The housing secretary is exploring a government-run developer with the power to borrow below market rates, a move that could put Whitehall in direct competition with Britain’s biggest builders.

Steve Reed has been working up plans for a state-owned housebuilder, according to details leaked to the Guardian, as ministers hunt for fresh ways to revive stubbornly low rates of construction.

The proposals, which are not yet finalised, would create an independent body able to borrow at lower rates than private developers and housing associations. For SME builders watching margins tighten on every site, the prospect of a deep-pocketed public rival is significant, even if the government insists the new entity would not be allowed to swamp the private sector.

The plans cannot be enacted before Sir Keir Starmer steps down as prime minister. The cabinet secretary has ordered that no major announcements be made until the new government takes office. They could, however, appeal to the most likely next occupant of Number 10, Andy Burnham, who has spoken of taking greater public control over “the essentials of life”.

Sir Keir took office two years ago promising a major uptick in housebuilding. To get there, his government liberalised the planning system and allocated £39bn to social and affordable homes over the next decade through the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, administered by Homes England.

The stimulus has lifted output from the lows of late 2023 and early 2024. Ministers said last week that the number of affordable homes started had risen by 26% over the past 12 months, a figure broadly in line with Homes England’s own published statistics.

The headline totals, though, remain well below where they sat three years ago and well short of where they need to be. Sir Keir promised 1.5 million new homes over this parliament, yet the latest figures show builders began work on just 130,170 in the past 12 months, roughly half the annual average required to hit the goal. As Business Matters has reported, the 1.5 million homes pledge is already slipping, with London building only a fraction of what it needs.

Much of the problem comes down to the cost of materials and debt. Wars in Ukraine and the Gulf have pushed up inflation and, with it, the cost of putting up new properties. Housing associations warn that the structure of the affordable housing budget, with much of the money arriving in the later years of the scheme, risks making matters worse.

In the meantime, Reed and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, have agreed to cut affordable housing quotas in an effort to coax private developers into building more. It is a trade-off small developers have long argued cuts both ways, as Business Matters noted when smaller firms called for more flexibility in the government’s affordable housing plans.

Reed is now understood to be weighing a more radical intervention. Under the plans, money currently allocated to Homes England would be used to set up a new, arm’s-length body to oversee housebuilding.

The organisation would use that funding to buy land and bring forward projects. It would not pick up the trowel itself, instead contracting private firms to build, a structure that could open up work for the SME contractors who have seen their share of the market shrink for decades. It could also be handed borrowing powers, which would let it grow into a far larger entity, though at the cost of higher government debt.

The state-owned developer would build homes of all kinds. In one version of the idea it would put up commercially available properties, which could see it compete head-on with some of the country’s biggest housebuilders. It would also deliver affordable homes, taking on part of the role currently played by housing associations, many of them so cash-strapped that they are struggling to buy up the subsidised properties private developers have already built.

The scheme would be piloted in a small area first, and those familiar with it say it would not be allowed to grow so large that it undermined the private sector.

Reed’s policy exploration lands at a moment when many ministers are eyeing ideas that might appeal to an incoming Burnham administration. The housing secretary has been one of Sir Keir’s most loyal allies and defended him even in the final days before the resignation. He did not, however, appear on the steps of Downing Street for the resignation speech, and turned up in the Commons later for Burnham’s inaugural photograph as Makerfield MP.

Burnham is likely to be named Labour leader on 17 July and take office three days later. He is expected to set out early thinking on devolution and the economy in a speech in Manchester on Monday.

Ministers are now barred from announcing new policy, and some have already come unstuck for floating ideas. In an article last week for the Times, the Home Office minister Mike Tapp suggested exempting foreign care workers from plans to make settled status harder to obtain for migrants. The piece triggered a government row, with the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, accusing him of leaking internal departmental plans and demanding the prime minister sack him. Number 10 said Tapp would be “reminded” of his duty to collective responsibility, but that appointments and dismissals remained in Sir Keir’s hands.

