Budget airline Jetstar Asia to close in weeks, customers offered refunds

Singapore-based budget airline Jetstar Asia will close down at the end of July, with affected passengers to be offered full refunds.

The low-cost airline has struggled with rising supplier costs, high airport fees and increased competition in the region. More than 500 employees will be laid off.

The shutdown of Jetstar Asia will not impact the operations of Australia-based Jetstar Airways, nor those of Jetstar Japan, according to its part-owner Qantas.

The budget carrier will offer a progressively reduced service over the next seven weeks and travellers will be notified if their flight is affected. Passengers with tickets to fly after the 31 July closure will be contacted by the airline.

Some affected customers could be moved onto alternative flights operated by the Qantas Group. Jetstar Asia is advising people who booked through a travel agent or separate airline to contact those providers directly.

Sixteen routes across Asia will be impacted by the shutdown, including flights from Singapore to destinations in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The closure of Qantas' low-cost arm will provide Australia's national airline with A$500m ($325.9m; £241.4m) to invest towards renewing its fleet of aircraft. It will also redeploy 13 planes for routes across Australia and New Zealand.

"We have seen some of Jetstar Asia's supplier costs increase by up to 200%, which has materially changed its cost base," said Qantas Group Chief Executive Vanessa Hudson in a statement.

The discount airline, which has operated flights for over 20 years, is set to make a A$35m loss this financial year.

Fifty one per cent of the company is owned by Singapore firm Westbrook Investments, with the remainder held by Qantas.

Former customers have expressed their shock and sadness at its closure.

In a comment under Jetstar Asia's Facebook post about the shutdown, one user said they were "very saddened to hear this news about a very warm, efficient, wonderful airline".

Another thanked the airline for "opening up and popularising the budget travel market".

All employees affected by Wednesday's announcement will be provided with redundancy benefits.

"We have an exceptional team who provide world leading customer service and best in class operational performance and our focus is on supporting them through this process and helping them to find new roles in the industry," said Jetstar Group chief executive Stephanie Tully.

Qantas, Australia's national carrier, will continue to provide low-cost flights to Asia through its Jetstar Airways arm, which offers services from Australia to destinations in Thailand, Indonesia and Japan, among others.

Jetstar Asia was launched in 2004 as Qantas looked to gain a foothold in the growing low-cost air travel market in Asia, but has faced increased competition from other budget outlets including AirAsia and Scoot.

World Bank predicts worst decade for global growth since 60s

The global economy will see the slowest decade for global growth since the 1960s as the effect of Donald Trump's tariffs are felt, the World Bank has predicted.

Nearly two thirds of countries in the world had their growth forecasts cut from the bank's last set of predictions six months ago.

The bank predicts global growth of only 2.3% in 2025, which is 0.4% lower than was forecast in January, and for 2027, it predicts growth of 2.6%

Japan, Europe and the US were among those downgraded in the bank's twice yearly report.

The bank's last set of forecasts in January were made before Donald Trump took office.

Since then, his introduction of a universal 10% tariff on all imports into the US, as well as higher tariffs on steel and aluminium, caused financial markets to plunge in early April.

A trade ruling found the bulk of his global tariffs to be illegal in May, although the Trump administration won an appeal to keep them in place for now.

The World Bank downgraded its growth forecast for the US in both 2025 and 2026, because of escalating trade tensions rattling investor confidence as well as private consumption.

However, it did not downgrade the US's main rival, China, which the bank said had enough financial stability to weather the "significant headwinds" from global political uncertainty.

"Against the backdrop of heightened policy uncertainty and increased trade barriers, the global economic context has become more challenging," the report said, adding that more "sentiment-sapping policy uncertainty" would come because of the potential for "further rapid shifts" in trade-restrictive moves by countries.

The bank said there would be further cuts in growth if the US increased tariffs, and warned of rising inflation.

Tariffs could lead to "global trade seizing up in the second half of this year, accompanied by a widespread collapse in confidence, surging uncertainty and turmoil in financial markets," the report said.

However, it stopped short of predicting a global recession, saying the chances of that were less than 10%.

The report comes after theOECD also downgradedits outlook for the world economy. It said global growth is now expected to slow to a "modest" 2.9%, down from a previous forecast of 3.1%.

In the mean time, anew round of talksaimed at resolving the trade war between the US and China has taken place in central London.

