Rolls-Royce Motor Cars says a record £300m investment at its West Sussex factory base will help expand production of bespoke and electric models.

The BMW-owned firm, like rivals in the luxury sphere, has enjoyed rising demand for personalised vehicles among its wealthy customer base.

The carmaker said recent orders to complement its base models included 18-carat gold sculptures, embroideries consisting of more than 869,500 stitches, wood veneers including 500 individually-shaped pieces and holographic paint finishes.

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The investment, Rolls-Royce said, would bolster facilities at Goodwood to cover such requests and also its Coachbuild programme – an invitation-only service where clients get to “craft an entirely original motor car.”

The company added that additional space would also be created to prepare Rolls-Royce for an all-battery electric future, with a new fully electric model due to be unveiled later this year.

The £300m investment marked the largest cash injection in the company’s operations since the plant opened in 2003, Rolls said.

It made the announcement while revealing a fall in sales during 2024.

The company sold 5,712 cars in 2024, a drop of more than 5% versus the 6,032 vehicles sold over the previous 12 months.

It said the decline was in line with expectations as it switches over to new models. Four were introduced during 2024 including the Cullinan Series 2 and Ghost Series 2.

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North America was its largest market in 2024. The most popular model, it said, was the all-electric Spectre.

Goodwood employs 2,500 people and produces 28 cars daily, it added.

Recent workforce expansion has been a result of its high margin Bespoke and Coachbuild programmes but also the transition to electric technology.

UK music sales hit a 20-year high of £2.4bn in 2024, helped by pop megastar Taylor Swift’s latest album, and driven by streaming and the vinyl revival, figures show.

Revenues from recorded music reached an all-time high, more even than at the peak of the CD era, according to annual figures from the digital entertainment and retail association ERA.

Total consumer spending on recorded music – both subscriptions and purchases – topped the previous record of £2.2bn in 2001, ERA said.

Takings from streaming services including Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon rose by 7.8% to a little over £2bn.

Almost £200m was spent on vinyl albums, an annual uplift of 10.5%, while CD album revenues were flat at just over £126m.

Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department was the biggest-selling album of the year, aided by her record-smashing worldwide Eras tour.

More than 783,000 copies were bought, nearly 112,000 of them on vinyl – making it 2024’s biggest-selling vinyl album.

The biggest single of the year was Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, generating the equivalent of 1.99 million sales.

ERA chief executive Kim Bayley said 2024 was “a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume.

Ms Bayley called it the “stunning culmination of music’s comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively – music is back.”

Music revenues grew by 7.4% in 2024, while video rose by 6.9%, and games fell by 4.4%, according to preliminary figures.

Subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV grew by 8.3% to £4.5bn – almost 90% of the sector’s revenues.

Deadpool & Wolverine was the biggest-selling title of the year, with sales of 561,917 – more than 80% of them sold digitally.

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Despite the games sector’s 4.4% decline last year, it remains nearly twice as large as the recorded music business.

Full game sales saw a drop-off with PC download-to-own down 5%, digital console games down 15% and boxed physical games down 35%, in favour of subscription models which grew by 12%.

EA Sports FC 25 – formerly known as Fifa was once again the biggest-selling game of the year, generating 2.9 million unit sales, 80% of them as digital formats.

A representative for one of the world’s biggest fast fashion retailers, Shein was unable to answer questions from MPs over where it sources its cotton from.

Shein’s general counsel for Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA) Yinan Zhu was asked if the company sells products containing cotton from China, mainly the region of Xinjiang, where China has been accused of subjecting members of the Uyghur ethnic group to forced labour.

Speaking at the Business and Trade Committee, Ms Zhu was asked several times whether the company uses cotton supplied from China.

After being pressed on the matter, she said she would have to write to the committee with an answer.

She said: “For detailed operational information and other aspects, I am not able to assist. I will have to write back to the committee afterwards.”

She added: “Obviously, we comply with laws and regulations everywhere we do business in the role. And we have supplier code of conducts, we have robust systems and procedures in place and policies in place.

“We also have very strong enforcement measures in place to ensure we adhere to these standards that are expected in our supply chain.”

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When asked if the company believed forced labour took place in Xinjiang, Ms Zhu reminded MPs of the “agenda of the committee, as I understand it, we’re looking at upholding standards”, before adding: “I’m only able to answer the questions that are relating to our business.”

Shein was founded in China in 2012 and is now a leader in fast fashion, shipping to 150 countries.

Committee chairman Liam Byrne challenged Ms Zhu, but she repeated she would have to write to the committee afterwards.

Mr Byrne said the parliamentary committee was “horrified” by the lack of information provided and said Zhu’s statements gave lawmakers “zero confidence” in the integrity of Shein’s supply chains.

“The reluctance to answer basic questions has frankly bordered on contempt,” Mr Byrne said.

The top lawyer’s responses were said to be “ridiculous” and “very unhelpful and disrespectful” by committee member Charlie Maynard.

When Ms Zhu said she was answering to the best of her ability, the Lib Dem MP said: “That is simply not true. We’ve asked you some very, very, very simple questions and you are not giving us straight answers.”

Ms Zhu also said she was unable to say anything about reports the online giant was preparing to list as a public company on the London Stock Exchange.

Sky News reported exclusively in June that Shein had prepared to file a prospectus with the Financial Conduct Authority for approval ahead of a potential float on the exchange.

But when asked on Tuesday if this was true, and why the company had stopped pursuing a New York Stock Exchange float, Ms Zhu said she was unable to comment on any IPO (initial public offering) speculation as it was not her remit.