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Prime Minister Liz Truss’s external adviser on the economy has told Sky News that the chancellor had “taken his eye off the ball” and “overstepped the mark” with his mini-budget.

Gerard Lyons, who is often referred to as Ms Truss’s favourite economist, said Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng failed to adequately prepare the financial markets ahead of his announcement.

Speaking on The Take With Sophy Ridge, Mr Lyons said: “The chancellor, whilst he had focused on the general public and on British businesses, he had not really prepared the financial markets fully.

“And I think he had taken his eye off the ball slightly, shall we say, in having not prepared the markets for what he was doing in the budget and I felt that he overstepped the mark last week.

“So it was a combination of all three factors – the febrile markets because of the global backdrop, the actions of the Bank of England last Thursday, but let’s be in no doubt, it was primarily the mini-budget last Friday that triggered this latest series of events.”

Asked if he had had any conversations with Ms Truss or her team, Mr Lyons said he had “made my thoughts known”. He said he was “highlighting in my writing… about the febrile state of the markets and the need to keep the markets onside”.

Pushed on whether they had taken his advice, he said: “Well, sometimes people listen, sometimes they don’t, but there were positives that came out of it. But as we saw last Friday, there was just not enough in line with what the markets had been prepped for and were expecting.”

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Despite his remarks, Mr Lyons said the budget was “very positive in many respects”.

He said it was “very much on a pro-growth agenda” which was needed to “break out of this low-growth phrase”.

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‘Mini-budget not what the markets were expecting’

Mr Lyons’s remarks about the chancellor failing to prepare the financial markets were contrasted by a minister who told deputy political editor Sam Coates it was “bulls***t” to say market movement was related to the mini-budget announcement.

And on The Take with Sophy Ridge, chief secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp denied the government had any responsibility and said there would be no change of course.

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Chief Sec bullish on tax cuts

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“Getting Britain’s economy growing is so important. Important to raise wages and important to pay the tax bills of the future,” he said.

Mr Philp suggested benefits may not be hiked in line with spiralling inflation. He said a commitment by former chancellor Rishi Sunak to uprate benefits in line with inflation was under consideration amid reports different government departments have been asked to draw up plans for efficiency savings.

Mr Philp told ITV’s Peston: “We are going to look for efficiencies wherever we can find them.”

But he said the Treasury would not commit to an expected uprating of benefits in line with inflation.

Pressed about the decision, he said: “I am not going to make policy commitments on live TV, it is going to be considered in the normal way, we will make a decision and it will be announced I am sure in the first instance to the House of Commons.”

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On Wednesday the Bank of England was forced to launch an emergency government bond-buying programme to prevent borrowing costs from spiralling out of control and stave off a “material risk to UK financial stability”.

The Bank will buy as many long-dated government bonds as needed between now and 14 October in a bid to stabilise financial markets.

The announcement had an immediate effect on the market, with data showing 30-year bond yields fell back to 4.3%, having risen to levels above 5% not seen since 2002, earlier on Wednesday. There were similar falls for 20-year yields.

Ms Truss is expected to face public questioning about her economic plans for the first time on Thursday as she tours regional BBC radio stations in a morning round of interviews. Neither the prime minister nor the chancellor were anywhere to be seen or heard on the economy on Wednesday.

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Post Office scandal: Victims say government’s control of redress schemes should be taken away

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Post Office scandal: Victims say government's control of redress schemes should be taken away

Post Office scandal victims are calling for redress schemes to be taken away from the government completely, ahead of the public inquiry publishing its first findings.

Phase 1, which is due back on Tuesday, will report on the human impact of what happened as well as compensation schemes.

“Take (them) off the government completely,” says Jo Hamilton OBE, a high-profile campaigner and former sub-postmistress, who was convicted of stealing from her branch in 2008.

“It’s like the fox in charge of the hen house,” she adds, “because they were the only shareholders of Post Office“.

“So they’re in it up to their necks… So why should they be in charge of giving us financial redress?”

Jo Hamilton OBE, a high-profile campaigner and former sub-postmistress
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Nearly a third of Ms Hamilton’s life has been dominated by the scandal

Jo and others are hoping Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public statutory inquiry, will make recommendations for an independent body to take control of redress schemes.

The inquiry has been examining the Post Office scandal which saw more than 700 people wrongfully convicted between 1999 and 2015.

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Sub-postmasters were forced to pay back false accounting shortfalls because of the faulty IT system, Horizon.

At the moment, the Department for Business and Trade administers most of the redress schemes including the Horizon Conviction Redress Scheme and the Group Litigation Order (GLO) Scheme.

The Post Office is still responsible for the Horizon Shortfall scheme.

Lee Castleton OBE, a victim of the Post Office Horizon scandal
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Lee Castleton OBE

Lee Castleton OBE, another victim of the scandal, was bankrupted in 2007 when he lost his case in the civil courts representing himself against the Post Office.

The civil judgment against him, however, still stands.

“It’s the oddest thing in the world to be an OBE, fighting for justice, while still having the original case standing against me,” he tells Sky News.

While he has received an interim payment he has not applied to a redress scheme.

“The GLO scheme – that’s there on the table for me to do,” he says, “but I know that they would use my original case, still standing against me, in any form of redress.

“So they would still tell me repeatedly that the court found me to be liable and therefore they only acted on the court’s outcome.”

He agrees with other victims who want the inquiry this week to recommend “taking the bad piece out” of redress schemes.