Twix ad banned for encouraging unsafe driving

A TV ad for chocolate bar Twix has been banned for encouraging unsafe driving.

The advert shows a man with flowing hair involved in a car chase and crash that results in his and an identical, caramel-coloured car sandwiched on top of each other, like a Twix.

Five complaints issued against the advert said it encouraged dangerous driving and was irresponsible.

Mars-Wrigley, who own Twix, argued that the ad had a "cinematic presentation" and was set in a "world that was absurd, fantastical and removed from reality", which Clearcast, the non-governmental organisation that approves adverts before broadcast, echoed.

But the watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the ad "must not appear again" in its current form because it "condoned unsafe driving".

While the ASA acknowledged that the stunt performed highlighted the fantastical nature of the advert, it took issue with the first half of the video that showed driving "that appeared likely to breach the legal requirements of the Highway Code".

It said there was an "emphasis on speed" including with "fast paced beat and music" in the car chase, noting the "visible skid marks" left on the road.

Mars defended the advert, saying "the cars were shot driving at lawful speeds and any emulation would only reflect the legal and safe driving presented".

The sweet giant, who also own M&Ms, Celebrations and Maltesers, added that Twix is known for its absurd and playful humour, which was reflected in the advert.

The final scene shows a Twix bar falling through the sunroofs of the two cars, before they drive off – still attached – and with the tagline "two is more than one".

For its part, Clearcast told the ASA that the style of the video made it clear it wasn't meant to be emulated nor did it suggest "safe driving was boring."

In the ASA's ruling, it said it told Mars "not to condone or encourage irresponsible driving that was likely to breach the legal requirements of the Highway Code in their ads."

Heathrow expansion ‘essential’ after busiest May

Heathrow says expansion of the airport is "essential", after experiencing its busiest May on record.

More than 7.2 million passengers travelled through its four terminals last month, up 0.4% from a year ago.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: "As these record numbers become the norm, it's time to start an honest conversation about the challenges this presents for an already space-constrained yet highly efficient hub."

Opponents of the west London airport's expansion say increasing air travel would make it much harder for the UK to meet its climate change commitments. The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan,opposes a third runway at Heathrow for this reason as well as because of noise and air pollution.

Heathrow's spokesperson said: "Heathrow continues to deliver excellent service, but to sustain this performance and meet future demand, expanding capacity will be essential."

The airport has previously said it will submit detailed plans for building a third runway to the government in the summer.

Chancellor Rachel Reevesused a speech on growth in January to give her support to the project, which has been repeatedly delayed over several decades because of environmental concerns.

Friends of the Earth has previously described the expansion plans as "hugely irresponsible".

Alethea Warrington, head of aviation at climate charity Possible, said in January: "This huge increase in emissions won't help our economy, and would just encourage the small group of frequent flyers who take most of the flights."

People living in nearby Harmondsworthtold the BBC earlier this yearthat if the expansion plans went ahead, "three-quarters of the village would be demolished" and it would no longer be a "viable community".

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WhatsApp tells BBC it backs Apple in legal row with UK over user data

WhatsApp has told the BBC it is supporting fellow tech giant Apple in its legal fight against the UK Home Office over the privacy of its users' data.

The messaging app's boss, Will Cathcart, said the case "could set a dangerous precedent" by "emboldening other nations" to seek to break encryption, which is how tech firms keep customers' information private.

Apple went to the courts after receiving a notice from the Home Office demanding the right to access the data of its global customers if required in the interests of national security.

It and other critics of the government's position say the request compromises the privacy of millions of users.

The Home Office told the BBC it would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

"But more broadly, the UK has a longstanding position of protecting our citizens from the very worst crimes, such as child sex abuse and terrorism, at the same time as protecting people's privacy," it said in a statement.

WhatsApp has applied to submit evidence to the court which is hearing Apple's bid to have the Home Office request overturned.

Mr Cathcart said: "WhatsApp would challenge any law or government request that seeks to weaken the encryption of our services and will continue to stand up for people's right to a private conversation online."

This intervention from the Meta-owned platform represents a major escalation in what was an already extremely high-profile and awkward dispute between the UK and the US.

Apple's row with the UK government erupted in February, when it emerged ministers were seeking the right to be able to access information secured by its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) system.

The argument intensified in the weeks that followed, with Apple first pulling ADP in the UK, and thentaking legal actionagainst the Home Office.

