07/02/2018 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC

News with Ben Thompson

and Sally Bundock.

Business leaders lose their patience

about Britian's Brexit plans

as the Prime Minister meets senior

ministers to thrash out the UK's

position on leaving the EU.

Live from London, that's our top

story on Wednesday 7th February.

The British Chambers of Commerce

accused Theresa May of

"ambiguity" saying businesses must

plan for their future and want

a firm decision on the way forward

in the next fortnight.

Also in the programme: Grocery giant

Tesco faces Britain's largest

ever equal pay claim that could top

$5 billion dollars as thousands

of women workers demand

pay parity with men.

A bounce back in global stock

markets following the wild swings

this week that have marked a return

of volatility after years of calm.

But is it here to stay? Traders

could do with de-stressing.

And we'll be getting

the inside track on

the business of stress-busting -

stock market traders could do

with a bit of that this week.

But for many of us, hectic modern

life means we all need

a some help to destress.

Our next guest says he has

the answer - in a bottle.

Today we want to know

The billionaires space race -

@elonmusk celebrates a successful

launch of his new rocket!

If you were given the chance,

would you go to space?

Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

I think some days salary would

happily send me to space. Send your

comments in -- Sally would happily.

I know we say this a lot,

but we're at another crucial stage

of the Brexit negotiations.

Senior UK ministers begin a two-day

meeting later to thrash out

the government's position

on what relationship the UK

will have with the EU after it

leaves in March 2019.

Business bosses have already

warned the Prime Minister

about the lack of clarity

and the damage they say

it's doing to business.

The British Chambers of Commerce

has accused Theresa May

of "continued ambiguity".

The EU's Brexit negotiator urged

Mrs May's government

to clarify its position.

Michael Barnier said

without a customs union

and outside the single market,

barriers to trade are inevitable.

One vital sector that wants

clarity is services.

It accounts for 45% of the UK's

total exports, in everything

from financial services,

IT, design, tourism, education,

accountancy and law.

It makes Britain the

world's second-largest

exporter after the US.

And Recruiters are nervous, too.

The number of London jobs

available in December fell

a dramatic 52% month-on-month,

a far bigger drop than the same

month in previous years,

according to Morgan McKinley.

Anastassia Beliakova is Head

of Trade Policy from

the British Chambers of Commerce.

We outline some issues that you as

an organisation had of this open

letter to Theresa May and her

government. You are asking for a

united party to deliver clarity,

easier said than done.

We know the

political environment is challenging

and businesses are unaware of the

complexity of the negotiations but

government needs to be mindful that

business has been very patient in

phase one of the negotiations. As we

are about to enter the second stage,

we still don't know what the UK

Government wants to do. That is

having a real effect on business

sentiment, which means businesses

are holding off on some investment

decisions.

This 11 member Brexit

subcommittee that is meeting today

and tomorrow in intensive talks, led

by Theresa May, includes the likes

of Philip Hammond, the Chancellor,

amber Rudd, the Home Secretary,

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. You

can see the clear decisions. What

expectations have you got that we

should get some clarity this week?

Many will be saying it will be more

confusion, but more fudge coming out

of this meeting perhaps.

That would

be very disappointing for

businesses. We have seen ambiguity

continuously over the last few

months. Businesses want to know what

kinds of practical questions will be

addressed in the next stage of the

negotiations and what kind of

assurances can government give to

them. Rhetoric is no longer enough.

It is important to address questions

such as what kind of customs

declarations businesses will have to

make, what kinds of arrangements

will services have in the future

relationship with the EU? And what

exactly will happen to the existing

trade agreements we are party to,

will we still have the same

benefits?

When it comes to a trade

agreement, what do our members are

as divided as the rest of the

country, we represent 75,000

businesses of all shapes and sizes.

They are united on the fact that the

UK Government has taken too much

time in outlining its position. It

has a responsibility with regards to

its own citizens and businesses and

we really need to hear a much

stronger statement of intent from

the Prime Minister and her Cabinet.

Thank you for coming in.

The cabinet meeting is underway

today and tomorrow and we will keep

you up to date.

There is a press conference being

held by Mike Pence, US Vice

President in Tokyo, meeting with

Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime

Minister. He is largely talking

about the concerns over North Korea,

let's have a quick listen.

In the past, the United States,

Japan and freedom loving nations

across the globe responded to

Pyongyang's actions with failed

diplomacy. The result of which has

been a cycle of broken promises.

Wilful deception. And escalating

provocations. But the era of

strategic patience is over. The

truth is, in 1994, the Kim regime

committed to freeze its plutonium

programme, only to continue making

progress. In 2005, as we discussed

today, it promised to dismantle its

nuclear programme. But North Korea

only accelerated.

