10/04/2017 BBC Business Live

This is Business live from BBC News with Ben Thompson

Foreign ministers of the world's seven largest economies arrive

in Italy with free trade high on the agenda.

Live from London, that's our top story on Monday the 10th of April.

Today's meeting in Italy comes at a crossroads

We'll ask an expert whether political upheaval signals

Also in the programme: Regulators investigate Barclays boss

Jess Staley in relation to alleged misconduct in a

The bank says it'll reduce the chief exec's pay

And all the details of what you need to know for the trading week ahead.

Later in the programme we'll speak to the boss of a company hoping

to develop the next generation of coding geniuses.

The Green Party in the UK want to introduce a three-day weekend.

Would you want one, and would you work longer hours to get one?

How about if you still work longer hours but you still have to do a

five-day week? That sounds like what we do here!

We start in Italy where the Foreign Ministers of the world's

biggest economies are meeting in the historic city of Lucca.

This year Italy holds the presidency of the G7 group and Rome has already

made it clear that one of its priorities is "fighting

Well, it's important because the G7 accounts for just over 46%

And this meeting is important because it comes before next

Last month the host, the Italian Prime Minister,

laid out his G7 plan by saying "We need to keep betting on the free

market and on free trade, the biggest economic

But how can they boost their economies when there appears

to be more political appetite for protectionism?

The latest IMF forecasts show reasonable growth

this year for the US, Germany and the UK but

Other topics on the agenda include climate change,

immigration and energy security, in fact G7 energy ministers

are currently holding a separate meeting in Rome.

Stephanie Hare, an Independent Political Risk Analyst.

A familiar face, great to see you. This is going to be interesting,

because already there seems to be an air of mistrust, because US Treasury

Secretary Rex Tillerson is being accused of hampering this year's

gathering because he hasn't appointed the number of people that

he needs to put these draft accords in, and it is already tainted? I

don't know if it is tainted, but we have to have realistic expectations.

Tillerson hasn't appointed the deputy secretaries he needs, and

department is being cut by a third, so the United States is undergoing

fundamental changes as a result of the election of Donald Trump, so we

will see a different America I think going forward. But the others around

the table will want to know what the picture is that America is going to

paint. They don't know what they are doing on trade, security, etc. And

that is a powerful position for the United States, because it is keeping

everybody else off-balance and making them wait and react to

whatever it is that Trump and his administration put forward. And

foreign policy are huge issue because all this is happening while

they are sending in a carrier fleet, a strike force fleet, towards the

Korean pollutants in a. My concern with this -- the Korean peninsular.

