Friday newspaper round-up: Aston Martin, Waitrose, Thames Water
A wide-ranging review of gambling laws to be launched next week will consider banning sports sponsorship and limiting online casino stakes among a “reformer’s shopping list” of proposals to overhaul gambling laws, the Guardian can reveal. The long-awaited review, which could roll back vast swathes of the 2005 Gambling Act 2005, will begin as soon as Monday with an initial call for evidence. - Guardian
The boss of Aston Martin has called for an internal investigation after the British carmaker was accused of using a “sockpuppet PR firm” to legitimise a report which used data criticised as misleading to discredit electric vehicles. The new chief executive, Tobias Moers, said Aston Martin’s involvement in the widely discredited report began before he joined the company last August, and that he was not aware of its contents before it was published. - Guardian
Waitrose has refused to join the raft of supermarkets pledging to repay business rates relief claimed during the pandemic, blaming struggling sales at sister company John Lewis. A flurry of supermarkets have committed to hand back billions of pounds in rates relief designed to support firms throughout the coronavirus crisis after Tesco surprised rivals by saying it would return £585m in Covid tax breaks to the Treasury. - Telegraph
Thames Water has again been named the worst water company in the country by the industry’s regulator. The London and Thames Valley supplier and waste handler has been reprimanded by Ofwat alongside the other poorest performers, Southern Water and Affinity Water, which is an agglomeration of water supply companies in the Home Counties. Hafren Dyfrdwy, the former Dee Valley supplier on the Welsh-English border and owned by Severn Trent, joins them at the bottom of Ofwat’s league. - The Times
Hundreds of Rolls-Royce factory workers face an uncertain Christmas as the aircraft engine maker revealed the latest details of its deep cost-cutting, in a statement that helped to send its shares up by more than 15 per cent and made it the top riser in the FTSE 100. The Derby-based company is suffering from the collapse in air travel — it usually receives billions of pounds a year tied to engine-flying hours — and the halving in production at Airbus and Boeing, its main customers. - The Times