It alsosparked outrageamong US politicians, with some saying it was a "dangerous attack on US cybersecurity" and urging the US government to rethink its intelligence-sharing arrangements with the UK if the notice was not withdrawn.

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of US National Intelligence,described itas an "egregious violation" of US citizens' privacy.

Civil liberties groups also attacked the UK government, saying what it was demanding had privacy and security implications for people around the world.

The campaign organisation Open Rights Group welcomed WhatsApp seeking to become involved in the case.

"WhatsApp's intervention shows the breadth of concern about the threat to privacy and security," said Jim Killock, its executive director.

"It's important that the court hears from as many companies and organisations as possible so they understand the full impact of what the Home Office is trying to do," he added.

Apple's ADP applies end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to files such as photos and notes stored on the iCloud, meaning only the user has the "key" required to view them.

The same technology protects a number of messaging services, including WhatsApp.

That makes them very secure but poses a problem for law enforcement agencies.

They can ask to see data with lower levels of protection – if they have a court warrant – but tech firms currently have no way to provide access to E2EE files, because no such mechanism currently exists.

Tech companies have traditionally resisted creating such a mechanism not just because they say it would compromise users' privacy but because there would be no way of preventing it eventually being exploited by criminals.

In 2023, WhatsApp said it wouldrather be blocked as a servicethan weaken E2EE.

When Apple pulled ADP in the UK it said it did not want to create a "backdoor" that "bad actors" could take advantage of.

Further complicating the argument is that the Home Office has submitted its request to Apple via what it is known as a Technical Capability Notice (TCN), something which by law is secret

Neither Apple nor the Home Office has confirmed its existence. WhatsApp says so far it has not received a TCN.

When the matter came to court, government lawyers argued that the case should not be made in public in any way for national security reasons.

However, in April,a judge agreed witha number of news organisations, including the BBC, and said certain details should be made public.

"It would have been a truly extraordinary step to conduct a hearing entirely in secret without any public revelation of the fact that a hearing was taking place," his ruling stated.

In its statement to the BBC, the Home Office said: "The UK has robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy and these specific powers are only used on an exceptional basis, in relation to the most serious crimes and only when it is necessary and proportionate to do so."

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Elon Musk says he regrets some posts about Donald Trump

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he regrets some of the posts he made about US President Donald Trump during their war of words on social media.

"They went too far," he wrote on his social media platform X.

The two were embroiled in a public fallout after the Tesla owner stepped back from his White House role and called Trump's tax bill a "disgusting abomination".

His post comes after Trump said he was open to the possibility of reconciliation in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday. The president said he was a "little disappointed" about the fallout, but there were "no hard feelings".

"I think he feels very badly that he said that," Trump said of Musk's blistering social media barrage.

The budget, which includes huge tax breaks and more defence spending, was passed by the House of Representatives last month and is now being considered by senators.

Musk urged Americans to call their representatives in Washington to "kill the bill" as he believed it would "cause a recession in the second half of the year".

The tech entrepreneur claimed, without evidence, that Trump appears in unreleased government files linked to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The White House rubbished those claims.

In response, Trump said Musk had "lost his mind" and threatened to cancel his government contracts, which have an estimated value of $38bn (£28bn). A significant chunk of that goes to Musk's space technology company SpaceX.

"I think it's a very bad thing, because he's very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president," Trump said in an interview with NBC on Saturday.

Musk appeared to have deleted many of his posts over the weekend, including one calling for Trump's impeachment.

Musk was the largest donor for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and had been considered the president's right-hand man.

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon called for Musk, who was born in South Africa, to be deported.

US Vice-President JD Vance told reporters on Wednesday that while Trump was frustrated with Musk, the president does not want a long-term feud with the Tesla CEO.

Vance also said he had spoken to both Trump and Musk about the billionaire donor remaining supportive of the administration.

Most Republicans have called for the two men to reconcile, while Democrats have watched on as the feud unfolded.

Their fallout came shortly after Musk left the task force he headed called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which he had promised would make trillions of dollars of federal spending cuts, 129 days into the job. So far, those cuts appear to have been smaller. After his departure, many of the Doge staff he hired have stayed on at a variety of federal agencies.

Trump says rare earths deal ‘done’ with China

Talks aimed at cooling tensions between the US and China have ended in a "deal", according to US President Donald Trump.

