Austria’s far-right Freedom party scored a historic victory in the country’s parliamentary election on Sunday, with the result consolidating pro-Russian, anti-establishment forces in central Europe.

The FPÖ was projected to win just under 29 per cent of the ballots cast, according to a near final official estimate of the vote late on Sunday, bolstering the claim of its firebrand leader Herbert Kickl to become Austria’s next chancellor.

It is the first time the FPÖ, which has embraced increasingly hardline and extremist policies on immigration and the war in Ukraine in recent years under Kickl, has come first in a national election.

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A MAJOR UK airport has announced the opening of its first Wetherspoons pub as part of a whopping £1.3 billion transformation.

Brits jetting off from Manchester Airport can now enjoy a pint at the airport’s first-ever JD Wetherspoon pub next year.

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The new pub is part of a £1.3 billion project that will transform Terminal 2.

The popular pub chain will join major brands like Chanel, Pandora, LEGO, and Greggs, all expected to be added to the terminal.

Bosses have confirmed that the new Wetherspoons will “feature nods to sporting greats of the North in its decor”.

The pub’s name has yet to be announced, but future customers are assured they can look forward to the usual Wetherspoons offerings.

Brits will be able to enjoy discounted cooked breakfasts along with a wide selection of beers, wines, ciders, and spirits.

The highly-anticipated Terminal 2 is set to open in the summer of 2025 and will feature the Great Northern Market.

The new food hall will be able to seat a whopping 472 travellers and will hope to bring the best of Manchester’s street food scene to the airport.

Manchester Airport retail director Richard Jackson said: “We are proud of the world-class facilities on offer in Terminal 2, and a key part of our vision for the finished terminal is to provide an unrivalled experience for passengers shopping and dining before they catch their flight.

“We’re delighted to be bringing such a varied offering to the second phase of our brand-new Terminal 2, with local brands complemented by well-known high street names and options to suit every budget.”

Bosses recently announced a huge change for Brits jetting off from the major airport.

The airport, currently being revamped, has confirmed that 11 airlines will move terminals his fall.

The airlines, including Jet2.com, will move from Terminal 1 and 3 to the brand new Terminal 2 between October and November.

More airlines are expected to follow the move next year.

Several airlines have begun operating from the revamped Terminal 2 – part of which opened in 2021 – which is being doubled in size to cater to 70 per cent of the total flyers using the airport.

Major airlines including Austrian, Lufthansa and Swiss will move to the brand-new terminal in October.

This will be followed by Egyptair, SunExpress, Biman Bangladesh and Jet2.com which will start operating in the new Terminal in November.

Passengers who have already booked parking or launce access near Terminal 1 or 3 can contact the airport to change their bookings, Travel Weekly reports.

However, passengers who have booked parking or lounge access through third-party agents will have to contact the provider.

A huge renovation project at Manchester Airport is nearing completion, with plenty of brand-new facilities that will excite passengers.

The £1.3billion project, which was first announced back in 2015, was split into two phases.

The early stages of the project saw Manchester Airport’s Terminal 2 more than double in size before its west side reopened to passengers in July 2021.

Now in its final phase, work is focusing on the east side of Terminal 2, including a second pier with additional boarding gates.

Construction work on the pier began back in June 2023, and it is nearly complete, as reported by Marketing Stockport.

When the brand-new pier opens, it will double the aircraft capacity at Manchester Airport.

INCREDIBLE PLANS

Airbus A380 passenger jets will also be compatible with the new boarding gates.

There are plenty of other features for passengers to get excited about when the expansion opens in 2025, including 27 new restaurants, bars and shops.

Specific shops will be announced later this year but several local brands including Manchester brewers Joseph Holt and Seven Bro7hers are slated to be inside the revamped terminal.

The revamped Terminal 2 at Manchester Airport will feature a “market-style food hall” and there will also be a “boutique shopping area”.

There will also be a champagne bar, artisan cafes and a brasserie.

A new security hall, complete with 3D scanners, will also be added during this phase and a new dual taxiway system designed to improve airfield efficiency.

When the west side of Terminal 2 opens in 2025, it will become the main terminal at Manchester Airport, catering for more than 70 per cent of passengers.

Jill Fraser, Manchester Airport Transformation Programme delivery director, said: “The last 12 months have seen an incredible amount of work and it’s amazing to see the project really taking shape.

“From the creation of more than 500 jobs, to the work to improve the way the airfield works – this is a huge project but one that will have so many benefits for our passengers.

“We’ve already started to see some of the benefits of the programme, with our passengers who have used Terminal 2 giving amazing feedback and the award of the prestigious Prix Versailles.

“And the exciting thing is that we’ve not even finished yet – so we’re looking forward to an epic 18 months ahead. We’re proud to connect the North to the world and are looking forward to passengers seeing everything we deliver.”

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Deloitte’s UK partners took home about £1mn on average for the fourth year in a row, despite the Big Four firm suffering a sharp slowdown in revenue growth due to waning demand for its advisory services.