“The bad piece is the company – Post Office Limited,” he continues, “and the government – they need to be outside.

“When somebody goes to court, even if it’s a case against the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), when they go to court DBT do not decide what the outcome is.

“A judge decides, a third party decides, a right-minded individual a fair individual, that’s what needs to happen.”

Pic: AP
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Pic: AP

Mr Castleton is also taking legal action against the Post Office and Fujitsu – the first individual victim to sue the organisations for compensation and “vindication” in court.

“I want to hear why it happened, to hear what I believe to be the truth, to hear what they believe to be the truth and let the judge decide.”

Neil Hudgell, a lawyer for victims, said he expects the first inquiry report this week may be “really rather damning” of the redress claim process describing “inconsistencies”, “bureaucracy” and “delays”.

“The over-lawyeringness of it,” he adds, “the minute analysis, micro-analysis of detail, the inability to give people fully the benefit of doubt.

“All those things I think are going to be part and parcel of what Sir Wynn says about compensation.

“And we would hope, not going to say expect because history’s not great, we would hope it’s a springboard to an acceleration, a meaningful acceleration of that process.”

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June: Post Office knew about faulty IT system

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson said they were “grateful” for the inquiry’s work describing “the immeasurable suffering” victims endured.

Their statement continued: “This government has quadrupled the total amount paid to affected postmasters to provide them with full and fair redress, with more than £1bn having now been paid to thousands of claimants.

“We will also continue to work with the Post Office, who have already written to over 24,000 postmasters, to ensure that everyone who may be eligible for redress is given the opportunity to apply for it.”

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Digital wallet provider Hyperlayer closes in on £30m funding boost

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Digital wallet provider Hyperlayer closes in on £30m funding boost

A British fintech which counts Standard Life among its key clients is close to finalising one of the industry’s biggest funding rounds so far this year.

Sky News understands that Hyperlayer, which is run by the former Morgan Stanley executive Rob Rooney, is lining up a major equity injection led by CDAM, a UK-based investment firm, and several new institutional investors.

City sources said this weekend that the new capital from CDAM and other backers could total at least £30m.

The funding round is expected to take place at a post-money valuation of about £160m.

Hyperlayer, which operates a consumer-facing digital wallet called Hyperjar, intends to use the new funding as growth capital to finance the development of new partnerships with global banks and asset managers.

The company provides smart account technology on existing client infrastructure, and is said to work with a number of the world’s 10 largest banks – although it has not publicly disclosed their identities.

Its work with Standard Life involves the future launch of a consumer money app aimed at people approaching or in early retirement.

Hyperlayer’s consumer-facing platform sees customers organise their money in what the company calls “digital jam jars”, enabling them to earn rewards which give them access to partner brands such as Asda, Morrisons and Starbucks.

IKEA and the John Lewis Partnership are among the other merchant partners with which Hyperlayer is working to develop distinctive loyalty-based initiatives for its financial institution clients.

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Founded in 2006 by Adam Chamberlain and Scott Davies, CDAM has $1.5bn in assets under management and is an experienced investor in financial services technology.

Mr Davies has had a seat on Hyperlayer’s board for several years.

Mr Rooney, who was a prominent Wall Street executive for years, ultimately serving as Morgan Stanley’s technology operations, joined the company as CEO in 2023.

The new capital injection led by CDAM is understood to be subject to approval by Hyperlayer’s shareholders.

Hyperlayer declined to comment on Sunday.

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

Octopus Energy Group, Britain’s largest residential gas and electricity supplier, is plotting a £10bn demerger of its technology arm that would reinforce its status as one of the country’s most valuable private companies.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Octopus Energy is close to hiring investment bankers to help formally separate Kraken Technologies from the rest of the group.

The demerger, which would be expected to take place in the next 12 months, would see Octopus Energy’s existing investors given shares in the newly independent Kraken business.

A minority stake in Kraken of up to 20% is expected to be sold to external shareholders in order to help validate the technology platform’s valuation, according to insiders.

One banking source said that Kraken could be valued at as much as $14bn (£10.25bn) in a forthcoming demerger.

Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among the investment banks invited to pitch for the demerger mandate in recent weeks.

A deal will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune, and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.

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Octopus Energy now has 7.5m retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb, and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.

In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.

It also has a further 2.5m customers outside the UK.

Octopus energy wind turbine. Pic suppled by Octopus.
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Kraken is an operating system licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers. Pic: Octopus

Sources said a £10bn valuation of Kraken would now imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn or more.

That would be double its valuation of just over a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanize Climate Solutions and Lightrock.

Shortly before that, former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).

Kraken is an operating system which is licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers.

It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.

The business also unlocks smart grids which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it.

In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals EON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.

Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plentitude in countries including France and Greece.

Its biggest coup came recently, when it struck a deal with National Grid in the US to serve 6.5m customers in New York and Massachusetts.

Sources said other major licensing agreements in the US were expected to be struck in the coming months.

Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70m customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100m by 2027.

Earlier this year, Mr Jackson said that target now risked being seen as “embarrassingly unambitious”.

Last July, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.

A demerger of Kraken will trigger speculation about an eventual public market listing of the business.

Its growth in the US, and the relative public market valuations of technology companies in New York and London, may put the UK at a disadvantage when Kraken eventually considers where to list.

One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.

A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.

Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector, and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.

This weekend, Octopus Energy declined to comment.

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