He said China had agreed to supply US companies with magnets and rare earth metals, while the US would walk back its threats to revoke visas of Chinese students.

"Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval from President Xi and me,"Trump wrote on his media platform Truth Social.

It followed two days of intense talks in London to resolve conflicts that had emerged since the two sides agreed a truce in May, after a rapid escalation of tariffs had nearly paralysed trade between the world's two largest economies.

But the limited nature of the announcement underscored questions the White House is facing about whether its tariff strategy can quickly yield solid trade deals.

Speaking on Thursday, President Trump said he will set unilateral tariff rates with trading partners in the next one or two weeks.

The US president said he would send out letters specifying the terms of the new deals ahead of a 9 July deadline to reimpose higher tariffs on countries around the world.

Separately, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected the US would extend the existing pause on some of its most aggressive tariffs to allow trade talks with other countries to continue.

Details about the new agreement with China were limited. Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping spoke over the phone last week to kickstart the negotiations, which involved top officials from both countries.

Officials said it would not alter the broad outlines of the May truce, which lowered – but did not eliminate – new tariffs announced by the two countries since Trump launched a new trade war earlier this year.

"The two sides have, in principle, reached a framework for implementing the consensus reached by the two heads of state during the phone call on 5 June and the consensus reached at the Geneva meeting," China's Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang said.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the two sides had "reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus".

"Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it," he added.

Speaking to broadcaster CNBC on Wednesday, he said the talks had "cleaned up" the Geneva agreement.

"We're totally on the right track," he said. "Things feel really good."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was currently reviewing the details of the deal. "But what the president heard, he liked," she added.

The negotiations in London were triggered in part by US concerns that China was being too slow to release exports of its magnets and rare earth minerals, which are essential for manufacturing everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Beijing in turn has criticised controls the US has put in place to limit the country's access to semiconductors and other related technologies linked to artificial intelligence (AI) and the Trump administration'splans to limit visas for Chinese students.

Speaking to CNBC, Lutnick said the US had agreed to remove some "counter-measures" without being specific about the response.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was testifying before Congress on Wednesday, said the recent talks had been narrowly focused and a more comprehensive deal would take time.

"It will be a much longer process," he said.

In the same hearing, he acknowledged that trade talks with other countries might extend beyond the administration's self-declared 90-day deadline.

"It is highly likely that for those countries that are negotiating – or trading blocs, in the case of the EU – who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiation. If someone is not negotiating, then we will not," he said.

When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from a number of countries earlier this year, China was the hardest hit.

China responded with its own higher rates on US imports, triggering further tit-for-tat increases.

In May,talks held in Switzerland led to a temporary trucethat Trump called a "total reset".

It brought Trump's new US tariffs on Chinese products down from 145% to 30%, while Beijing slashed levies on US imports to 10% and promised to lift barriers on critical mineral exports. It gave both sides a 90-day deadline to try to reach a trade deal.

But the US and China subsequently claimed breaches on non-tariff pledges.

In his social media post, Trump said the US would have tariffs on Chinese goods of 55%, but officials said the figure included tariffs put in place during his first term.

Markets showed little response to the deal, which Terry Haines, founder of the Washington-based consultancy Pangaea Policy, described as having both "very limited scope and unfinished status".

"Setting the Geneva 'pause' back on track is the smallest of accomplishments, and doesn't suggest that a broad US-China trade deal or geopolitical rapprochement is any closer in the foreseeable future," he wrote.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump's second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher's weeklyUS Politics Unspunnewsletter. Readers in the UK cansign up here. Those outside the UK cansign up here.

US inflation ticks higher but tariff impact remains muted

Prices of toys, car parts and major appliances jumped in the US last month, but the overall impact of Donald Trump's new tariffs on consumers remained relatively muted.

Prices were up 2.4% in May compared with a year ago, up from a rate of 2.3% in April, the latest official inflation figures showed.

Housing and grocery prices continued to rise, but those increases were offset by declines in other areas, such as petrol, airfares and clothing.

The monthly report from the Labor Department is being closely watched to see how Trump's decision to raise taxes on imports plays out across the world's largest economy.

Since re-entering the White House in January, Trump has imposed new tariffs on imports from around the world, putting in place a 10% tariff on most items, while targeting goods from some countries and sectors with even higher duties.

Economists have warned that the new levies will raise costs for companies, and lead to higher prices for households, risking the return of an inflation problem that appeared to be subsiding.