Over the years, North Korea has, as

the president has said, repeatedly

supported acts of international

terrorism, including assassinations

on foreign soil. As the regime even

secretly helped Syria will do a

nuclear reactor in the mid-2000s. In

the Indo Pacific, North Korea has

continued to develop and test

ballistic and nuclear weapons. Last

year, within less than 30 days, the

regime launched two missiles over

Japanese territory. And conducted

yet another nuclear test in the same

period of time.

This week, as the world knows, North

Korea is sending a delegation to

participate in the Winter Olympics.

They will march under the same

banner as South Korea. But we should

not forget that North Korea South

Korea have marched under the same

banner before.

The world witnessed it at the

Olympics in 2000 and in 2004. In the

Winter Olympics in 2006. Only to see

North Korea continue its pursuit of

threats and provocations. In fact,

North Korea tested its first nuclear

weapons only eight months after the

conclusion of the 2006 Winter

Olympics. Later this week, I will

have the privilege to lead the

United States delegation to the

Winter Olympics. We will be there to

cheer on our American athletes. But

we will also be there to stand with

our allies. And remind the world

that North Korea is the most

tyrannical and oppressive regime on

the planet. I'll be joined by the

father of a promising young man who

was imprisoned and tortured in North

Korea only to pass away shortly

after his release. As President

Trump has said, we will honour

Otto's memory with resolve. We will

not allow North Korea propaganda to

derail the Olympic Games. We will

not allow North Korea to hide behind

the reality that they enslave their

people and threatened the wider

region. As we discussed, Mr Prime

Minister, today, the American people

and the people of Japan and freedom

loving people everywhere along for

the day when peace and prosperity

replace Pyongyang's belligerence.

But we will not repeat the mistakes

of the past. As President Trump has

said, past experience has taught us

that complacency and concession only

invite aggression and provocation.

Vigilance and resolve will be our

lode star. All options are on the

table. And the United States has

deployed some of our most advanced

military assets to Japan and the

wider region to protect our homeland

and allies.

STUDIO: Vice president

Mike Pence in Tokyo talking with

Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.

As you heard, he is striking a

warning about the relationship with

North Korea ahead of the Winter

Olympics that get underway on Friday

in South Korea.

He continues his tour of the area

ahead of the beginning of the Winter

Olympics at the end of the week. We

will stay right across that and if

there is anything else of interest

we will bring it to you.

Let's take a look at some

of the other stories

making the news.

A roller-coaster day yesterday but

more calm today. In Japan in the Kay

was up 3% after falling almost 7% in

the session but it ended pretty

flat.

Let's head to our Asia Business Hub

for the latest, where

Karishma Vaswani has been tracking

the markets for us.

An easier day today but still, I

would imagine that traders are

remaining on edge for the time

being?

Absolutely. The anxiety that

we saw in Asian markets yesterday

has abated somewhat today but it was

a mixed session.

Volatility has come into both the US

markets and in Asia. That's not

going away any time soon. If you

think about it, it makes total

sense. In the United States there is

this anticipation that interest

rates are going to be rising at a

faster rate than many people had

expected. That results in the fact

that money gets pulled out riskier

assets. One of those risky assets

has been emerging market equities.

Many markets in Asia have benefited

foreign funds flowing in over the

last seven or eight years from

places like the united states. Over

the last couple days, there has been

anxiety about the fact that that

money might have been pulled out and

what that will result in in terms of

share price volatility over the

coming days.

You will stay across

that for us as that volatility

potentially continues. Thank you.

Joining us is Mike Bell,

Global Market Strategist,

at JP Morgan Asset Management.

You were talking a lot to clients

yesterday in the midst of this. You

said, would return. Have you been

vindicated this morning? That he

said that calm would return.

The key

thing is that Friday people worried

about wage growth coming back.

Higher wage growth you would think

is good for the economy but whatever

you everyone is concerned about is

that the central bank in the US will

slam the brakes on and cause markets

to come to a juddering halt. Wage

growth is slowly going to pick up.

But a lot of the pick-up was caused

by the distortion in weather data

because some people weren't working

because of the storms we saw in the

US. As a result, we will see some

central banks tightening but

realistically we will probably only

get four rate rises from the Fed

this year, probably not enough to

slow the US economy. Earnings for US

companies are being revised up

rather than down, that is why some

calm is returning to markets.

The

word we heard so much yesterday,

correction, not a collapse. But the

question is how much of a correction

needs to be made to markets? Because

they have potentially been

overvalued for so long.

The

important thing to know, on average,

over the last 30 years, the UK stock

market falls from peak to trough

every year by an average of 12%.