Partners received payouts of £1.01mn on average for the year to the end of May, 5 per cent less than the previous year, following an increase in the number of equity partners who share in the firm’s profits. Its top ranks swelled from 714 last year to 749, while the profit pool to be shared between them remained flat at £756mn.

Deloitte is the only Big Four firm in the UK to report an average partner payout higher than £1mn in the last two financial years.

Revenue at Deloitte’s UK firm, which also encompasses its Swiss operations, rose by 2.4 per cent to £5.7bn — a sharp slowdown on the 14 per cent growth recorded in the previous 12 months. In the year to May 2022, Deloitte had boosted revenue by 10 per cent.

The slowdown was driven by a slight contraction in the firm’s consulting division — its largest service line — where sales fell 1 per cent to £1.58bn as a tougher economic backdrop forced companies to cut spending on external advisory firms.

Revenues at Deloitte’s financial advisory practice also declined 2 per cent during the year as merger and acquisition activity remained subdued.

The weaker results underline the difficult year faced by the Big Four — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — which were all forced to cut hundreds of jobs each due to tougher market conditions. PwC last week said its UK revenues rose 3 per cent during its most recent financial year, while average partner pay fell 5 per cent to £862,000.

“This is a strong set of results in a challenging market, against a difficult economic and geopolitical backdrop,” said Richard Houston, Deloitte’s UK senior partner and chief executive. “Like many businesses, we had to carefully consider our cost base and make some difficult choices this year.”

Audit and assurance was Deloitte’s best-performing service line during the year, with revenues climbing 8 per cent to £941mn. The firm’s tax and legal division also posted sales growth of 3 per cent to £1.25bn. Risk advisory sales remained flat with sales of £495mn.

The firm said it invested £263mn in salary increases and bonuses during the year.

Houston sounded a more upbeat note looking ahead, saying that the UK’s economic outlook has been improving in the past 12 months. He added: “A recovering economy, alongside the government’s commitment to work with business in tackling economic and technological challenges, offers the prospect of stronger growth to come.”

Deloitte is in the process of overhauling its global operations to cut costs and reduce the group’s complexity. Under the plan, its main business units will be reduced to four — audit and assurance; strategy, risk and transactions; technology and transformation; and tax and legal — from the five the firm has had for the last decade.

The firm last month posted global revenues of $67.2bn, a 3 per cent increase on the previous year, its weakest sales growth since 2010.

Deloitte’s headcount at its UK and Swiss business remained broadly flat at 27,573 at year end.

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UK chancellor Rachel Reeves is unlikely to cut pension tax relief for higher earners in her Budget next month because it would hit teachers, doctors and other better paid public sector workers, according to a report released on Monday.

Reeves had argued as an opposition MP for a flat rate of pension tax relief — a move which would significantly boost Treasury coffers — but a report by pensions consultancy LCP argues she will shy away from this move.

Sir Steve Webb, a respected former Liberal Democrat pensions minister and now an LCP partner, said cutting higher rate pension tax relief would hit a significant group of “mid-ranking and senior public sector workers — a group which the government is unlikely to want to alienate”.

The LCP report said that Reeves is likely to be taking a keen interest in pension tax relief — with a net annual cost estimated by the Treasury at around £48bn — but reform is fraught with political problems.

Currently, when people and their employers pay into a pension, their contributions are exempt from taxation up to a set annual limit.  

When savings are later withdrawn as pension payments, these are taxed like other income, with people able to usually take up to 25 per cent as a tax-free lump sum, up to a maximum of £268,275.  

George Osborne, former Conservative chancellor between 2010 and 2016, considered reforming pension tax relief in his 2016 Budget but dropped the plan after a fierce backlash from Tory MPs.

The LCP report said that Reeves is more likely to consider levying a rate of national insurance contributions on employer pension contributions, a change that would be less politically painful.

It noted that excluding these contributions from NI costs the Treasury a headline £23.8bn a year, and also encourages the practice of “salary sacrifice”, specifically to reduce NI bills. 

“The chancellor could create a new rate of NI — eg 2 per cent — on employer contributions, and raise a couple of billion pounds by doing so,” the report said. 

“The big advantage for the chancellor is that in most cases this would have no immediate pay packet effect on voters so would have lower political saliency. It could also be implemented relatively quickly,” it added.

Webb said: “The chancellor will be looking for relatively simple changes which can be introduced quickly and will raise large sums with least voter anger.”

In 2016, Reeves — then a backbench MP and a former shadow work and pensions minister — proposed setting a “flat rate of pension tax relief” at 33 per cent, below the 40 per cent tax rate paid by higher earners.

“This would be a welcome boost for basic rate taxpayers and a cut in the savings subsidy for higher earners, while still rewarding savings,” she said at the time.

The Treasury said: “We do not comment on speculation around tax changes outside of fiscal events.” Reeves has said that tough decisions lie ahead on spending, welfare and tax in the Budget.

The Labour manifesto committed the government to not increase taxes on “working people”, with specific commitment not to increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT.

THE UK’s biggest energy firms have been ranked from best to worst for customer service.

Charity Citizens Advice’s latest league table has revealed that ratings across the energy industry are showing “sluggish improvement”.