The White House, which put some of its most aggressive plans on hold to allow for talks, has rejected those forecasts. Officials have argued that companies in other countries will shoulder the burden of the new costs, while the tariffs benefit American producers and the wider economy.

For now, the consumer price report indicated that the impact on households remained relatively limited, primarily hitting items such as appliances, where the US depends heavily on China for supply.

Prices of major appliances jumped 4.3% over the month, while toys rose 2.2%, according to the report.

Overall, however, prices rose just 0.1% between April and May, after rising 0.2% a month earlier.

Analysts said they expected it would take time for the tariffs to work their way into the data, as companies work through their stock of products brought in before the tariffs were in place.

"Today's below forecast inflation print is reassuring – but only to an extent," said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

"Tariff-driven price increases may not feed through to the CPI data for a few more months yet, so it is far too premature to assume that the price shock will not materialise."

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, wants to see an inflation rate of about 2%.

It hiked interest rates dramatically starting in 2022 in an attempt to get then-rapidly rising prices back under control, and has made only limited cuts since then, even as the issue has moderated.

On Wednesday, Trump revived his call for the Fed to borrowing costs, arguing that inflation problems have faded.

But analysts said the Fed was likely to remain hesitant, given the uncertainty about the path ahead.

"The Fed will be reactionary and want to see how inflation does this summer when the tariffs hit inflation harder," said Ryan Sweet of Oxford Economics.

Winners and losers: Who got what in the spending review?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced the government's Spending Review, which outlines the day-to-day budgets for departments over the next three years.

The review will see NHS funding increase by 3% a year as well as more money for defence and housing.

But other departments will see their budget cuts – including 1.7% at the Home Office, 2.7% at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and 6.9% at the Foreign Office.

Here BBC correspondents analyse how some key services have fared and what the decisions may mean for you.

The education sector will see one of the largest funding boosts. There is money for England's schools – especially crumbling ones – as well as for training and upskilling. Those key takeaways are nestled among rehashed pledges like expanding free school meals and introducing free breakfast clubs.

The core schools budget will rise by £2bn in real terms by 2029, the Department for Education says, but much of it will go on those previous commitments. Falling pupil numbers means the department can make some savings, but that money still has to pay for an awful lot.

The government is staring down the barrel of ever-growing demand for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support. The Spending Review does not seem to address deficits racked up by councils supporting those children, but it does appear to have set aside around £700m to reform the system.

Leaky schools on the government's rebuilding programme – many still waiting for builders – will also be wondering if a £2.4bn annual cash injection will suffice.

The 3% annual real-terms increase in NHS spending announced by the chancellor will look generous to departments with low or no increases. That number covers day-to-day spending by the NHS, for example staff pay and the costs of medicines and patients care.

The overall annual increase for the Department of Health is 2.8% – one of the highest departmental increases in the Spending Review – and includes other areas like medicines regulation and pandemic preparedness, as well as the NHS.

It is worth pointing out that the health service needs real-term spending growth every year to cope with an increasing and ageing population alongside rising bills for medicines and new treatments. The long-term trend for annual UK health spending in recent decades has been around 3.5%.

Aside from day-to-day funding there is also capital spending, which covers investment in buildings and equipment. In real-terms there will be no increase each year. The big question is whether that will be enough to enable staff to deliver more operations and procedures.

One of Labour's pledges is to ensure more than 90% of patients in England start treatment within 18 weeks of referral. Currently it is less than 60%. Hitting that target is a big ask with all the other claims on spending.

"We are happy bunnies" is how someone from the Department for Transport (DfT) reacted to the Spending Review. That is despite the department seeing its annual day-to-day budget decrease by 5% – the largest cut in the review.

That hit is mostly down to a big drop in the subsidies the government has been paying to train companies since the Covid-19 pandemic. Capital expenditure – meaning money for long-term infrastructure investment – on transport is actually going up by 3.9%, among the highest.

Long-term investment in transport infrastructure is clearly central to Labour's plan for "national renewal", so a good chunk of the chancellor's speech was devoted to various upgrades. Some we already knew about, some we didn't.

They include a new Liverpool to Manchester rail line, a freeze on the £3 cap on bus fares in England until March 2027 and more than £15.6bn on new trams, trains and buses outside of London.

The Conservatives say a lot of this is just rehashing of old announcements with little detail attached. The government says it will lay some meat on the bones of these plans next week in its so-called "infrastructure week".