Most years it still ends up. 10-12%

pull-back is entirely normal. What

was abnormal was that last year we

saw lots of markets head strongly

upwards but with little pull-back.

These kind of pull-backs are

completely normal. Somewhat healthy

for markets. The fundamental

economic data matters, that is still

healthy. It is at the moment.

How

long do you think it will be healthy

for? This was the discussion of the

World Economic Forum. We are in a

sweet spot for the global commie but

it might not last long.

We think at

least for the rest of this year the

growth outlook should look strong.

The business surveys have

historically been a good guide as to

what will happen in the economy and

around the world, in the US in

particular but also in Europe, they

are telling you that growth is

booming, slightly less in the UK but

in Europe and the US growth looks

very good. It is hard to predict

much further into the future than

that but it looks good will stop

thank you.

Still to come...

The business of stress busting. If

any investors put their money in

that, market for things to

de-stress. We speak to a boss of a

company who says he has bottled the

answer. We have heard this before

but apparently this is the one.

The government is to give so-called

gig economy workers new rights

including holiday and sick pay

for the first time.

It's in answer to last year's

Taylor Review which recommended

changes in conditions to reflect

modern working practices.

Our business correspondent,

Theo Leggett has been

looking at the details.

Reminders about the Taylor review.

-- remind us.

It was set up to look

at how business practices have

changed over the last few years and

how the government should respond to

that in terms of employment law and

the enforcement of employment law.

It noted there are trends to

companies like Uber and deliver

real, people who employ people by

the job.

There is an increasing

reliance on agency workers and

people and zero-hours contracts,

people who are not guaranteed hours

of work but do have a contract with

an employer. Mr Taylor's conclusion

was this does allow flexibility in

the workplace, useful for employees

and employers, but things were

weighted too much in favour of the

employers. He set out a number of

recommendations to make life better

for the employees, most of which the

government has now taken up.

What

are they proposing here? It is

pretty widespread, the proposals,

that will affect so many people in

this so-called gig economy?

A set of

widespread proposals but the actual

changes are not that great. What the

government is planning to do on

holiday and sick pay, for example,

is to enforce the existing rules

better. A lot of people who work in

the gig economy who are entitled to

holiday and sick pates don't

actually know that they are entitled

to it. Under these proposals, they

will be informed on day one what

their rights were. HMRC would then

try harder to enforce those rules,

to make sure people who were

entitled to holiday and sick pay get

what they are entitled to. It is the

same with the use of unpaid interns,

that has been a controversial point.

Employers are not supposed to use

unpaid interns to do the job of a

paid worker. In this review there

will be increased enforcement of

that rule and increase penalties for

employers who disregard that.

Good

stuff, thank you for explaining

that. It is pretty complicated but

those proposals in force. Not

everyone is happy, the union say

there is still a whole load of

workers who are not being protected

by those proposals.

More details on our website.

You're watching Business

Live - our top story:

Business leaders in the UK are

demanding more clarity about

Britain's position when it comes to

Brexit. The Prime Minister, of

course, is meeting with senior

ministers in her Cabinet to try and

thrash out the UK's position.

Markets will be looking closely at

that and also recovering after a

pretty volatile session yesterday,

sparked by that sell-off on Wall

Street. Some markets bouncing back

from the falls we saw earlier in the

week.

Tesco is facing Britain's

largest equal pay law suit

which could affect up

to 200,000 mostly female shop

floor workers, who say they're paid

less than men who work

in the company's warehouses.

Lawyers suggest Tesco could be

liable for up to £4 billion

in back pay if it loses.

Our economics editor,

Kamal Ahmed, has more.

You have been looking at this, this

is fascinating because there are a

number of firms caught up in this

equal pay row.

Yes, plenty of equal

pay claims in the UK, which is

paying men and women the same for

the same jobs. This is a slightly

different issue. It is about, can

businesses pay men and men different

rates for doing different jobs, even

though their value is the same? This

is the shop workers in Tesco, in

comparison to men who work in the

warehouse. Most of the people who

work in the shops tend to be women

and they are paid less than men.

Tesco says it is an equal

opportunities employer, that it

takes gender equality very seriously

and is seen generally as a big

employer. It is Britain's biggest

private employer. For many

businesses around the world, there

has been this division between what

is seen as women's work, in a rather

old-fashioned way, catering,

cleaning, shop workers, being paid

less than what is traditionally seen

as men's work, lorry driving,

loading in warehouses, bin

collection. As we are in the 21st

century, should those kinds of jobs

be seen as equal in value?

