22/11/2017 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live

from BBC News with Susannah

Streeter and David Eades.

It's budget day here in the UK,

but what measures will

the Chancellor of the Exchequer

present to bolster

Britain's low productivity?

Live from London, that's our

top story on Wednesday

22nd November.

Growth in the UK is flagging

behind Germany and France.

We'll look at what solutions

are likely to be announced later

and ask if they go far enough.

Also in the programme -

Personal data on 57 million Uber

customers and drivers were breached

in a hack attack that Uber concealed

for more than a year.

And all the latest from the

financial markets following another

record close on Globe Street, the

global rally has extended to Europe.

The gig economy goes Down Under -

we'll speak to one Australian

entrepreneur who's helping people

who need things in touch

with the others who have them -

for a small fee, of course.

After reports that 1400 cups are

used every day of the UK's

environment department, we want to

know how you take your cup of tea,

plastic, paper, or some other way?

What would it take to ditch

disposable and switch to renewable

cups? Get in touch.

Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

Hello and welcome to Business Live.

UK Chancellor Philip Hammond will

deliver his Autumn Budget today.

One of his challenges

will be to combat a decade

of flat productivity.

Until 10 years ago,

productivity was the motor that

drove UK economic growth.

This blue crooked line

is output per hour.

The straight line is

the actual measure -

and this broken line is what it

should be at if the trends before

the crisis had continued.

So it's a pretty big difference.

The typical rate of growth

in the last five years is only 0.2%.

The presumption was that

the underlying factors linked

to the financial crisis

would eventually improve.

But so far productivity

has remained stagnant.

Other European countries

are faring better.

Germany is 36% higher than the UK

and France is 30% higher.

And there is a correlation between

productivity and real wages.

In 2013, the OECD compiled how much

people actually have to spend -

in France it's this - $29,759,

compared with Britain - $26,687.

A $3,000 difference.

That is quite a difference.

Our economics editor,

Kamal Ahmed is here.

Let's start with that, we have a

problem in terms of our nearest and

dearest even if we leave them soon,

one budget won't resolve that, this

Philip Hammond going to do something

for it?

You're right, some of this

is down to what businesses investing

rather than what governments do. I

think governments can set the tone

for how the economy feels and

certainly many economists say that

if you borrow to invest you can

increase productivity so investing

in digital infrastructure, in

housing, in transport links, those

other kind of things that boost

productivity an economy.

We've heard

some of those words in the last few

days, like the Digital economy, that

is pushing some money in the

direction that would help in terms

of productivity.

I think from some

economists the feeling is that he

isn't doing enough. That's because

Philip Hammond has a fiscal rule. He

wants to balance the government 's

books so that they spend one amount

and the tax and then that is in

balance by the middle of the next

decade. You should do more to borrow

now because interest rates are low,

and to push in things like Digital

five D and housing. Small

incremental changes which is what he

is criticised for, won't be enough.

Yet that seems to be what we will

get.

Philip Hammond is also

concerned about the Brexit process.

Does he need to save up the money he

has in the economy for the moment

when written leaves the EU, could

that be hard Brexit and a shock to

the economy, would he need money

then and not now? So there's

cautious in the Treasury and there

has been a strategy to get the

deficit down, to hit these fiscal

targets and I can't imagine they

want to move off that.

He is a

relatively staid, calm character.

A

cautious man!

It will be ordered

were he to throw caution to the

wind, especially as we are literally

months away from Brexit.

Is

interesting. I spoke to Rupert

Harrison, former chief of staff to

our former finance minister George

Osborne. He said investors looking

at Britain, and you need investors

to fund budget deficit, will be

thinking, there's the Brexit risk.

The last thing we need is a

government to suddenly signalled a

change of strategy because they have

the rock uncertainties which is the

direction of travel. He was urging

the Chancellor to be cautious, and

you're quite right, he is a cautious

man. I don't imagine we'll be

sitting here tomorrow saying, that

really change the dial on the way

the budgets are operating. I'm sure

there will be incremental changes

but nothing is massive.

He will be

on his feet and about four hours

you. Thank you both.

Let's take a look at some of

the other stories making the news.

Ikea has re-launched a recall

of millions of chests and dressers

in the US and Canada

following the death

of an eighth child.

It said items in its Malm range

and other chests and dressers pose

a "serious tip-over and entrapment

hazard" if not secured to a wall.