Apart from bus fares, which is a continuation of an existing policy, Reeves' plans are in keeping with the general theme of this Spending Review: ambitious but ultimately not materialising for quite some time – until the 2030s at the earliest.

You could almost hear the sigh of relief from social landlords when £39bn was announced for social and affordable housing. Many had warned that without significant funding and certainty, the government would never reach its target of building 1.5 million homes over this parliament.

But they've called Wednesday's announcement a "game changer". Guaranteeing how much social landlords will receive in rents over the next 10 years means that housing associations can plan how much they have to invest in building.

Housing charity Shelter called the investment a "watershed moment". The charity's head of policy, Charlie Trew, said the amount was 70% more than the previous government invested but it was still not enough to end homelessness for good. The charity called for a "clear target" for exactly how many social rent homes are planned.

A 2.3% real terms yearly funding increase for policing in England and Wales is slightly better than senior officers had feared, but forces are already warning of "some ruthless prioritisation", arguing that most of the money will be "swallowed up" by police pay rises.

The chancellor stressed that an increase of "more than £2bn" will mean government pledges on cutting crime and increasing police numbers can be kept.

On immigration, there is more money for the Border Security Command, rising to £280m extra a year, with promises of new kit including an army of drones to improve surveillance. Reeves also promised that the use of hotels for asylum seekers would end by 2029.

But with overall Home Office spending being cut by 1.7% a year, there are knotted eyebrows at how this is all going to add up and be achieved while managing a sizeable squeeze to the department's budget.

Just recently we were told that offenders recalled to prison would be let out earlier due to overcrowding. We know the government is planning on building three more prisons to deal with the capacity crisis.

The chancellor said £7bn would be spent on that building project – that's more than we were told earlier this month, when the figure stood at £4.7bn.

The increase in funding – an extra 1.8% each year is the second highest rise in the review – indicates the severity and urgency of the problem. But building more prisons will take years.

Also announced was £700m to reform the probation service – that cash will fund further recruitment on top of the 1,300 officers the government had already said it will employ this year.

Several probation officers welcomed the investment but raised concerns about their "increasing workload" and when the new hires will be functional.

The chancellor has made full use of the extra £113bn in capital spending available as a result of changing her own borrowing rules. There are some big ticket items on the list, most of which were announced before Wednesday, but these large projects will take many years before people will notice the difference.

An extra £14.2bn for the new Sizewell C nuclear plant will be spent over at least a decade. The same is true of an extra £39bn for affordable and social housing. New announcements included £10bn for making homes more energy efficient and a new carbon capture project in Scotland. Connecting people and places is also growth-enhancing, but again the £16bn on transport links outside of London will not see quick returns.

Business groups are largely supportive of these ambitious plans and the chancellor will hope it persuades firms to spend some of their own money to boost business investment, which has been chronically low.

They may want to see the detail of the upcoming infrastructure and industrial strategies. There is jam in here but it will take time to spread and the results will take longer than tomorrow.

The chancellor announced that funding for science – or research and development (R&D) – would increase to just over £22.6 billion per year by 2029/30. That funding pays for scientific research across government departments such as health, defence and energy.

That overall figure includes the budget for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) itself, which will rise to more than £16bn by 2029/30. The money will be used to fund research for everything from drug development to materials science to AI – £2bn has been earmarked for the latter from 2026/27 to 2029/30.

The UK's Campaign for Science and Engineering said it was welcome confirmation that the R&D budget was being "protected in tough fiscal circumstances".

Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said the UK continued to lag behind competitors in the G7 on research and innovation investment.

"We should be looking to lead," he added in a statement. "We must also go further to attract and retain global talent.

"The UK's sky-high upfront visa costs are an unnecessary deterrent at a time when our competitors are rolling out the welcome mat for the brightest minds."

The Korean bakery chain that says croissants don’t have to be French

Head into the basement of any bustling mall in Singapore and the chances are you will smell the sweetness of fresh, buttery baked goods.

Long lines of people swarm the counters of Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Singaporean bakeries – tray and tongs in hand, after picking out cream rolls and milk breads or filled croissants and fruity pastries from crowded display cabinets.

For Paris Baguette, its inspiration is clearly in the name, the outlets are also decorated with the colours of the tricolour, the signage shows the Eiffel Tower and the ambience seems to be aiming for something close to the charm of a Parisian cafe.