A spokesperson for the housing department said: “New housing starts have increased by nearly a quarter compared to the same time last year, while last year also saw council housing completions at their highest since 1992. We are always looking at ways that we can go further and build the homes we need.”

For Britain’s small builders, the question is whether a state-owned developer ends up as a customer, a competitor, or both.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.

VINCI boss says ‘We have loads of connections and will be following them up ‘

The company awarded the main contract to build the Eden Project in Morecambe says they will ensure there are opportunities for smaller firms and young people during the build.

VINCI Construction is to create the Eden attraction on Morecambe’s seafront, where a ground-breaking ceremony was held last week marking the first phase of garden work starting this summer.

The Eden scheme includes two shell-shaped domes, a significant reduction on the four originally planned, and is expected to kickstart Morecambe’s regeneration and the wider regional economy. Eden bosses said the original Eden Project in Cornwall has generated £6.8billion for the local economy over 25 years.

Speaking at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool at an event to celebrate the start of the building phase, VINCI’s Nick Hamer mentioned other large projects that had completed in the region. He said: “With the Blackpool King Street office, 52 per cent of supplier contracts, worth £38m, was spent within 30 miles. And a higher ration went within 50 miles.

“And we have done work all over the north-west including Kendal and Preston. We have loads of connections and will be following them up for Eden in Morecambe.”

VINCI said they had 200 staff and a lot had been with them for many years after completing apprenticeships, HNC courses and day-release courses at university.

Richard Slater, contracts manager, said they hope to employ people from Morecambe on this project.

He highlighted VINCI projects including a Royal Preston Hospital extension, the Radcliffe Civic Hub in Greater Manchester and the One Central Park offices in east Manchester.

He added: “Radcliffe Civic Hub has really transformed the area and got young people into construction, who will hopefully stay with us for a few years.”

On regional economies, Eden Morecambe boss John Pye said: “Over the past 25 years, the Eden Project in Cornwall has attracted 25 million visitors, £630million has been spent locally with suppliers and there has been an economic impact of £6.8billion across the region.

“Can you imagine what Morecambe will get over 25 years? Eden has really strong local connections in Cornwall and it’s important that we ground this approach in Morecambe too.

“We’ve already held supplier events and people have asked how they can get involved. Now VINCI will be putting a rocket under all that to super-boost our relationships.”

Other organisations involved with Eden include Lancaster & Morecambe College. The ground-breaking ceremony included VIPs posing with a giant 7 ft spade made by college welding and joinery students. It showed their skills including wood splaying of a single piece of timber, taken from a felled tree at the college.

Ryan Williams and Phil Allott head the college’s construction engineering and engineering courses. Ryan said: “The college has been involved with Eden for some time and our work together is going to be hugely important for young people and the town.

The Morecambe Bay Curriculum has been developed and gives a clear route for youngsters through school and college. It has a focus on sustainability including building materials and techniques, recycling and minimising waste.

“Eden will also help us get young people work-ready through work experience and other visits. This will give youngsters important ‘soft skills’, such as communicating and team working, in addition to practical skills and qualifications.

“Also our students want to feel that people care about Morecambe. So there is a lot of positivity about all this and they’re very proud of what’s happening.”

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

In an exchange filing on Thursday, the company said the designation makes it one of a select group of companies globally authorised to sell, integrate, and support Anthropic’s Claude models for enterprise customers through Amazon Bedrock.

Hexaware said the partnership aligns with its AI-focused strategy and will enable it to offer services across the AI lifecycle, including model access, customisation, implementation, and managed services. The company added that Claude’s capabilities and context window make it suitable for enterprise applications across sectors such as financial services, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and retail.

“This authorisation reflects the Foundational AI capability that we’ve built and the trust our clients have placed in us. Claude’s safety-first design is what highly regulated industries need—and Hexaware has the domain knowledge, engineering excellence, and delivery scale to take it from a model to a working solution,” said Siddharth Dhar, President & Global Head – Digital IT Operations & AI, Hexaware.

