26/02/2018 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live

from BBC News

with Sally Bundock

and Ben Thompson.

Inside or outside,

the British Bovernment faces

more Brexit pressure

as the Labour opposition is

expected to call

for the UK to stay

in a customs union.

Live from London, that's our top

story on Monday 26th February.

The battle lines are drawn,

the Labour leader will set

out his party's Brexit plans.

Jeremy Corbyn is likely to call

for full tariff-free

access to EU markets -

could he force the Prime Minister

to change her position?

Also in the programme,

it's a mobile world after all.

Smartphone sales are falling

for the first time,

so what have the industry giants got

planned to get us buying again?

Rory Cellan-Jones is at the Mobile

World Congress in Barcelona.

And it is a brand-new trading week,

and the markets in Europe are all

higher on the day following a bumper

session in Asia.

And working part-time

but shining all the time.

We'll speak one woman whose built

a successful jewellery business

that counts the Duchess of Cambridge

amongst its customers,

despite only working part-time.

As we've been hearing,

smartphone sales are in decline.

Today we want to know have

we reached peak smartphone.

Why and when do you upgrade?

Let us know - just use #BBCBizLive.

Hello and welcome to Business Live.

Many of you have been in touch

already about smartphones, keep your

comments coming in, we will share

them later in the programme.

It's shaping up to be another

big week for Brexit.

In a few hours' time,

the leader of the Labour opposition,

Jeremy Corbyn, is set to increase

the pressure on Prime Minister

Theresa May when he calls for the UK

to have full tariff-free access

to European Union markets

after Brexit.

In a speech,

Mr Corbyn will call for the UK

to stay in a customs union

after Brexit,

which is scheduled for the end

of March next year.

Some sort of trade agreement

is important for both sides.

In 2016, the UK's trade relationship

with the rest of the EU

was worth about $730 billion.

Any customs union would also be

particularly important

to the Northern Ireland border.

According to the FT,

an EU document due out

on Wednesday will call

for the province to remain under

EU regulation as a last resort.

So where now? Overdue, Ben. Chris

Mason joins us from a pretty snowy

Westminster. Explain this

intervention, it is significant, and

it could change things where you are

this morning.

It really good, the

conversation about Brexit swells a

bit like the snow at Westminster,

except that it is actually constant,

and the challenges, both for people

watching and absorbing it in the UK,

and around the world, is that often

there is a lot to talk about when it

comes to Brexit, but you do wonder

if people are actually saying

anything. Today is different,

because Labour, the opposition party

in the UK, are diverging from what

the Government is advocating. They

are suggesting the UK should remain

in a customs union with the European

Union. Not the one that the UK is

currently in as a member of the EU,

but one pretty similar. So they're

adamant as that would allow the free

movement of goods around the members

of that union. -- so their argument.

But those who argue that Brexit is a

good thing say one of the principle

advantages of leaving a customs

union is that you can strike free

trade deals around the world, and if

you are in a customs union, that is

not going to be possible. They're

adamant is that it is sensible

because these are the major

customers of the UK. -- their

argument. It may also be crucial in

maintaining a soft border between

Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Is this back to the argument of the

critics in saying that you cannot

just cherry pick what you want?

It

lands us slap bang in that adamant,

the cake philosophy, as Brussels

insiders have described it, to tease

the UK about this. -- in that

argument. If you want to be part of

some of our arrangements, whether

that be the single market for the

customs union, you can sign up to

them, but we would rather you have

not left in the first place. But

they argue that you cannot

cherry-pick, you cannot pick what

you like and reject other things. If

you want to sign up to this, you

take them as they are or not at all.

We saw that criticism levelled at

the Government by the EU last week

after Theresa May got a Cabinet

together, the same criticism could

be levelled at Labour, but this

matters because there is now a

distinct difference between the two

principle parties in British

politics on their philosophies on

Brexit.

So it is hoped that

reception may be warmer than where

you are, stay warm, state dry, looks

a bit wild out there!

Let's take a look

at some of the other

stories making the news.

The New York film studio co-founded

by the disgraced producer

Harvey Weinstein look set

to file for bankruptcy.

According to US media reports,

it comes after the collapse

of talks to sell its assets

to an investor group.