Meg Whitman is stepping down

as chief executive of computer

server maker Hewlett Packard

Enterprise.

During her six years in the post

she oversaw one of the biggest

corporate breakups in history.

Shares of HPE fell more than 6%

in after hours trading.

Skype's caller messages -- Skype's

app has been removed from source

with China, after the government

said it did not comply with local

law, media suggests that the

disruption started in October.

And US prosecutors have

charged an Iranian man

with hacking into HBO,

leaking Game of Thrones scripts

and demanding a $6m ransom.

Behzad Mesri is accused

of computer fraud, wire fraud,

extortion and identity theft.

Uber has confirmed that it concealed

a hack that affected 57 million

customers and drivers in 2016.

In the wake of the news,

Uber's chief security officer

Joe Sullivan has left the company.

Companies are required

to disclose significant data

breaches to regulators,

something Uber has,

by its own admission,

failed to do in this case.

With me is Emily Orton,

a cyber security analyst

with the security firm Darktrace.

Thank you for joining us. . Uber say

there is no indication that critical

details like bank details have been

downloaded. Can we know that?

The

details are still emerging. We can't

know that for certain at this stage

but clearly whatever details there

were, they are important enough for

them to have failed to disclose it

nearer the time this actually

happened. Which goes to show that

these data assets that the companies

are holding our critical business

assets now and they will be used

against firms by criminals.

57

million is a huge number, but also

600,000 for their drivers, they've

talked about ways of looking after

them, do those ideas make sense,

they talk about having a credit

monitoring protection system for

each of the drivers, will that help

now?

The data is potentially out

there so I think that's probably

little comfort to drivers who depend

on Uber for their livelihood. Cyber

security is very difficult problem.

There is no silver bullet to this.

This is remedial work. Trying to

cover up the cracks at this point.

Their silver bullet seems to have

been, we will pay our way out of

this, perhaps not a huge amount of

money but to stop this being

downloaded. How familiar picture is

that now?

Pretty familiar. It is a

business decision whether or not you

pay up. Either way, damage to their

reputation. It begs the question how

many companies have done a similar

thing and we don't know about it.

The reality is that the of

corporations today have some kind of

safeguard on their networks.

We've

had some responses on Twitter

saying, quadruple the sanction! That

would make them realise how

important this is.

And we have new

regulations coming out now in force.

There are a lot of new regulations

that we do expect to be penalising

companies, if they don't report

against a breach like this in a

timely manner.

Emily, thank you very

much indeed. Let's check the

financial markets, investors back in

buying mood this week, Hong Kong

stocks broke the 30,000 mark for the

first time in ten years as Asian

markets took their cue from Wall

Street, all three main indices in

New York closing at all-time highs

again. Tech firms the big winners,

top firms like Apple, Amazon and

Facebook and Google's parent company

alphabet firming up around 1%.

Australia's index continued the

trend as well. But global rally has

now reached Europe. The FTSE 100 and

the Dax in Frankfurt and Paris index

just up.

And Samira Hussain has

the details about what's ahead

on Wall Street Today.

The US Federal reserve, America's

central bank will release the

minutes from its October policy

meeting. The policymakers kept

interest rates unchanged during the

meeting. They pointed to strong

economic growth and strengthening

Labour market. Earnings continue on

Wednesday with one farm equipment

maker dear and company reporting. It

has benefited from higher

international demand for its

equipment. Investors will be keen to

hear what the company expects going

forward in 2018.

Richard Dunbar is investment

director at Aberdeen

Standard Investments.

Hello Richard. Let's talk about this

global rally. It keeps going up, the

likes of Tesla for example, they are

finding it hard to actually produce

the cars.

It's a heady mix, low

interest rates, profits in the US,

and we are likely to get a tax boost

as well so that's a helpful recipe.

The leader in the US and other

markets have followed, companies

like Tesla generating cars, no

lorries, not generating profits and

not generating much cash, at some

point this needs to change but

investors for the moment are

believers.

Some say that bubbles are

made to be burst. Will we get a

bursting of a bubble?

There are many

stocks particularly in the

technology sectors, some will do

well and some will eventually

generate earnings to justify these

valuations, others won't. It's

probably time to be cautious,

particularly when we see in the US

that interest rates are going up and

it tends to be the price of money

going up, that is the thing that

pricks these bubbles.

Many of us

will have seen the jubilation in

Zimbabwe after the resignation of

Robert Mugabe. What will investors

CMS? A turnaround for the Zimbabwean

economy -- what will they CMS.