Also Read | Astral shares drop 6% after demerger. What should investors do?

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What does it mean for the company?

Hexaware Technologies’ status as an Anthropic Authorised Reseller for Amazon Bedrock is expected to provide enterprise customers with benefits such as direct access to Claude models, end-to-end AI delivery, built-in responsible AI capabilities, scalable customisation, unified engagement, and faster innovation.
Hexaware’s authorised reseller status strengthens the company’s ability to deliver Claude-powered solutions across key use cases, including intelligent document processing, automated compliance, advanced customer service, clinical data summarisation, supply chain intelligence, and AI-assisted software engineering.
The company is scaling these Claude-first solutions for clients, prioritising AI in the software development life cycle (SDLC), private equity transformation, and cybersecurity. The company has also established a dedicated AI centre of excellence (CoE) to support its AI strategy, architecture, and implementation across its global delivery network.

Hexaware Technologies Share Price

In the past three months, the shares of Hexaware Technologies rallied upto 20.53% and in the past one month, the shares went up 4.97%. In 2026 so far, the shares of Hexaware Technologies went down 29.58% and it crashed 27.49% in the past six months.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

If you have any mutual fund queries, message on ET Mutual Funds on Facebook/Twitter. We will get it answered by our panel of experts. Do share your questions on ETMFqueries@timesinternet.in alongwith your age, risk profile, and twitter handle

Exports of Scottish salmon to the United States have almost halved and the value of whisky shipments has fallen by a quarter, as President Trump’s tariffs continue to bite into two of Britain’s flagship food and drink trades.

Salmon sales to America dropped by 45.6 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, to £68 million, according to the latest Trade Snapshot from the Food and Drink Federation (FDF). The value of Scotch shipments to the US fell by 27 per cent to £182.1 million over the same period, with volumes down 14.7 per cent.

Across all categories, total UK food and drink sales to the US fell by 28 per cent to £529.6 million, with exports of gin, infant food, cheese, wine and other spirits to America all in retreat.

Trump introduced his initial set of tariffs in April last year. Although the UK secured a trade agreement covering some products, a US Supreme Court ruling meant most countries were eventually reset to an additional 10 per cent duty. In April, the president signalled he would lift the levy on Scotch following the state visit of the King and Queen, a move Business Matters reported on when Trump scrapped US whisky tariffs after the royal visit. The Q1 figures, however, capture a market still labouring under the duty.

The pain is not confined to the US. The FDF said total food and drink exports to all markets fell by 4.8 per cent to £5.7 billion, while volumes dropped 8.9 per cent to two million tonnes, the lowest in a decade outside the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Karen Betts, chief executive of the FDF, said it was concerning to see UK companies struggling to compete overseas. “The costs of producing food and drink in the UK are higher than in many competitor economies, from energy to employment, and constantly changing regulation only adds to these,” she said.

Salmon Scotland, the industry body, acknowledged the challenges but pointed to continued strength in important global markets. “Production levels have stayed steady and there are signs that more salmon is being sold at home, reflecting strong demand,” it said. “At the same time, global uncertainty has pushed up freight and insurance costs, making it more challenging to export to some markets.” The body has previously pressed ministers to go further, urging fresh talks to scrap the 10 per cent US tariff after the UK-US trade deal

For Scotch, the US remains the single most valuable market, and the industry’s reliance on it leaves distillers exposed whenever Washington reaches for tariffs. The Scotch Whisky Association has long warned that the spirit’s status as an internationally traded product makes open access to overseas markets central to the sector’s health.

The broader question for British exporters is whether these figures mark a temporary dip or a more durable loss of ground, a theme explored in our recent analysis of how Trump’s tariffs are squeezing UK exports. With imports from America up 11.5 per cent and the UK’s food and drink trade surplus with the US sharply narrower, the worry in boardrooms from Speyside to the sea lochs of the west coast is that customers, once lost to cheaper rivals in Chile or elsewhere, may prove hard to win back.

