Ulf Kristersson’s comments come ahead of the parliamentary election taking place this Sunday in Brussels The European Commission has said it is assessing whether Ukraine has a funding shortfall, amid renewed pressure to use Russia’s frozen assets to aid Kyiv. “That [frozen assets] is not a primary focus. We have worked extensively on this and now the focus is somewhere else.” “So we’ve got to carry out that work first. We need to establish the needs before we can potentially discuss ways of addressing it.” Continue reading...

Business secretary says masked anti-immigration protest was ‘not something we would want’ on British streets A cabinet minister has condemned the blocking of Dover roads by dozens of masked and black-clad people on Saturday. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said that although peaceful protest was an “essential part of British life”, this differed from “dressing up in costumes like this and disrupting people’s lives”. Continue reading...

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Law firms seek up to £4.5bn on behalf of 700,000 buyers of new-build homes * Business live – latest updates Britain’s biggest housebuilders, including Barratt Redrow and Taylor Wimpey, face a multibillion-pound class action lawsuit over claims that they colluded over higher prices for homebuyers. The lawsuit is being led by Mark McLaren, a former legal affairs manager at the consumer group Which?, on behalf of more than 700,000 consumers who bought a new-build between 2015 and 2026, against Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley Group, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey, Vistry Group and Bloor Homes. Continue reading...