They

will see hope and expectation.

Zimbabwe had many advantages,

tourism, great mining sector, those

opportunities have been squandered

in the last 40 years. They may still

be there but at the end of the day

we still have Zanu-PF in power and

still got the army supporting them,

and we have a president likely to be

one of Mugabe's henchmen so I

perhaps would not hang out as much

bunting as we saw last might on TV

but the opportunity is there for a

fabulous country.

Would you hang out

any bunting? This talk about the end

of an era that is at the start of a

new era? The suggestion from you is

that probably isn't.

I think it is

best to be sceptical, those who are

hungry in Zimbabwe yesterday will

still be hungry today, there's work

to be done because corruption is

endemic yet the opportunity is there

if those people wish to take it.

Thank you, Richard. Richard will be

back later to talk through the

papers with us. Stay with us.

Still to come, the gig economy

seems to be everywhere -

one company in Australia is cashing

in making $90 million

in transactions.

We'll find out more

in a few minutes.

You're with Business

Live from BBC News.

Holiday prices for this winter

are up 4% on a year ago,

and for next summer travellers

can expect to pay even more.

That's according to Britain's

second-largest holiday company,

Thomas Cook, which has just

published its full-year results.

Let's get more from Simon Calder,

travel editor at the Independent.

Good to see you, Simon, how are they

doing?

Think they are doing pretty

well, looking right across Europe.

They have driven a up 9% to £9

billion underlying profits up 8% to

£330 million. They do say it was a

tricky summer for the UK market.

Basically because there was so much

competition going into Spain.

However Thomas Cook is reporting

much stronger demand for Turkey and

four Egypt. Both of which were hit

by a slump in sales due to fears

about terrorism. From February it

becomes the first major tour

operator to go back into Tunisia,

which was on the Foreign Office

know- the goal list for a couple of

years until July this year. Looking

positive overall but those prices

you mention for a typical budget

break at this time of year for which

you might have paid £500 last winter

that will cost an extra £20 and a

two and half thousand pound family

holiday would be £150 more expensive

than this summer.

Party to do with

inflation of course, any other

mention from Thomas Cook about the

potential effects of Brexit? We

heard from EasyJet yesterday.

This is the real worry for a lot of

travel companies, easyJet, Ryanair

more likely to be affected and

Thomas Cook, which has a strong

component, and nobody thinks that

holidays to Portugal, Spain, Croatia

and Greece will be badly affected,

but ultimately the travel industry

is clamouring for an agreement on

what happens to aviation after 2019,

because of course it plans its

operation is a good year in advance,

and so they say we really need

clarity by March 2018 at the very

latest.

OK, Simon Calder, many

thanks for that update on Thomas

Cook. We have got the Budget coming

up, we have a live page for you to

start following now. Just a quick

headline, Philip Hammond must be

cautious, saying never so investors,

have a look online for that. --

nervous investors.

You're watching Business

Live - our top story.

The UK's finance minister says

he will use today's Budget

to make Britain an "outward

looking, free-trading nation"

ahead of Brexit in 2019.

Now, taking on the gig

economy at its own game.

The start-ups which have disrupted

traditional industries

are now increasingly facing

new competitors themselves.

TaskRabbit was set up

almost a decade ago

as an online marketplace,

helping you to find workers

to complete odd jobs -

including cleaning, moving in,

or handyman work.

Well, it's about to face

new competition here in the UK

from a Sydney-based

start-up called Airtasker,

which already has

2 million users across Australia.

Set up in 2012, it processes $75m

worth of tasks a year.

Tim Fung is the founder

and CEO of Airtasker.

Hello there. Tell us how this. And,

you were being ask to do odd jobs

for a friend, somebody wanted you to

help out? -- tell us how this all

started.

I was moving house, and I

asked a friend with a track, come

over and help me move apartments,

cleaning et cetera. At the end of

the weekend, he says, this is the

fourth time I have been ask to do

this kind of job, everyone says the

same thing, you have got a truck,

can you help us move? So there are

so many people across the world who

are looking to do some jobs, to earn

some extra money.

Shelves and

curtains in my house, definitely! I

want to ask you, could that cause

friction? You might be asking

somebody to do a job for you who

ordinarily would have done it for

free, and now they will say, no, you

need to pay me for this.

