Latest news with #governmentcontrol
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong public universities agree to return more funding if asked
Hong Kong's eight public universities have promised to return more recurrent funding allocated to them if asked by the government within the next three academic years and to follow Beijing's guidance. In new documents signed with their funding body, the universities also agreed that the government had the right to reduce the amount of their regular allocation if they failed to meet their commitments or had any major deficiency in institutional governance. The University Grants Committee (UGC), a government advisory body that allocates funding for higher education institutions, uploaded the university accountability agreements it signed with each institution in June. In an unprecedented move in February, the government revealed in its budget that the eight public universities would be asked to return HK$4 billion (US$509.6 million) from their reserves that they had saved from previous government funding. Earlier, university chiefs had indicated a willingness to do so. The budget also stated that authorities would only offer the eight public universities HK$68.1 billion in the coming three school years, falling short of the HK$70.9 billion proposed by the UGC, resulting in a 4 per cent average reduction rate. The new clauses specified that the government would not only be allowed to claw back the money, but also exert fuller control of the funding granted to the universities.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Britain is now too far down the road to serfdom to turn back
The ground is being prepared for a wealth tax. Landlords will be stripped of their property rights, savers will lose control of their pensions, shops will control what we can eat, and even office banter will be monitored. Add it all up, and it is becoming alarmingly clear that Britain is accelerating down what the great liberal philosopher FA Hayek memorably described as the 'road to serfdom', with the individual sacrificed to the power of the state. And the worst of it is that it may well prove too late to turn back now. The plans from both Labour ministers and their outriders for increasing the power of the government are piling up so quickly it is getting hard for even the most diligent of us to keep up with them all. Over the weekend, Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader who still speaks to the soul of his party, argued for a wealth tax, with anyone with more than £10 million in assets forced to pay 2 per cent of the total every year. Landlords will no longer be able to take their house or apartments back, undermining the right of ownership. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to control your pension to boost investment in the UK, regardless of whether it improves returns. The supermarkets will soon face fines if some of their customers buy too many sausage rolls or Kit Kat's. And the Deputy Prime Minister wants to control office chatter. Taken in isolation each 'reform' might have something to be said for it, but together they are nothing less than corrosive. A wealth tax means you don't really own a company you have founded because it's value has to be assessed every year, and you have to hand over a slice of it to the government. If a landlord can't take back a property, perhaps because they want to move back in, do they really own it? If your pension fund can't invest the money you are saving for your retirement where the best returns can be made, it is no longer completely yours. If your shop is tasked with fighting obesity, ownership has been diminished, and if you are stopped at the till from buying what you want your freedom has been reduced. The office banter police may initially be tasked with clamping down on laddish 'bantz' but will very quickly be checking you are not criticising the company's management as well. Even eighty years later, The Road To Serfdom remains the key to understanding where we are going. Hayek's key argument was that modest, social democratic reforms might be well intentioned, and that might well be justifiable to solve one social problem or another. But when you added them all up, freedom was eroded to the extent that it no longer existed in any meaningful sense. 'Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity,' warned Hayek. That seems even more timely for the Britain of the 2020s than it does for the immediate post war years when Hayek's book was written. The Labour establishment and its allies in the civil service, the judiciary, the universities, and the Left-leaning think tanks, constantly put the individual at the service of the state. They impose extra taxes to pay for social services, regulations to improve our health, and controls to protect the poor or the vulnerable. Every time we have a little less freedom The best of intentions, and the mildest of means, can still end up with a society in which we are the serfs of an overnighty state every bit as much as a medieval peasant was of the lord of the manor. At a certain point, a tipping point is reached, and it is too late to turn back. The freedoms that have been surrendered can't be reclaimed. 'Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change them,' warned Hayek. If we are being honest, it may well be too late to turn back now. The state is too strong, too many people are dependent upon it, and its officials have accumulated so much power, and have become so arrogant in the way it is exercised, that it will be impossible to reduce it now. It might be happening a few decades later than Hayek expected. But Britain is now on the road to serfdom. And it may well prove too late to do anything about it now.
Telegraph
07-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Britain is now too far down the road to serfdom to turn back
The ground is being prepared for a wealth tax. Landlords will be stripped of their property rights, savers will lose control of their pensions, shops will control what we can eat, and even office banter will be monitored. Add it all up, and it is becoming alarmingly clear that Britain is accelerating down what the great liberal philosopher FA Hayek memorably described as the 'road to serfdom', with the individual sacrificed to the power of the state. And the worst of it is that it may well prove too late to turn back now. The plans from both Labour ministers and their outriders for increasing the power of the government are piling up so quickly it is getting hard for even the most diligent of us to keep up with them all. Over the weekend, Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader who still speaks to the soul of his party, argued for a wealth tax, with anyone with more than £10 million in assets forced to pay 2 per cent of the total every year. Landlords will no longer be able to take their house or apartments back, undermining the right of ownership. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to control your pension to boost investment in the UK, regardless of whether it improves returns. The supermarkets will soon face fines if some of their customers buy too many sausage rolls or Kit Kat's. And the Deputy Prime Minister wants to control office chatter. Taken in isolation each 'reform' might have something to be said for it, but together they are nothing less than corrosive. A wealth tax means you don't really own a company you have founded because it's value has to be assessed every year, and you have to hand over a slice of it to the government. If a landlord can't take back a property, perhaps because they want to move back in, do they really own it? If your pension fund can't invest the money you are saving for your retirement where the best returns can be made, it is no longer completely yours. If your shop is tasked with fighting obesity, ownership has been diminished, and if you are stopped at the till from buying what you want your freedom has been reduced. The office banter police may initially be tasked with clamping down on laddish 'bantz' but will very quickly be checking you are not criticising the company's management as well. Even eighty years later, The Road To Serfdom remains the key to understanding where we are going. Hayek's key argument was that modest, social democratic reforms might be well intentioned, and that might well be justifiable to solve one social problem or another. But when you added them all up, freedom was eroded to the extent that it no longer existed in any meaningful sense. 'Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity,' warned Hayek. That seems even more timely for the Britain of the 2020s than it does for the immediate post war years when Hayek's book was written. The Labour establishment and its allies in the civil service, the judiciary, the universities, and the Left-leaning think tanks, constantly put the individual at the service of the state. They impose extra taxes to pay for social services, regulations to improve our health, and controls to protect the poor or the vulnerable. Every time we have a little less freedom The best of intentions, and the mildest of means, can still end up with a society in which we are the serfs of an overnighty state every bit as much as a medieval peasant was of the lord of the manor. At a certain point, a tipping point is reached, and it is too late to turn back. The freedoms that have been surrendered can't be reclaimed. 'Nothing makes conditions more unbearable than the knowledge that no effort of ours can change them,' warned Hayek. If we are being honest, it may well be too late to turn back now. The state is too strong, too many people are dependent upon it, and its officials have accumulated so much power, and have become so arrogant in the way it is exercised, that it will be impossible to reduce it now. It might be happening a few decades later than Hayek expected. But Britain is now on the road to serfdom. And it may well prove too late to do anything about it now.