"I wouldn't limit our bread to everything from France. We are an international brand," says Jin-soo Hur, president and chief executive of SPC Group, which owns Paris Baguette.

"Like croissants, could you say this is a European product? I would say it's a universal product."

SPC traces its roots back to a small family-owned bakery shop that opened 80 years ago.

It is now a key player in mass producing bread and pastries in South Korea, employing 20,000 people across all its brands. SPC says its sales hit $5.6bn (£4.26bn) last year.

In 1988, Paris Baguette was born becoming the first Korean bakery brand to open an international store in China, which continues to be a big market.

Today it has 4,000 stores across 14 countries including in Asia, Europe and the US.

Paris Baguette has big overseas expansion plans, setting a target of more than 1,000 new branches internationally by 2030 – many of them in the US.

It's investing in a factory in Texas which will become its largest overseas production facility when it is completed in 2027, supplying the US, Canada and Latin America.

For Mr Hur, capturing the American market is a priority because it would mean Paris Baguette has succeeded internationally.

Sport is central to Paris Baguette's strategy through a partnership with English Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur.

It had a similar deal with France's Paris St Germain for two seasons, providing fans with its baked products and desserts on match days of home games.

"I think food is culture. Sports brings a lot of people into the stadium, and there's always good vibes in London," said Mr Hur.

The captain of South Korea's national team was also the captain of Spurs. Son Heung-min led his team to victory in the Europa League last month, ending the club's 17-year wait for a trophy.

It's not about a Korean leading Spurs for Mr Hur though.

Tottenham is a "top club and Paris Baguette wants to be best in class too," he says.

Workers don't like to wake up early to knead dough by hand, Mr Hur says softly.

He credits his company's system of delivering frozen dough to franchises around the world for improving efficiency and extending shelf life.

Asia has a strong heritage of baked goods, but with rapid urbanisation, and changing lifestyles demand for on-the-go convenience foods is growing steadily.

Bakeries across the region already offer a huge variety of items.

Staples like pain au chocolat and sandwiches are abundant, but they are also known for Asian-inspired flavours – be it pandan, durian, salted egg, red bean or matcha-filled croissants and pastries.

Paris Baguette is responding to the demand through a halal-certified plant in Malaysia, to supply customers in South East Asia and the Middle East.

With the fascination around Korean culture globally, experts say there could be an opportunity for Asian bakeries to see even more success.

Korean and Japanese culture is so popular around the world now that maybe they're seeing things on their screen, and then they're willing to try it as well, said Saverio Busato, a pastry and bakery chef at the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore.

"I just came back from a trip to Italy and I was quite surprised to see a lot of Asian bakery and pastry shops in Italy and I was super happy.

To see the local people, the Italian people, that they were kind of exploring."

But can frozen dough produce the same quality of goods as an artisanal bakery?

I put Chef Busato to a blind taste test. He pulls apart a croissant made with frozen dough (although he doesn't know it), inspecting the elasticity and smelling it.

"This is quite bad. There is no honeycomb inside, it's totally hollow. The lamination doesn't have much strength because the internal part collapses. There is no butter profile. It's gluey and dense. There is no smell," he tells me.

Chef Busato acknowledges that it isn't practical to seek artisanal standards if you're mass-producing baked goods, and so big players will have to rely on frozen dough.

What about the traditional Asian baked goods though? Chef Busato on tasting a Korean milk bread, a fluffy white bread filled with cream, said he thinks it would do well in Europe.

"It's fantastic. It's very good. The smell of milk is coming over is nice. It's fluffy. It's refreshing… Reminds me of some kind of snack when I was younger that I was bringing to school."

The cost-of-living crisis is a major challenge for Paris Baguette – not least because of the US inflation rate as it seeks to push into the American market. A lot of companies are having to change their business because it's not profitable for them, Mr Hur says.

One of Paris Baguette's biggest competitors globally – Pret A Manger – has had to experiment with subscription services and expand dine-in options after Covid pushed the sandwich and coffee chain into loss, and it was forced to close dozens of outlets and cut more than 3,000 jobs.

The global economic environment weighs on Mr Hur too but he insists profit is not his only goal. "If we are only trying to make profit, we'll just stay in Korea," he says.

"We want to change the bread culture around the world. I want to find a way to keep opening up a lot of bakeries. It is good for my country, and good for people."

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