Some of

these jobs which are done for free

are probably costing you in

relationship equity with family and

friends, you might think it is free,

but they are probably thinking,

those guys asking me again!

They

will pay one way or another! Give us

a sense of the nuts and bolts of

this, of the range of stuff you are

doing. It sounds like pretty

everyday stuff, which is fairly

good, but a bit more to and from

time to time.

The market has a lot

of jobs like cleaning and handyman

jobs, but what Airtasker is doing

differently is allowing people to

create any kind of work that they

want as a job for another person. So

whether it is getting someone to fly

to Paris to drop off syngas is...

For real?

These are all happening

every day. One of the great ones I

saw yesterday was somebody who

wanted a Game Of Thrones themed date

night for their partner, so they had

someone design the entire apartment.

I cannot believe there is not a

company already doing that!

You have already linked in with some

quite well-established companies,

providing services for them,

building furniture, for example.

In

Australia, furniture assembly is

done through IKEA, you can hire an

Airtasker to do that. We'll so have

a company called Good Guys for

electrical installations.

Aren't you

a classic example of a company that

takes business away from other

people? Maybe you have experienced

that, it is great that people are

getting bits and pieces, but other

people are losing part of their jobs

because of it?

The vast majority of

the jobs on Airtasker were already

traditionally done in the

independent contract model, so a

tradesperson, electrician or

plumber, already independent

contractors. That is about half of

the market. The other half is

entirely new jobs that have been

created, so it is hard to hire

someone as a tree rescuer, but these

are jobs being created out of thin

air.

What kind of redress do you

have if the shelves fall down? Do

you have come back?

We have a great

community support team, which

supports all of the Airtasker

platform, we're public liability

insurance which covers if things go

wrong. We also have insurance for

our workers, so if they are injured,

they can get continuity of income.

Do you vet the workers?

We provide

police checks, background checks,

trade licences, so if you are

looking for someone who will come

into your house, you probably want

to have someone who has had a

background check, whereas if you are

a small business and you want

someone to do a letterbox drop, you

probably do not want somebody who

was necessarily...

Don't you drive

down wages by opening this up to

anybody to do a job that a tradesman

would do?

The great thing is that

our business model is ending a

commission on the mat of endings

that a worker makes, so we are for

increased wages for workers. So we

are being an agent, we are the

representative, and what we don't do

is show transparency with what other

people are doing.

You have suggested

you are at 0.1% of your potential,

which suggests a vast opportunity.

There will be people tried to copy

this very quickly.

Definitely, and

we are surprised that the market for

these platforms is not as large as

you would think in this day and age,

but certainly we think it is a

massive market, and we're going to

be doing everything we can.

Thank

you very much indeed for joining us.

In a moment, we'll take a look

through the business pages,

but first here's a quick reminder

of how to get in touch with us.

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Business Live on TV and online -

whenever you need to know.

Richard is back to look through the

papers with us, let's first of all

start with this story about how the

Australian government is investing

in bitcoin, or at least in a firm

that is listed on the crypto

currency exchange.

It is very

interesting that the whole

blockchain thing is becoming much

more mainstream, and firms like our

own are looking at how we can use

blockchain plumbing for the crypto

currency in our businesses. I think

governments will be wondering how

they can use this technology.

Is

this a step away from talking about

bitcoin, which still has a row

gravitation, you can see governments

saying that they might be

uncomfortable.

Blockchain is the

plumbing that supports bitcoin and

other artificial currencies, and I

think we will see a lot of

brainpower and thought in that

direction, rather than speculating

on the currencies themselves.

This

story in the Wall Street Journal, a

fake and operation used to steal

from publishers, what has been

happening here, essentially,

publishers have been giving money to

them that are not what they say they

are.

It is a traditional fraud,

albeit online, advertisers have been

fooled by fake websites, advertising

on the sites that don't really

exist, they are not showing these

adverts to customers like you and I,

so they lose, the publishers lose,

and the public loos. But it is a

traditional Ford, but in this area,

and we are seeing more and more of

that. -- traditional fraud.

The

environment department, 1400

disposable cups a day, we have asked

for your views, I am using a

reusable mug that I bought in 1999.

Somebody else says, but a 15p task

on them.

Because the coffee is hard,

I used to have them, I am twice as

bad!

Used a flask, it will stay hard

all day long!

A tax and a nudge,

that is what we have seen on plastic

bags.

Thank you Ray much, Richard,

good to see you. Thanks for

watching, bye for now.