I am sure

business leaders all over will be

watching this very closely, to see

how this plays out, what the

conclusions are, because it could

have huge implications for many

companies and businesses around the

world?

Absolutely. In Britain,

although this is the Tesco story

today, big retailers in Britain like

Sainsbury's and Asda have been

facing similar claims. Big City

Council in the UK, Birmingham,

Britain's second city, had to pay

out £1 billion when they agreed that

they should pay more money to

cleaners and caterers in the

council, paying them the same as

being collectors as well, and they

have agreed that that should happen.

So this notion of equal pay the jobs

of equal value is a very significant

one.

Just briefly, there is a figure

out there, £4 billion in costs to

Tesco. Is that the cost fixing the

situation as is all future pay to

these women if they get a deal?

It

will be about fixing the problem. In

Britain you can claim back six years

of back pay if you've been found to

have been paid equally. That will be

people who retired, for example,

could take action against Tesco.

They employ over 200,000 people in

their stores in the UK. The highest

proportion of those women. That

shows the of the agreements, if the

case is successful it will be very

long. Each woman could be due up to

£20,000. But this will be fought

over many, many years because the

issues are so fundamental.

Very

interesting. More on our website,

two, on that.

We're going to change to the little

bit.

For many of us, modern

life is pretty hectic.

So the market for products

to destress us is big business,

everything from calming music,

herbal drinks or a smartphone app.

Our next guest says

he has the answer.

Tranquini makes what it says

is the first "global

natural de-stress" drink.

It was founded in 2014,

but has grown quickly.

It does business in 42 countries

and is launching here in the UK.

Rachel Horne caught up with

the boss, Ahmed Elafifi, in London.

It's a soft drink with

a functionality, so it's

a functional beverage that provides

you with ingredients that

allows you to really deal

with your stress and relax.

When we are stressed,

when we have an anxiety attack,

three vital signs are happening

in the body; the heart rate,

the breathing rate and the neurons,

pulsation of the brain,

is going up.

When you take ingredients

like theanine from green tea

or chamomile or melissa,

what happens is that helps,

these ingredients help these vital

signs to come back to normal.

So if somebody is having a stressful

day at work or at home,

are you saying drinking your drink

will actually calm them down?

There are a lot of examples of this.

You know, at work for example

they do a lot of speeches,

presentations, people turn red,

they start sweating,

they have the knot in the stomach,

this is an anxiety attack of making

a big speech.

If you drink a Tranquini

half an hour before,

this helps you a lot to avoid these

symptoms and be more confident

and more positive and deliver a much

better speech or presentation.

Do you have the scientific

research to back that up?

Absolutely.

There's a lot of scientific

research, very credible,

about the ingredients,

the individual ingredients and also

the combination and levels

of ingredients that supports

the fact that these

ingredients get you to deal

with the stress and relax.

How significant is wellness for you?

It's a real focus today.

Do you think if you launched

the drink ten years ago it

would have been as successful?

Yes, today mindful and wellness

is very, very important

for consumers, for people.

If we look at energy drinks,

the real growth of energy drinks

took place at the end of the '90s

and beginning of the 2000s.

The spirit of the time,

the Zeitgeist at that time,

was all about give me energy.

"I want to work hard,

play hard to compensate",

and no one was talking

about work-life balance,

mindfulness, wellness like today.

The spirit of the time today

is very, very different

and we created Tranquini exactly

to fit the spirit of the time today.

Let's talk about the sugar tax.

We asked you at the start of the

programme, Elon Musk launching a

rocket into space yesterday. You

will have seen those pictures, if

not, they are on the website. We

were asking you, would you go to

space is given the chance question

that this is the Elon Musk rocket

that is reusable, it can land again,

the idea is to make space travel a

bit cheaper and easier. Lots of you

getting in touch sending out

messages about this. One says, hell

yes, I'd go to space. Another said,

send the politicians and their spin

doctors into space to see how small

they really are. These are

incredible pictures from space. That

is a mannequin, a dummy, not a real

person.

We had one tweet that said yes, I

wanted to be an astronaut after

seeing the moon landing aged ten. I

was told a girl cannot be an

astronaut, I want to prove them

wrong. That has already been proved

wrong, plenty of women in space.

Another said could I go into space

quest might yes, I'm curious to go

up there and what we could do given

a bigger space.

A few viewers got in touch saying, I

know who I would send into space but

we won't mention those names!

No, we will leave it to your

imagination.

Just as they are Tesla car is up

there in space. Elon Musk will be in

the news later because Tesla results

are released later today. Quite a

busy agenda for him right now.

All of those details for you

tomorrow on the programme. Thank you

for your company today. See you very

soon. Bye-bye.