Thursday newspaper round-up: Rail unions, Mike Ashley, energy bills

(Sharecast News) - The government is facing growing pressure to relaunch furlough and other emergency financial support schemes after imposing working from home orders in England because of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. Business leaders and unions warned that failure to provide assistance to companies and their workers in the hardest-hit sectors of the economy risked squandering progress made since the easing of pandemic restrictions earlier this autumn. - Guardian Rail unions are drawing up plans for a national strike as job cuts loom across the industry. The RMT is preparing to ballot its members for industrial action, with the union anticipating compulsory redundancies are highly probable at train operating companies and Network Rail. Such redundancies would mean "trains are coming to a halt", the TSSA union said after it failed to get assurances over jobs. - Guardian

The former boss of Lloyds Bank has admitted breaking Covid rules after returning to Switzerland from the UK last week. Antonio Horta-Osorio, who is now chairman at Credit Suisse, travelled to Switzerland on Nov 28 where he was required to quarantine for 10 days. However, he flew to the Iberian peninsula on a private jet just three days later, on Dec 1. - Telegraph

Mike Ashley spent £2m on helicopter and commercial jet flights in the year to April 2020, according to newly published accounts from the billionaire Sports Direct owner's holding company. The bill for his AgustaWestland AW109 helicopter and Dassault Falcon 7X jet were £100,000 higher than in the previous 12 months, according to Companies House filings for Mash Holdings. Mash owns a majority stake in Frasers Group, the listed owner of Sports Direct, House of Fraser and Evans Cycles, among others. - Telegraph

Energy bills could rise to almost £1,900 a year from April as supplier collapses, caused by a decade of regulatory failings, add to the pain of record wholesale prices, a damning report warns. Citizens Advice accuses Ofgem of a "catalogue of errors" that will mean households face paying an extra £94 a year on their energy bills from April to foot the £2.6 billion of costs from a wave of supplier failures over the past four months. - The Times

The government and HS2 are on the verge of announcing that a £2.8 billion contract for the most prestigious train manufacturing project in the history of Britain's railways is to be awarded to Derby's historic Litchurch Lane works and Hitachi's much newer factory at Newton Aycliffe in Co Durham. The long-awaited contract to produce at least 54 trains that can run at 225mph, are up to 400 metres long and able to carry more than 1,000 people, is to be awarded to a joint venture between Alstom of France and Hitachi of Japan. - The Times