Amy Ingham

Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK’s largest print and online source of current business news.

After presenting the Union Budget in February this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government will restructure PFC and REC in order to streamline operations. After receiving the respective boards’ nod, the merger scheme now needs approvals from shareholders, stock exchanges, market regulator Sebi, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and other statutory authorities before becoming effective.

The share swap ratio has been fixed at 88 PFC shares for every 100 REC shares held. This means that an REC shareholder who owns 100 shares of the company as of the record date will get 100 shares of PFC once the merger takes effect. Her total holding of 100 shares in REC, meanwhile, will be cancelled.

“The share exchange ratio for the proposed merger of REC into PFC shall be 88 equity shares of PFC of Rs 10 each fully paid up for every 100 equity shares of REC of Rs 10 each,” the companies said in an exchange filing.

Also read: PFC-REC merger approved! Here’s what will happen to your existing shares after mega merger

The record date to determine the eligibility of shareholders for the mega merger is yet to be ascertained. Only those REC shareholders who own shares of the company as of the record date will be eligible to receive PFC shares as per the share swap ratio after the merger takes effect.

What is the rationale behind PFC-REC merger?

In its exchange filing, PFC listed several benefits that REC’s merger into the company will bring. The merged entity will emerge as the government’s principal institution for implementing power sector reforms and flagship programmes, serving as the primary vehicle for translating national policy objectives into measurable sectoral outcomes, it said, adding that this would maximise the effectiveness, reach and impact of government initiatives.

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“As India moves towards the ambitious goal of Viksit Bharat 2047, the power sector will require substantial capital investment. On a consolidated basis, the merged entity is expected to benefit from improved balance sheet strength, stronger capital base, and higher operational efficiencies, enabling large-scale funding and improved credit flow across the power sector value chain,” PFC added. It further said that the merged entity would serve as a key financier
of India’s energy transition and strategic infrastructure buildout.
The mega merger is also expected to strengthen the balance sheet, improve borrowing capacity and financial flexibility, and the resulting company would become the primary vehicle for implementing a majority of government schemes for the power sector.

REC shareholding pattern

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs earlier cleared a proposal under which PFC acquired 52.63% of the government’s holding in REC. With this acquisition, PFC and REC are currently operating in a holding subsidiary structure. The proposed merger would consolidate the two entities into a single balance sheet, subject to statutory approvals and detailed structuring.Around 37 mutual funds held over 9% stake in the company, as per data on the company’s shareholding pattern as on March 31, 2026. 26 insurance companies held nearly 6% stake, while Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) owned around 3% stake.

Nearly 11.69 lakh retail shareholders owned more than 10% stake in REC, as at the end of the January-March quarter.

Also read: PFC, REC boards approve merger scheme, share exchange ratio at 88 PFC shares for every 100 REC shares

PFC & REC’s net worth

PFC had a consolidated net worth of Rs 1.73 lakh crore for the financial year 2026. Its turnover meanwhile stood at Rs 1.15 lakh crore.

REC’s net worth and turnover during the same financial year stood at Rs 85,054 crore and Rs 59,584 crore respectively.

PFC shares dropped over 2% to trade at Rs 422.20 apiece on NSE on Monday morning. The company has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 1.41 lakh crore.

REC shares meanwhile rose around 1% to trade at Rs 367.95 apiece. The company has a market capitalisation of Rs 96,244 crore.

Also read: Kotak Mahindra Bank shares fall 3% after CEO’s surprise exit. What Nomura, Jefferies said

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Air conditioning firms say business is booming, with one reporting that enquiries for home units have climbed by 300% as Britain swelters through its hottest June on record.

Shoppers rushed to snap up portable units after a red extreme heat warning was put in place for millions of people and temperatures climbed to 36.7C, the highest figure ever recorded for the month in the UK, according to the Met Office. Schools closed, transport was disrupted and people across the country went searching for cooler spaces in which to work or rest.