My concern is that we have to foreign policy crises at the moment

that could make everything else redundant. The first as you said is

looking at North Korea, so we are seeing extremely tough language

coming out of the United States right now about whether or not they

would tolerate any red lines being crossed, and that language of the

red line and trying to force China whose leader was in the United

States last week meeting Trump, trying to force them to pressure

North Korea, because we are worried they are going to have nuclear

weapons, so what are talking about is potentially killing the leader of

North Korea, this was advanced as an option put before President Trump,

putting nuclear weapons into South Korea. This is a little more than

sabre rattling. It Israeli scary, and last week we had the United

States launching air strikes against Syria because of a red line being

crossed on chemical attacks. That was seen as sending a message to

other leaders around the world that the United States is not afraid that

and to act quickly. We have to leave it there, unfortunately, but thank

you very much. Let's take a look at some news

from the UK banking sector now. Jes Staley, the chief executive

of Barclays is to be investigated by The Financial Conduct Authority

and the Prudential They say Mr Staley tried to identify

a whistle-blower in 2016. Simon Jack has the details, so bring

us up to date. Unusual story, this. He is accused of sticking his nose

in where CEOs shouldn't stick their nose in. He is accused of hiring

someone from JP Morgan, someone he had known for years, who had had

personal issues in the past, and somebody wrote to the members of the

board of Berkeley is questioning whether this new person was a

suitable higher and saying maybe the fact that Jess Staley was a friend

of his meant that normal due diligence had been ignored. He saw

this as a personal knifing of somebody who had had problems at the

passport was now OK, and it didn't sit well with him. He wanted to know

who sent the letter, he was told to back off it was none of his he then

mistakenly thought he was clear to restart the hunt and try to involve

US law enforcement agencies into trying to find who wrote the letter,

and was told that was not appropriate. Whistle-blowing only

works if the system is anonymous, which is why regulators get so upset

if chief executive Zahra allowed to hunt down whistle-blowers, it

doesn't work. It could cost him up to ?1.3 million from his bonus last

year, and that will not be the end of it. Regulators love

whistle-blowers, it helps them do their job, so they want to get to

the bottom of this. Simon Jack, thank you for explaining

that, the latest at events on Barclays.

Let's look at some of the other stories making headlines around the

world. A secret recording that implicates

the Bank of England in the Libor rigging has been uncovered

by the BBC's Panorama programme. Libor is the rate at which banks

lend money to each other and it sets a benchmark for mortgages and loans

for regular customers. The 2008 recording adds to evidence

the central bank repeatedly pressured commercial banks

during the financial crisis A quick update on a story you may

have seen around yesterday. The payday loan firm Wonga has

suffered a data breach which may have affected up to 245,000

customers in the UK. The firm said it was "urgently

investigating illegal and unauthorised access

to the personal data The information stolen includes

names, addresses, phone numbers We have also got some news, this is

fairly interesting. The operator of Hong Kong's gold

exchange is in talks with Myanmar to help the government there set up

a similar exchange in that country. It is part of the Whaddon Road, one

belt. We may come back to that later with Sarah in Singapore if we can

get her. I think we may have lost her.

Down the back of the sofa! That be run you through some numbers.

We'll talk wider markets in a moment - but just want to show you two

The BBC has seen evidence that top bosses at Shell knew that money paid

to the Nigerian government for a vast oil field would be passed

It also had reason to believe that money would be used

We're also following Barclays - with news that regulators have begun

investigations into Jes Staley , the chief executive of Barclays

after he tried to identify a whistle-blower in 2016.

The BBC has learned that Barclays chief executive Jes Staley

could lose his 2016 annual bonus, worth ?1.3m, due to his "error" over

the attempted identification of a whistle-blower.

Here's what Europe is doing right now.

It is pretty quiet at the moment. Let's just nip over to Wall Street,

because Michelle has details about the trading day ahead.

The week may end early because of Good Friday, but there is plenty to

look out for. America's biggest bank starts to release first-quarter

earnings. JP Morgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo all put their earnings

out on Thursday, likely to put out a rise in profit. Wells Fargo is

struggling to shake off the effects of a mis-selling scandal and is

widely forecast to report a fall in first-quarter profit. On Friday,

markets are closed, but there is lots of economic data, not least

retail sales numbers for the month of March.

Joining us is Jessica Ground, UK Equities Fund Manager, Schroders.

Great to have you with us as well. I know you were listening to Stephanie

who scared the Bee Gees is out of us. -- who scared the wits out of

us. The US is facing two ships heading towards the Korean

peninsular and Syria. And you have to remember where we have come from

on this, Trump saying I am not going to get involved in foreign policy

commitments, everybody thinking it is all about global growth and all

of a sudden quite early on we are facing two difficult situations, and

investors struggle to price these things because there is so much

uncertainty. There is indeed. And a lot of investors jump into typical

safe havens, gold. Oil having a strong run, so as you say, on

Friday, the initial reaction was a jump to safe haven, and taking off

from very low levels, people becoming slightly more concerned

about risk. Let's talk about banks. We have been talking about Barclays

and the Bank of England. Look at the front page of the BBC News website,

bank implicated in Libor rigging, Watchdog probe into Barclays boss,

and Barclays shares down. What a callous about the culture in the

city? -- what does it tell us? Regulators and bank boards are

taking this seriously. Before the financial crisis, a blind eye was

cast on the sector, but now you have the regulators and the boards is...