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Fresh analysis from the consumer champion has seen EDF and Utilita named as the two worst suppliers for customer service.

They were followed by Rebel Energy and Octopus Energy.

At the other end of the scale, smaller firms like Ecotricity and Utility Warehouse claimed first and second place respectively.

They were then followed by E (gas and electricity) and Outfox the Market.

The league table rated customer service between April to June this year.

The average rating is now 3.07, which is a rise of almost 13% since the start of 2024 and a return to levels seen before the energy crisis.

However, the charity has warned more needs to be done as three in five customers are served by suppliers which score below average in the league table.

The news today comes after energy regulator Ofgem recently challenged suppliers to improve customer service, amid complaints about billing problems.

It also said the sector was found to be lagging behind others with higher customer satisfaction, such as banking.

Citizens Advice says “people deserve better” from their energy supplier and is renewing its call for a Consumer Duty.

This involves a new set of rules to give Ofgem stronger powers to hold companies to account and “set a higher bar” for customer service in the energy industry.

The charity says it’s already helping record numbers who have fallen behind on bills.

Recent research shows one in four people are so worried about increases in energy costs that they say they’ll be forced to turn off their heating and hot water this winter.

It also found that 5million people are currently living in households in debt to their supplier.

Energy companies are responsible for providing support, like affordable payment plans, to people who can’t afford their bills.

The charity is encouraging people to get in touch with their supplier if they need help.

It is also urging firms to continue upping their game so people can access the support they need this winter.

The report comes ahead of the October price cap rise which kicks in on the 1st.

The new price cap will see the average bill rise for around 28million households to £1,717 from £1,568 a year – an increase of 10%, or £149.

Overall, Citizens Advice found energy companies performed better in their ability to resolve customer complaints and call wait times have also continued to improve.

Dame Clare Moriarty, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “We’re bracing ourselves for another challenging winter. Whilst suppliers’ customer service improved in the spring, firms need to continue upping their game to ensure people can access support in the colder months.

“With energy debt at a record high and the removal of previous support packages, the government must also urgently introduce targeted bill support that reflects the realities of people’s energy needs.”

Responding to Citizen Advice’s report, Ofgem says it has been “working hard” with the sector.

An Ofgem spokesperson said: “Energy consumers deserve an easy and reliable service from their supplier.

“We’ve been working hard with the sector to drive up standards and create a more customer-centric energy future.

“This includes strengthening our procedures to take firmer action against suppliers when things go wrong and toughening up the rules around customer bills for greater accuracy.”

The regulator added that it’s clear the work of the government, regulator, consumer groups and firm is starting to make a difference.

Adding: “But there is lots more work to be done to ensure exceptional customer service is the norm across the board and the energy sector is among the best sectors for how customers are treated.

“We will use all the powers at our disposal to get there.”

Where does your energy firm rank?

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Citizens Advice has scored suppliers out of five on customer service categories including call wait times, how long it takes to get an email reply and accuracy of energy bills.

Utilita came 15th in the ranking with a 1.86 rating for April to June – it also only scored 1.5 stars out of five.

In 14th place is EDF, with a rating of 2.41 and just two stars.

Rebel Energy received a 2.68 rating – putting it in third to last position. It received 2.5 stars.

Utilita, EDF, and Rebel Energy have all been contacted for comment.

At the other end, Ecotricity secured the top spot with a 3.77 rating and 3.5 stars.

This is the same rating it received in the months between January to March.

In second place came Utility Warehouse with three stars and a 3.42 rating.

The third position went to E (Gas and Electricity) also with a rating of 3.42 and three stars.

How do I complain about my energy supplier?

Similar to financial services firms, energy companies have to have a complaints procedure for customers to follow.

When you make a complaint, make sure you follow this so they have the information they need to resolve the issue.

Simply explain what the problem is and what you want your supplier to do about it.

Check your energy supplier’s website for an explanation of how to launch a complaint.

Energy suppliers have eight weeks to respond and come to a decision.

If it doesn’t or you’re not happy with the response, you can take the firm to the Energy Ombudsman.

The Energy Ombudsman may be able to help if you have a complaint about an energy or communications provider.

Before you can submit your complaint to it, you must have logged a formal complaint with your provider and worked with the firm to resolve it.

You must also have received a so-called deadlock letter, where the provider refers your complaint to the Energy Ombudsman.

You can also complain if you haven’t had a satisfactory solution to your problem within eight weeks.

The Energy Ombudsman then bases its decision on the evidence you and the company submit.

If you choose to accept its decision, your supplier then has 28 days to comply.

The Ombudsman’s decisions are binding on the energy company.

If your supplier refuses to follow the instruction, the Ombudsman may get in touch with Ofgem to remedy the situation – but there’s no set period for escalating issues to the regulator and it’s not up to the customer.

If an individual chooses not to accept the Ombudsman’s final decision, they lose the right to the resolution offer.

Customers still have the right to take their complaints further through the courts.

But remember this can be a costly and lengthy exercise, so it’s worth thinking carefully before taking this step.

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