For installers, the spike in demand has been transformational. At Aircon Services in Tamworth, domestic enquiries have risen by 300% over the past six years, with the current heatwave pushing the firm from roughly two enquiries a week to about 25.

“People are not willing to tolerate the heat any more,” said co-founder Marc Newbold, who added that air conditioning was starting to be viewed as a necessity rather than a luxury. “We are stacking up bookings for weeks to come and the enquiries are difficult to keep up with, but it creates a lot of business.”

The numbers point to a structural shift rather than a one-off summer scramble. Just 4% of homes in England currently have air conditioning, according to the University of Reading, yet the National Housing Federation (NHF) predicts that 90% of UK homes will overheat by 2050. British housing stock has historically been designed for the cold, with the aim of trapping heat in rather than keeping it out, leaving millions of properties poorly suited to the more frequent and intense heatwaves driven by climate change.

Overheating occurs when indoor temperatures rise to an uncomfortable level, typically above 25C to 27C, and the NHF warns that it is more likely to affect lower-income households that may not be able to afford cooling measures. “Many homes are unable to maintain comfortable temperatures during the more frequent and intense heatwaves we are experiencing as a result of climate change,” the federation said. Prolonged exposure to high indoor temperatures is linked to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, cardiovascular problems, sleep disturbance and mental health issues.

Finding an air conditioned space has become a topic of conversation for many. Churches, community centres, museums and libraries have stepped in with free “cool spaces”, helping people escape the rising temperatures. But a growing number are going further and installing air conditioning at home.

Cost is proving less of a barrier than it once was. Cooling a small bedroom can run to about £1,500, but Newbold said customers increasingly see it as an investment in comfort rather than an expense, particularly as the units are designed to last around 15 years. “It’s not just a one-year purchase,” he said. The firm, which also fits systems for hotels, shops and offices, is among many smaller operators finding that the heat is reshaping their order books, even as the wider economy counts the cost of soaring temperatures on small businesses and productivity.

For owner-managers, the lesson runs deeper than a hot summer. Repeated heatwaves are quietly rewriting consumer demand, from the retail sales lift that fans and cooling products enjoy to the longer-term maintenance and servicing market that follows every new installation. For the SMEs positioned to meet it, what once looked like a seasonal flurry is starting to resemble a permanent line of business.

Amy Ingham

Amy is a newly qualified journalist specialising in business journalism at Business Matters with responsibility for news content for what is now the UK’s largest print and online source of current business news.

NOGALES, Mexico — As the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie marks its fifth month, a group of volunteers in this Mexican border city continues to search for the missing 84-year-old, even as they carry the weight of their own families’ losses, marching through downtown streets chanting “¿Nuestros hijos, dónde están?” — “Where are our children?”

The volunteers belong to Buscando Corazones, or “Searching for Hearts,” a grassroots search collective whose members are searching for Guthrie even as most of them are also still looking for their own missing relatives.

A search rooted in shared grief

For the women leading the search efforts, the motivation to look for an American they have never met comes from a place of deep personal understanding. “Nancy is a mother,” Luz del Rayo Lopez Carrillo, a member of Buscando Corazones, said in Spanish. “Because of that, we have to search for her — no matter her nationality, no matter whether she’s rich or poor. To us, she’s a mother, just like we are, and that’s why we’re searching for her.”

Lopez Carrillo’s own search is personal in the most direct sense. Her son, Dante Esau Lopez Carrillo, remains missing, and she described the torment of not knowing his fate. “We don’t know where he is, how he is, whether he’s alive, if he’s being tortured… if he’s being forced to do work he doesn’t want to do, if they’re forcing him into drugs,” she said. “It’s incredibly difficult.”

She is not alone in carrying that burden while continuing to search for Guthrie. “They didn’t just make my son disappear; they made our entire family disappear,” said Alma Griselda Ramirez Games, another Buscando Corazones volunteer, whose son, Pablo Ivan Dorame Ramirez, is also missing.

