Tuesday newspaper round-up: Nationwide, Covid debt, Heathrow

Rishi Sunak’s multibillion-pound economic response to Covid-19 has been criticised for lacking transparency by the incoming head of the Treasury’s independent tax and spending watchdog. Richard Hughes, the economist picked by the chancellor to lead the Office for Budget Responsibility, told MPs on the Commons Treasury committee that taxpayers lacked enough information to know whether the measures outlined by Sunak at last week’s summer statement would be cost effective. - Guardian

Nationwide building society has returned to the high loan-to-value mortgage market, cutting the deposits it requests from first-time buyers following last week’s announcement of a stamp duty holiday. But in a sign that lenders are uncertain about the direction of the housing market, it has capped loans at 90% and introduced new hurdles for would-be borrowers. – Guardian

A massive write-off of toxic Covid debt may be the only way to save the economy from stagnation as thousands of businesses struggle to survive, the new head of the spending watchdog has warned. – Telegraph

The government has been accused of dragging its feet on corporate reforms and changes to the regulation of auditing months after it was urged to make progress in light of the failure of Thomas Cook. Darren Jones, chairman of the Commons business select committee, said the business department needed to show “far more urgency” after it declined to give a date for primary legislation on audit reform. – The Times

The government has to trust Heathrow to be able to manage Covid-19 monitoring if it wants to kickstart the UK economy and get the aviation industry and long-haul travel back up in the air. That is the plea from Britain’s biggest airport as it reported that in June passenger traffic through Heathrow was down 95 per cent year on year. – The Times