Sky News
11-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Reynolds discusses British Steel row with Chinese counterpart
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has discussed the government's move to seize control of British Steel with his Chinese counterpart for the first time. Sky News understands that the fate of the Scunthorpe-based steelmaker was raised during talks this week between Mr Reynolds and Wang Wentai, China's commerce minister, on Monday. A subsequent post on social media by Mr Reynolds confirming the meeting said the pair "discussed deeper UK-China cooperation - especially in services, investment and WTO reform - and building on January's successful Economic and Financial Dialogue to drive mutual growth". The business secretary did not refer to British Steel in the post, although officials confirmed that the company was raised briefly during their meeting. It came days after Sky News revealed that British Steel's Chinese owner had hired the leading City law firm Linklaters to explore the recovery of hundreds of millions of pounds it invested in the Scunthorpe-based company before the government seized control of its operations in April. Linklaters advised Jingye Group on its purchase of British Steel in 2021. British Steel's balance sheet bears debts worth close to £1bn, most of which is said to be owed to Jingye in the form of inter-company loans. The government and Jingye had been at loggerheads for weeks over the future of the Scunthorpe plant's blast furnaces. Since Mr Reynolds, the business secretary, moved to commandeer control of the UK's second-biggest steel producer, the government has sourced additional supplies of raw materials to ensure the furnaces' continued operations. Jingye had been preparing to close them - with the loss of thousands of jobs - after seeking £1bn in state aid to facilitate the site's transition to greener steelmaking. Mr Reynolds has indicated that Jingye's shares in British Steel - which has not yet been formally nationalised - are worthless, and that the government does not intend to offer to pay to acquire them.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Put Thames Water into temporary state control, say ‘junior' creditors
Thames Water should be placed into temporary government control to avoid setting a 'deeply troubling precedent', according to bondholders who face losing all of their money in the latest rescue bid. The struggling utility is under the control of a group of lenders who hold the bulk of its huge £20bn debt pile. Those 'senior' creditors on Tuesday revealed details of a last-ditch rescue effort with £5bn in funding, alongside writing off about £6.7bn in debt. However, the plan faces opposition from other 'junior' bondholders, as well as a host of campaigners, who argue that the government should place Thames under a special administration regime (SAR), effectively a temporary nationalisation. The junior bondholders, which include hedge funds such as Polus Capital and Covalis Capital, argued the rescue plan would undermine 'the UK's infrastructure credibility'. Thames Water, the privatised provider of water and sewage services to 16 million customers in London and south-east England, has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past two years as its balance sheet was stretched by expensive debt repayments. At the same time, it is under huge public pressure to stop sewage flowing into rivers and seas. The senior creditors were forced to step in after the US private equity group KKR last week abandoned a bid seen as financially and politically complex. The company will instead be controlled by a group of 100 creditors ranging from big institutional investors such as Aberdeen, BlackRock, Invesco and M&G, to US hedge funds such as Elliott Investment Management and Silver Point Capital. The senior creditors are keen to avoid a special administration that would probably result in most of their loans being written off. The Labour government also wants to avoid imposing a SAR, fearful of the nominal effect on the public finances. However, as part of their rescue bid the senior creditors have asked for leniency from the water regulator, Ofwat, over future fines for environmental failures or criminal breaches of the company's licences. That request for leniency is deeply controversial, as it would allow the senior creditors to escape deeper debt write-offs – potentially allowing some of them to profit immediately. Other water companies across England and Wales would also be likely to ask for leniency themselves. A person familiar with the junior bondholders' thinking said that the bid 'raises serious governance and accountability concerns'. 'The senior creditors are seeking preferential treatment, including unfair immunity from environmental fines, in a process they have engineered to exclude all other stakeholders,' the person said. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The junior bondholders are instead hoping for SAR, which they said would open the Thames Water restructuring process to a 'broader range of competitive, long-term investors capable of delivering a genuine turnaround'. A SAR would probably wipe out the senior creditors' debts, but for the junior creditors it also offers the possibility of being able to invest in Thames Water, potentially allowing them to salvage a financial return.