Several newspapers have a statement

saying the directors believe

it is the "only viable option

to maximise the company's

remaining value."

Latvia's financial authorities

are due to hold an emergency meeting

later today as the country's

third-biggest bank teeters

on the edge of collapse.

ABLV Bank is being wound up

after it was accused by the US

of large scale money laundering,

bribing officials and breaching

sanctions against North Korea.

The car-maker Fiat Chrysler

is planning to scrap diesel

from all its passenger

vehicles by 2022.

That's according to

the Financial Times,

which says the company is grappling

with a collapse in demand

and rising costs from their vehicles

and will unveil its plans in June.

What would persuade you to upgrade

your smartphone and pay the pretty

hefty price tag they often come

with? It is a big question for the

industry's massive gathering in

Barcelona.

Research shows that sales of

handsets fell by over 5% in the last

three months of last year, and that

is marking the first decline on

record. Samsung is still the world's

number one with over 20% of global

sales. Its archrival compares with

14% of market share, Apple, of

course, and several Chinese

companies are looking up added too.

Let's speak to Rory Cellan-Jones,

who is at the Mobile World Congress

in Barcelona. They are all there,

trying to tell you and us they have

got the latest thing that we must

have, but what is it?

Well, it is a

whole variety of things, Ben. The

problem is that all smartphones look

almost identical at the moment, and

every new model, you say, is that

really different? Yes, it has an

amazing new twist! But consumers are

getting savvy and saying, do I

really need to upgrade as quickly?

This event is about more than the

handsets, it is about the new things

you can do with them, about in-car

phones, there will be one company

demonstrating that you can basically

steer an autonomous car on just a

phone alone - seems pretty scary!

There is a lot about the future of

networks, a whole display about 5G,

which is the next phase coming from

a Korean company here. So the whole

mobile infrastructure, a very

important week for them, to convince

us we really need to upgrade.

And we

have asked viewers for their

thoughts on upgrading, and of them

are saying they are at pains to

upgrade now with the price of the

new phones so expensive.

Yeah, and

that is why there is so much effort

on these big phone launchers. We had

the biggest launch of last night,

the Samsung Galaxy S9, and all sorts

of tricks, I will try a trickier

funds. I have actually got the phone

on my phone, a bit of augmented

reality, that is what they did at

the demo, the unveiling last night.

Quite difficult to tell what it will

do, it does very slow motion, and

one funny feature, you can build

your own emoji, your own life like

animated cartoon of yourself. I

build one of me, my wife tells me it

looks much younger, but I am

thinking used-car salesman! I am not

sure that will really sell a new

phone, but Samsung are confident

that people will still upgrade, they

want the latest thing, even if it is

expensive.

All right, Rory, thank

you very much, Rory is on Twitter,

of course.

We will probably end up talking to

his avatar emoji before we speak to

him!

Just to say, 5 billion emojis was

sent last year alone by smartphones.

Do you use emojis?

I love them!

You sometimes send me a smiley face?

By night I love them, I think they

are great!

Maura Fogarty is in our

Asia business hub.

Yes,

what the chairman of Geely

once, he gets, we saw there -- their

shares up, and he spent about $9

billion to buy that nearly 10% stake

that you mentioned. What does he

want? He wants access to Daimler's

technology in electric cars and

autonomous driving vehicles, because

that is where he sees big disruption

happening in the market for cars.

What is interesting about this is

how the stake was acquired. Last

day, Geely approached Daimler and

said, listen, we would like to be a

shareholder, can you issue some new

shares? They were round the Reebok

by the Germans, but today the

chairman used an investment vehicle

he owns to buy open shares in the

market. -- roundly rebuffed. This

conflict takes things for Daimler in

China because they already have a

link with a Chinese company called

BAIC, so a messy start to the

relationship, but he will be meeting

with Daimler executives to try to

smooth it over later this afternoon.

A story to watch, for sure. Let's

look at the markets across the

board, Australia and Hong Kong,

Japan closing up, just shy of 1.3%

higher, and that was Friday on Wall

Street. We had a two-week global

rally, will it extends to a third?

It looks like it will in Europe, all

higher, a lot of attention on the

Federal Reserve again this week, the

new man at the top is going to speak

publicly twice this week. Let's look

at head to the day on Wall Street,

Yogita Limaye has the details.