A search built on persistence despite repeated setbacks

The group’s involvement in Guthrie’s case began after an anonymous tip in mid-May suggested her remains might be found in the desert near a region known as Mariposa, close to the U.S.-Mexico border southwest of Nogales. Guadalupe Ramona Ayala Ortiz, who leads the group, has said the caller provided specific details about clothing and identifying characteristics meant to help confirm whether searchers had located the right person.

Despite multiple searches, including operations conducted in mid-May and on June 10, June 16 and June 17, volunteers have not found any trace of Guthrie. The group has said it will continue returning to the area regardless. “Every time we go out, we hope to bring a heart, a treasure, back home,” Ayala Ortiz said in Spanish.

The repeated searches have not been without consequence for the broader missing-persons crisis in the region. While searching for Guthrie, the group has uncovered roughly 25 unmarked graves in the area, none of which have been connected to her. Lopez Carrillo described the toll such discoveries take. “It’s an undignified death. It’s a death of abandonment,” she said, reflecting on the broader scale of disappearances the group regularly encounters in its work.

Coordination questions between U.S. and Mexican authorities

The searches have raised questions about the level of coordination between law enforcement on both sides of the border. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos addressed the Mexican search efforts directly in a statement posted to social media. “We are aware of reports regarding an anonymous tip related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation that was provided to a group in Mexico,” Nanos wrote. “At this time, we have not been contacted by Mexican authorities. The investigation remains active and ongoing, and we will continue to follow up on any credible information.”

Mexican officials, for their part, have said there is no evidence supporting the claims behind the searches. According to a statement from Sonora state officials, “There is no evidence, information, or objective elements suggesting that U.S. citizen Nancy Guthrie entered, remained in, or traveled through the state of Sonora.”

Former FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC15 that close law enforcement involvement is essential in searches of this kind, regardless of who is leading them. “You really have to have law enforcement’s hands on there, because evidence could get destroyed,” Garrett said. Ayala Ortiz has said that while local Nogales police often accompany the group during its marches and searches, they are not formally part of the investigation, and that no U.S. law enforcement personnel have participated in the field operations.

A crisis far larger than one case

The volunteers’ commitment to Guthrie’s case sits alongside a much larger, ongoing missing-persons crisis in Nogales itself. The group says it is currently tracking nearly 650 people reported missing in the city, and members have said they want the faces of those lost to remain visible to the public, even as international attention has focused overwhelmingly on a single American case.

Elizabeth Lopez Vazquez, another volunteer whose son, Vicente Acosta Lopez, is missing, described the daily reality faced by families like hers. “For mothers and fathers searching for their loved ones, there are no holidays,” she said in Spanish. “There’s always an empty place at the table, because someone is missing.”

A connection across borders

For the Guthrie family, the searches in Mexico represent one more thread of hope in an investigation that has stretched far longer than anyone anticipated. Savannah Guthrie, the “Today” show co-anchor and Nancy’s daughter, has repeatedly appealed publicly for information about her mother’s fate. “We beg you now, to return our mother to us,” she said in an earlier video posted to social media alongside her siblings. In a separate message directed at whoever might be responsible, she said, “To whoever has her, or knows where she is, it is never too late to do the right thing.”

Lopez Carrillo, reflecting on the shared bond between the Guthrie family and the families she works alongside in Mexico, framed the search in terms of solidarity rather than distance. “We don’t search for someone else’s child. We search as if they’re our own,” she said. “We take on that identity. Maybe Nancy’s family can’t come search for her, but my fellow volunteers and I can search in her place.” She added simply, “Together, we become one mother.”

Where the case stands

Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her Catalina Foothills home near Tucson on the evening of January 31 and was reported missing the following day. Authorities believe she was taken against her will. Despite a $1 million reward from her family, additional rewards from the FBI and a regional crime-reporting organization, and the ongoing volunteer search effort in Mexico, no suspect has been publicly named in the case nearly five months later.

Anyone with information related to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or through tips.fbi.gov, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4600.