We are still cleaning this up in 2017? Definitely, it has been a huge

task. Initial phase was about every body getting into the emergency room

and keeping it going, then it was physical rehabilitation, how do you

make the banks function with a strong culture of integrity, and it

takes to change behaviour. And change regulation, because we have

seen swathes of regulation being brought into tidy up our bags

operate # How banks operate? Yes, and retail

being cut off somewhat from investment banking, but that still

hasn't been done. You can't just click your fingers and have change

happen overnight. Good to see you, thank you very

much. Still to come,

investing in the future. Later in the programme we'll speak

to the boss of a company hoping to develop the next generation

of coding geniuses. You're with Business

Live from BBC News. And it is not just coding, it is

about finding jobs we don't know existed, and training them now. We

will talk about that a little later. The hotel chain Travelodge has

its annual figures out this morning. It saw profits and revenues rise

last year, and there was an increase They now account for

half of all sales. Good morning. Some good figures, and

I think it is fair to say this comes after what has been a tough few

years for you guys, all sorts of different owners, varied results, as

we said, after the financial crisis. Where are you up to? The company was

restructured in 2012 is of it above that viable financial crisis, and we

have been investing heavily and upgrading our hotels in trying to

win business customers. This is another milestone, with Isner --

business customers accounting for more of our customers. And wires

that imported, you would've expected they would stay at higher in hotels,

and now they are staying with you? Yes, there was a certain business

budget customer, but we are all budget travellers now, and

businesses in an uncertain economic environment are turning to low-cost

operators more and more, and almost half the FTSE 100 now use the

Travelodge here in the UK, so it is a mainstream product.

What are your mattresses like? There is another chain in the UK, of

course, we know that pride themselves on their mattress and

I've tried and they're comfy mattresses? You can buy one of our

beds. If they are good enough for the future king, they will be good

enough for our customers. We appreciate your time and good luck

with everythingment seriously. That was the big boss of Travelodge.

Thank you very much for putting up with Aaron's mattress questions!

It's important. You look for a good mattress and internet! Plenty of

details on the BBC website. To the Bank of England libor story. We love

a good Hornby story. Shareholders who represent a 20% stake in Hornby

asking for the boss to go. The chairman is being proposed to leave

Hornby. We like talking about it. Full details on the website.

The so-called STEM subjects - Science, Technology,

Engineering and Maths - are often seen as vital

But how do you make those subjects attractive

I liked science, but I didn't like maths. I didn't like any of them.

I'm joking! Last year the BBC gave

about one million devices called the Micro Bit to children in the UK

in an effort to encourage One of the companies involved

in the project was called It sells do-it-yourself

kits for children. So far they've sold more

than 100,000 kits which let you build all kinds of things

from robots to games and even Bethany Koby, co-founder

of Technology Will Save Us. Welcome. You brought some of your

kits in. We will have a look in a moment. What fascinates me about

this is, it is about teaching kids in schools these days, giving them

skills, and giving them the training for jobs that don't even exist yet.