More

than ever, stock markets in the

United States are watching the

Federal Reserve, each signal from

the central bank about how it sees

monetary policy developing seems to

be setting the course of the

markets, at least until the next

signal. So Friday could be a busy

day. First of all, the Fed issues a

semiannual report on monetary policy

to Congress. Does it think inflation

is heading higher? How many rate

rises does it expect this year? If

the report contains a definitive

answer to those questions, it would

be something of a first, but it

won't stop investors from poring

over it for every last clue they can

find. Then, at a conference in New

York, senior policy makers from the

Fed, including the New York

President, William Dudley, will

speak about how the Fed is forming

its response to the challenges of

inflation and new government

spending.

Joining us is James Hughes,

a market analyst at AxiTrader.

Morning! Interesting week in the

sense that all the action will

happen towards the end of the week,

but investors really trying to work

out what happened at the end of last

week first.

Last week we saw some

really big moves, and it was all

about the Fed speakers, all these

members of the Federal Reserve, some

of them talking up rate hikes, some

of them talking down, in the we have

no idea where it is going kind of

way! So the markets looked

particularly volatile at the end of

last week, so a case of when we have

quite a quiet start in terms of

macroeconomic data, we will try to

focus on why they moved like they

did last week, and it was quite an

aggressive end to the week last

week.

So in terms of the week ahead,

talking about the fact that it is

economic heavy in the US, the jobs

report on Friday - that report last

time caused markets to be really

spooked, didn't it? For sure, and it

is not necessarily the overall

number of jobs, it is the wages,

very much like what we saw for the

UK last week. That wage data is very

stagnant,

and the Federal Reserve

want to see that get higher.

Expectations are that it will go

higher, which is why there is a lot

of talk that we could see maybe four

rate hikes in the US this year, but

with Jerome Powell are speaking

twice this week, it will be his

first real engagement as the chair

of the Fed, it will be important to

see his stance on how many rate

hikes we are going to see and

whether he is hawkish, whether he

wants them higher or lower.

That is

one to watch. James is coming back.

He is a serials smartphone upgrade.

Key it's coming in. -- comments.

-- comments.

Still to come...

Could encouraging more

people to work part-time

be good news for us and the economy?

A new study says more of us

than ever are working fewer hours

to get a better work-life balance.

You're with Business

Live from BBC News.

A deadline is drawing closer that

could decide the future

of Toys R Us in the UK.

The UK part of the firm could fall

in to administration as soon

as tomorrow if a deal isn't done

today, putting more

than 3,000 jobs at risk.

Let's speak to Maureen Hinton,

Global Research Director

at Global Data.

What do you think will happen this

week?

It does not look very good. It

looks like it will not be able to

pay its back bill and it has had to

trade since Christmas. It looks like

the company will fold. It is a real

shame for all the employees.

One we

talk about Toys "R" Us, there is a

tendency to look back nostalgically

and remember those big out-of-town

stores that many families might have

gone to before Christmas or a big

birthday, but they did not keep up

with the times, did they?

The

competition has moved on. We use

online much more, we shop or from

supermarkets, Argos as well. It has

not kept up with it. Also there is

another competitor, Smith's Toys,

also on retail parks, and it seems

families preferred to go there. It

is a case of lack of investment and

keeping up with the competition.

You

do not mention Amazon, which before

Christmas really slashed its prices

significantly, taking a hit on its

own margins to stamp out

competition.

Amazon is always the

elephant in the room in retail

because it is taking lunch from

everybody because it is so good at

delivering. It has got good

fulfilment, especially on toys and

gifts before Christmas. It is so

convenient. It is affecting all

retailers and they all have to up

their game and a lot of them are, a

lot of them are keeping ahead, but

online takes a lot of investment

because there is so much on the

fulfilment side and we have got such

expectations as consumers. It is a

very tough world for retail.

Toys

"R" Us is a story to keep an eye out

for tomorrow and the days ahead. And

there is a story about why Taiwan

may have run out of toilet roll!

You're watching Business

Live, our top story...

Britain should stay in a customs

union after Brexit. That is expected

to be the message from the leader of

the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn. He

is due to say later today in a move

that will increase pressure on

Theresa May that staying in the

customs union is best for business.

