 EDT
Shower gel ad gets UK ban for suggesting black skin is problematic
A television advert for Sanex shower gel has been banned in the UK for appearing to suggest that black skin is “problematic” and white skin is “superior”.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) acted after investigating two complaints that the advert fed negative stereotypes about people with darker skin tones.
The ad, broadcast in June, included a voiceover that said: “To those who might scratch day and night. To those whose skin will feel dried out even by water,” alongside scenes of a black woman with red scratch marks and another covered with a cracked clay-like material.
The ad then showed a white woman taking a shower with the product, and stated: “Try to take a shower with the new Sanex skin therapy and its patented amino acid complex. For 24-hour hydration feel.” It ended with text and the voiceover stating: “Relief could be as simple as a shower.”
Updated at 09.40 EDT
CrossCountry passengers face strike disruption on bank holiday weekend
Rail passengers have been warned that a strike by rail workers could disrupt services amid the bank holiday weekend rush, when transport networks are expected to be packed with holidaymakers.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at the operator CrossCountry are taking industrial action on Saturday 23 August and bank holiday Monday over pay and conditions.
The company – whose network centred around Birmingham runs to cities across Great Britain from Aberdeen in the north to Cornwall in the south – said it would offer a reduced timetable over the weekend, with no services on Saturday, and cancellations expected across all routes on Sunday.
It comes as Visit England has reported that more than 11 million Britons are definitely planning an overnight trip in the UK over the bank holiday break in England and Wales, which would mark an increase on the same weekend a year earlier.
ShareEurozone inflation stable at 2% in July
Inflation in the eurozone was 2% in July, the same as in June.
Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, confirmed the figure in its final estimate for the month. In the EU, inflation ticked up to 2.4% from 2.3% in June.
The lowest annual rates in the EU were registered in Cyprus (0.1%), France (0.9%) and Ireland (1.6%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (6.6%), Estonia (5.6%) and Slovakia (4.6%).
The highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services, followed by food, alcohol & tobacco, and non-energy industrial goods.
Here’s our full story on the expected increases in rail fares in England next year.
ShareUK house price rises accelerate while rent increases slow
UK house price rises have accelerated while rent increases slowed, according to official figures.
The average house price rose by 3.7% to £269,000 in the 12 months to June, up from an annual growth rate of 2.7% in May.
Average monthly private rents increased by 5.9% to £1,343 in July; this growth rate is down from 6.7% in June but still high.
Average rents increased to £1,398 (6.0%) in England, £807 (7.9%) in Wales, and £999 (3.6%) in Scotland, in the 12 months to July. In Northern Ireland, average rents increased to £855 (7.4%), in the 12 months to May.
In England, private rents annual inflation was highest in the North East (8.9%) and lowest in Yorkshire and The Humber (3.5%), in the 12 months to July.
Average house prices increased to £291,000 (3.3%) in England, £210,000 (2.6%) in Wales, and £192,000 (5.9%) in Scotland, in the 12 months to June.
Average UK:
• house prices increased by 3.7%, to £269,000, in the 12 months to June 2025, up from 2.7% in the 12 months to May
• monthly private rents up by 5.9%, to £1,343, in the 12 months to July 2025, down from 6.7% in the 12 months to June
➡️ https://t.co/FZaF6ImGIY pic.twitter.com/547R2YhUcg
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) August 20, 2025
Nick Leeming, chairman of the estate agent Jackson-Stops, said:
An uplift in house prices reflects a quiet but steady confidence in the market, as we continue to move further away from the turbulence of recent economic events.
Buyers are increasingly focused on the tangible realities of today’s housing landscape, rather than being distracted by speculation or uncertainty. There remains a healthy level of housing stock available, yet competition for well-priced, quality homes is driving swift sales from committed buyers.
The Treasury is considering a new tax on the sale of homes worth more than £500,000 as a step towards a radical overhaul of stamp duty and council tax – a Guardian exclusive from my colleagues Anna Isaac and Peter Walker on Monday. Leeming said:
While rumoured changes to stamp duty suggest the Treasury is open to bold, out-of-the-box thinking to improve market dynamics, these ideas remain speculative for now. Until concrete action is taken, they are simply words, not policy. Our recent research revealed that of the 15% of over 55s who plan to downsize would do so within the next year if stamp duty were removed or reduced on their onward purchase.
Encouragingly, the recent cut to the base rate to 4% has brought fixed-rate mortgages comfortably below 5%, restoring buyer affordability to levels not seen since 2022. This is a welcome development, especially as millions of homeowners approach the end of their fixed-rate deals this year and are considering what to do next.
ShareEuropean shares retreat from five-month high as technology and defence stocks fall
European stock markets have slipped today, retreating from the five-month closing high on Tuesday, as technology and defence stocks fell.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index, which comprises Europe’s leading companies, fell by 0.4% in early trading and is now down 0.1%.
Following a tech sell-off on Wall Street on Tuesday, triggered by warnings over the future of the artificial intelligence boom, the Stoxx Europe 600 technology index fell by almost 1% in early trading, and is now down 0.4%.
The defence sector declined for a second day, tumbling 1.5% in early trade and now 0.4% lower, as news of a potential Ukraine-Russia summit raised hopes of a peace deal, which could reduce demand for military assets. France’s Thales fell by 0.6%, Germany’s Rheinmetall slipped by 0.4% and the UK’s BAE Systems lost 0.5%.
Details are sketchy though, despite talks at the Oval Office on Monday between the US and Ukrainian presidents and other European leaders. Donald Trump said Washington might provide air support to Ukraine as part of a peace deal, but ruled out putting troops on the ground.
The FTSE 100 index in London dipped by 0.1%, or 10.6 points, to 9,178 after UK inflation accelerated more than expected in July to 3.8%, the highest annual rate since early 2024, with transport and food costs rising sharply.
Here are 10 examples of potential rail fare rises in England next year, compiled by PA.
Figures are based on an increase of 5.8%. The table compares the cost of season tickets using any valid route bought before and after the rise.
Annual season tickets:
ROUTE – PREVIOUS PRICE – PRICE AFTER 5.8% RISE – INCREASE
Woking to London – £4,260 – £4,507 – £247
Gloucester to Birmingham – £5,384 – £5,696 – £312
Whitehaven to Carlisle – £2,508 – £2,653 – £145
York to Leeds – £3,028 – £3,204 – £176
Bournemouth to Southampton – £3,676 – £3,889 – £213
Flexi tickets for travel two days per week over a year:
Welwyn Garden City to London – £2,029.20 – £2,146.90 – £117.70
Liverpool to Manchester – £2,074.80 – £2,195.10 – £120.30
Cambridge to London – £4,620 – £4,888 – £268
Ipswich to Peterborough – £4,947.60 – £5,234.60 – £287
Bath Spa to Bristol Temple Meads – £1,056 – £1,117.20 – £61.20