Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsRachel Reeves could raise £45bn in taxes and keep promises, report saysThe EU is close to sealing a mandate from European leaders to start full-blown negotiations on a new agrif-food deal which will allow goods including British sausages and cheese into the single market with few trade barriers, the EU’s commissioner for trade Maros Sefcovic has revealed.It is also close to agreeing the terms of permitting the UK, a non-EU member, to participate in bids for defence procurement in the bloc, as part of the SAFE programme to increase local military ammunitions capacity and reduce reliance on the US.“I believe that very soon we will finalise our agreement of SAFE: this is how the UK can join the European public procurement for arguments.“We are expecting that in coming weeks [that] we will have the mandate to negotiate an agreement on sanitary, sanitary standards, the SPS… I believe that we can negotiate this agreement very fast, because it would clearly reproduce quite a lot [of immediate benefits] on both sides trading of products.”“These are technically extremely complicated issues, and I think that when we’ve been negotiating the trade and cooperations agreement, it was difficult to foresee how complex these issue are.. but you [we] want to restore high level of the cooperation.”“UK service providers experienced a disappointing end to the third quarter as weak consumer confidence, delays to business spending decisions and falling exports all weighed on demand. Business activity expansion hit a five-month low, while new order gains were much softer than the 11-month high seen in August.Consequently, this summer’s acceleration in output growth is now looking like a flash in the pan as elevated political and economic uncertainty has reasserted itself as a constraint on service sector performance. Many survey respondents suggested that corporate clients had deferred spending decisions until after the Autumn Budget, while households were also hesitant about major purchases. Continue reading...

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