How do teachers, how do students and how do parents even get their head

around that? So we believe that it's all about learning by doing. It's

about getting kids hands on with all kinds of technology to help them

build confidence, passion, and understanding of the skills that

they can actually achieve whether that be through electronics, through

programming, through things like electronic play dough when they are

as young as four. It is about really getting kids hands on with the

potential to what technology can do. We do a lot, I do a lot of stories

on this subject and it always comes you, the experts say there is a

global lack of coders. That's a big problem considering the stuff Ben is

holding in his hand, technology is going to be the future or it is the

future? There is a stat that we talk about a lot. 65% of kids in primary

school, their jobs don't even exist yet. So these kids and their

families will have to pave a path for themselves and we believe that

the one way for kids to pave a path is by playing and finding enjoyment

in the potential of what tech can do. If kids can find confidence, if

they can build skills and actually see what they're good at, that's a

better way for them it take the skills and apply them. This is so

much more interesting than the things we had to do at school which

was make a light on a circuit board light up. You have got the kit. This

is about a bit of coding, but it is about proving that science and

technology can be useful in your life. How does this work? This is

the mover kit. It is waerbable. It has rainbow lights and a motion

sensor and a compass that kids can programme to invent games and

activities. One of the kids, eye sack, he programmed the mover, he

brushes his teeth and shows his mum and his mum believes that he brushed

his teeth for two minutes of the that's a valid reason for an

eight-year-old to programme something. Programming is the medium

to get a device to do something which they are interested in. There

is so much more to it than just programming. We were talking earlier

and I wanted to be an architect when I grew up and I thought maybe I need

science and technology and maths to do that and realised it wouldn't

happen. This isn't about identifying the job and getting the skills, this

is finding something that you enjoy and are good at? It gives kids the

chance to explore what technology can provide, whether that be coding

or sensors, design, electronics, there is an array of things that

kids should be exposed in order to really understand what their

potential is. Did you know you would be sitting

here in the chair as the boss of this company. Did you sit down and

plan your career? Of course not, it was a big accident. They are

different ages groups, aren't they? So it is four years old and

four-year-old kids can do this stuff. This is electronic play

dough. This one is aged 12. You have the four plus one. Do you do the

design? Yes. My background is in design and branding and I don't do

all of it myself, we have an amazing team now but kids are a part of

every stage of product development at Technology Will Save Us. We

appreciate your time. Thank you very much for coming in. Good luck with

it all. Get those coders out there! While we make this, you can do the

four plus one! In a moment we'll take a look

through the Business Pages, but first Steph McGovern is in Essex

in the East of England today with the first freight train

about to leave Britain for China. Obviously you can the port behind me

where lots of containers are coming in off the ships,

but the reason we're This train will be the first train

to travel from the UK to China carrying lots of different products

that have been made So it's everything

from pharmaceuticals, soft drinks, baby products,

all those things that people in China like to buy from us

here in the UK. It's interesting when you look

at the stats because we have something like ?16 billion of worth

of products that we sell to China and around ?40 billion

which we imprort from China so a big difference and the Government

and the businesses here are hoping that they can reduce that deficit

and start getting more We keep pushing about that train. It

has to keep changing gauges. It is the same containers though. We keep

saying the train. This is the Green Party in the UK.

They say you could create a three day weekend. Four day week. But a

four day week. Yes. The caveat is you've got to work longer days? It

is not a new idea. If you look back at what economists and politicians

like Churchill said, they said for years and years that technology

would mean that we were sitting on the beach drinking cocktails, but it

has never come to pass, now with robots and artificial intelligence,

maybe it is around the corner. The idea of leaving aside what the Green

Party is suggesting, a three day weekend, maybe we will have to pay

people just to consume. This is an idea that's growing credence amongst

economists and particularly Silicon Valley. State will provide you with

a basic wage so you will consume because you won't have a job to do.

I wonder what the productivity will be like in ten hours. In Sweden

they've gone from eight hours to six hour day because they say they get

much more productivity out of six hours? This comes back to a wider

point, UK productivity and there is a survey from BDO saying that UK

productivity is getting worse, not better. At love you getting in

touch. Daniel says, "Not great working a four day week if you get

paid per day." Maybe you could ask for a payday. Squirrel says, "Utter

rubbish. I suppose it is all right if you have a fluffy job." Why is he

talking about me? It is good to have three days off, but if you are a

parent longer hours can work against the family. All of society are built

around a 9am to 5pm. That's been breaking down which is one of the

things we discovered during the investigation by the Select

Committee. This idea of zero hours contracts is not really a 9am to 5pm

economy. The labour laws are much laxer here and employers do take

advantage of that. Can you do the US Labour department? This is the

Google survey? Yes. The gender pay gap in Silicon Valley particularly

Google is worse than it is elsewhere the economy. They're supposed to do

good. Maybe they're not after all. You could have had another five or

six seconds. For a change we finish on time! That's it from Business

Live today. We will see you tomorrow at the same time and same place.