The Bank of England is not at the point in its interest rate-rising cycle where it needs to worry about the risk of over-tightening, Monetary Policy Committee member Catherine Mann said on Thursday, Reuters reported. "You have a lot of different ways of looking at it. My reading is we're not there yet," Mann said. The BoE raised its main interest rate to 3.5% in December from 3%; Mann voted for a bigger increase to 3.75%.

Britain’s foreign minister is meeting politicians and businesspeople in Belfast on Wednesday, bearing good news: The U.K. and the European Union are inching closer to settling a post-Brexit trade dispute that has brought economic headaches and political turmoil to Northern Ireland, the Associated Press reported. James Cleverly is traveling to Belfast two days after Britain and the EU made a significant breakthrough, striking a data-sharing agreement that will give the EU access to real-time information about goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

Barclays is joining forces with an insolvency specialist to try to recover millions of pounds of misappropriated loans advanced under the UK government’s Covid-19 bounceback scheme, the Irish Times reported. The bank is among the lenders that provided loans of up to £50,000 (€56,000) to small companies at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which were guaranteed by the government. About £46 billion was given to companies with only minimal eligibility checks to encourage banks to lend quickly.

Nearly 3.5 million people — or about one in 12 working-age adults in Britain — who have long-term health conditions are not working or looking for work, the New York Times reported. The number ballooned during the first two years of the pandemic when more than half a million more people reported they had a long-term sickness, with physical and mental health conditions, according to analysis by economists at the Bank of England.

UK-based energy services provider Altera Infrastructure has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a few months after filing for it, Offshore-Energy.biz reported. Thanks to a charter for an FPSO, which is expected to be deployed at one of the largest undeveloped oil fields in the UK, the firm expects to strengthen its balance sheet further, as it sees this as a foundation for long-term growth if this project goes ahead. Back in August 2022, Altera Infrastructure, formerly a part of Teekay, entered a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in the U.S. to address its debt of over $1.5 billion.

Over 800,000 UK households will see their mortgage rates more than double this year as they come off low fixed-rate deals, adding to the pressure on living standards, Bloomberg News reported. In total, more than 1.4 million fixed-rate borrowers will have to renew their mortgage in 2023, with 57% currently on deals of less than 2%, according to an Office for National Statistics analysis of Bank of England data. The average variable rate mortgage is currently 4.41% and fixed-rate deals start at around 5%.

Britain will introduce legislation to ensure key public services maintain minimum safety levels during industrial action, as the government seeks to limit disruption from strikes now involving tens of thousands of workers, Reuters reported. The government said on Thursday it would bring the bill to parliament in the coming weeks and would consult on the minimum safety levels to be set for fire, ambulance and rail services. "While we hope that voluntary agreements can continue to be made in most cases, introducing minimum safety levels...

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to reduce the national debt and cut inflation as he set out his priorities for the coming year against a backdrop of mounting strikes, a creaking National Health Service and dire poll ratings for his ruling Conservative Party, Bloomberg News reported. The economic goals were among five priorities outlined by the prime minister in his first set piece remarks of the year. He also outlined promises to grow the economy, tackle immigration and improve health care provision.

Cineworld, the British cinema operator in bankruptcy proceedings, said today that it would not sell any of its assets individually, and that it had not held discussions with AMC Entertainment about the sale of any of its theaters, Reuters reported. The British company said it would focus on selling the group as a whole rather than disposing of individual assets, along with its restructuring efforts, and was expecting to start reaching out to potential parties for a sale later this month.