Thursday newspaper round-up: BT, House prices, Minimum wage

BT has been accused of fudging its figures to avoid penalties over the installation of fibre-optic cables after the telecoms regulator launched an investigation into its excuses when it fails to connect lines in time.Openreach, the engineering division of BT, is set stringent targets for completing the installation of fibre-optic cables for consumers and those needed by BT’s rivals to run superfast broadband services for businesses and to link mobile phone towers to the main network. – The Times

House prices in the UK will end the year 6% higher than they started it, a group of surveyors has predicted. The strong jobs market and low mortgage rates have supported demand from buyers, while the number of homes coming on to the market remains at its lowest level in at least three decades, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said. – The Guardian

John Cridland, the outgoing director general of the CBI, believes the government’s plan to push up the minimum wage for the over-25s is a gamble. The flagship policy of George Osborne’s summer budget was his “national living wage” – a 50p increase in the statutory minimum pay rate for the over-25s from April, to £7.20 an hour, followed by a series of stepped increases expected to take the rate above £9 an hour by 2020. – The Guardian

Consumers could end up paying more than £40bn in subsidies to support Hinkley Point C, Britain’s first new nuclear power station in 20 years, an expert on Europe’s nuclear industry has warned. Antony Froggatt, senior research fellow for energy at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, said that the figure was based on a forecast of the extra payouts made by households to EDF Energy, the French state-controlled energy group, during the 35-year lifespan of a contract signed by the government in 2013. – The Times

Global rules for foreign exchange traders will make it easier for the authorities to root out the bad apples in the market, central bankers have said, as they seek to clean up the industry in the wake of a series of scandals. Banks have been fined a total of more than £6bn so far by British and US regulators for manipulating foreign exchange benchmarks – the prices on which large numbers of trades in the $5.3trn-per-day market are based. – The Daily Telegraph

Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) is investing up to £9m in Hamsin Wind, funding the roll-out of about 200 small onshore wind turbines at a “significant” number of rural sites in the Highlands and Islands. The investment marks the completion of SEP’s first clean energy infrastructure investment from the Environmental Capital Fund (ECF), which launched last year, and Hamlin could save more than 5,000 tonnes a year of CO2 or some 100,000 tonnes over the life of the turbines. – The Scotsman