Economics / Markets

The Queen has unveiled 19 new pieces of legislation in her annual speech to open Parliament, focusing on boosting the UK economy with a raft of business-friendly measures.

The Queen has confirmed the government will introduce legislation to reform public sector pensions, changing the schemes from final salary set ups to career average arrangements.

The platform market recovered momentum in Q1 with assets under administration (AUM) growing nearly 10% on the back of rising stock markets, research has found.

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Senior Liberal Democrats believe the party may have to "disengage" from government early to avoid a heavy defeat at the next general election in 2015, according to reports.

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Société Générale strategist Albert Edwards has warned investors who own Australian government debt they face the 'mother of all hard landings' if China's economy slows down as they expect.

Miners dragged the FTSE 100 down this morning after Australia cut its economic growth forecast, with investors also nervous ahead of key US jobs data.

Part-nationalised lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to repay the final tranche of the £163bn in emergency loans during the financial crisis and will resume paying dividends on its preference shares.

Think-tank NIESR has warned rising unemployment rates, which will hit 9% by the end of the year, will do permanent damage to the UK's productive capacity.