But that raises all sorts of

questions for how the government

intends to negotiate.

intends to negotiate.

A quick look at how

markets are faring.

But as you heard from James, markets

are keeping an eye on the end of

week.

More and more of us

are working part time,

according the latest figures,

and for employers that means

they can improve diversity and offer

jobs to people who would otherwise

not be able to work.

The UK recruitment agency Timewise

has published research

today showing one in four full-time

workers would prefer

to work part-time for

a cut in their salary,

as long as it didn't

affect their career progression.

But that's the problem.

Many workers worry it

will affect their future career.

In fact, 77% of existing part-time

workers reported that they feel

"trapped" in their current roles.

But nearly a million

part-time workers are now

defined as "high income",

meaning they earn

a minimum of £40,000 -

that's about $56,000.

And in order to champion part-time

working, Timewise has

created a series of awards.

One of them is Beatrice

De Montille, winners

who is the founder of the bespoke

jewellers Merci Maman.

I have to declare I am a judge on

the panel for this, so I know your

company well. Tell us why you

started this company working on a

part-time basis.

I started working

on my own self employed at the

beginning because I wanted to work

part-time in my company at the time

when I came back from maternity

leave did not accept part-time jobs,

so it was quite easy to make the

decision to stop working. I was

influenced by a friend of mine who

started a home business before me. I

thought I could do the same and it

gave me the confidence and I was

looking for a good idea and that is

how I started.

Many people would

imagine that starting a business is

not the way to work part-time. A new

business will require all your

attention. How did you do it?

I had

to juggle between my family life and

my working life, but when you are a

mother there is a time when your

baby is sleeping and I was working

during that time. After they went to

nursery I had to rush to the post

office to post my items before

picking them up at nursery. I always

had to be flexible, but I managed

and I started on my own, but now I

have a team of 30 people ten years

later. It is a good success that can

maybe get ideas to others. I would

love to be an inspiration to other

women.

We are looking at your team

in operation. You come up with

personalised gifts. A lot of it is

jewellery.

We focus on jewellery

now. At the beginning we were doing

other products, but now we are

focusing on jewellery. We engraved

by hand in our workshop in London

and we have opened a studio in Paris

two years ago and the new one this

month in March in Berlin.

As far as

the part-time work, we touched on

how important it is for employers

and employees, but this is not just

about mothers. This applies to

anyone who wants to reduce their

hours.

Exactly, that is why I wanted

to focus on that. It is great if you

want to balance your family and

working life, but in my company one

third of the employees work

part-time and some of them are

artists, so it is a great source of

revenue for them. They can lead

their own artistic life alongside.

It is a great example. It is not

only for mothers, it is great as

well for other people who have

passions and they need time to give

up their skills.

And you have got

four children and you are moving

back to France with your husband.

You have lured him away from

investment banking and he is working

in your business, is that right?

He

joined big four years ago. He was

jealous of my flexibility and he

wanted to spend more time with our

kids. He is picking them up from

school today because I am away. It

is a win- win situation for all of

us.

We will not get into how it is

working with your husband, that is a

whole other conversation. So nice to

see you. Good luck with everything.

In the moment we will look through

the stories in the papers and we

will get your take on the smartphone

upgrading debate. What would

convince you to upgrade. A lot of

you are messaging as. Here is how to

get in touch. Stay up-to-date with

all the business news on the BBC's

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globe. Get involved on the BBC's

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Facebook.

James is back as promised. You are

serial upgraded. Have you got a

problem?

Yes, this is one of them. I

get that bug that I want it. Is your

wife watching now? I don't want it

and then I wanted and I fog out

loads of money and three minutes

after getting it it is the same as

the other one.

A lot of people are

getting in touch saying, you have to

convince me it is sufficiently

different to pay up to £1000. Prices

are ridiculous, it does not justify

the small improvements made. Nick

says the £200 phone does the same as

an £800 phone, so there is no need

to upgrade. But it is not about

need, is it?

With a lot of these

smartphone companies it is very rare

that upgrade the handset in a

significant way and usually it is

the operating system and we can

download that for free anyway about

two months after the release of the

phone. It is the software that we

can get for free.

I replace my phone

when I lose it or when it stops

working, that is Mike Harvey. So

many it's coming in.

Thank