London taxes toxic cars, Brits hate unpaid internships, and more trending news

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Drivers of older, more polluting cars now have to pay ￡21.50 per day to drive in central London. Motorists already have to pay a daily congestion charge of ￡11.50 for entering the city centre between 07:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday, but this new additional ‘T-charge’ applies to pretty much all diesel and petrol vehicles registered before 2006. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan introduced the charge in a bid to improve the capital’s air quality, which was found earlier this year to be more polluted than that of the notoriously contaminated Beijing.

The vast majority of people in the UK support banning long unpaid internships. Some 72% of the public surveyed by the Social Mobility Commission said they were behind a change in the law, with 42% “strongly supporting” a ban. Alan Milburn, who chairs the commission, said unpaid internships have become commonplace and mean people from low income backgrounds aren’t able to benefit from the same career opportunities as those who are better off. A private member’s bill is going to be read in the House of Lords on Friday, calling for a ban on unpaid work experience or internships lasting four weeks or more.

Buying a house should soon become a less painful experience. The government has launched an eight-week review into the home-purchasing process with the aim of cracking down on gazumping and making buying a house ”cheaper, faster and less stressful”. Estate agents, solicitors and mortgage lenders are being asked to share their views on gazumping – when a seller agrees to a sale then accepts a higher offer from a new buyer – and the idea of introducing "lock-in agreements" to prevent this unsavoury practice.

Bank of America's wealth management division Merrill Lynch has been fined ￡35m by the UK's financial regulator. Merrill Lynch received this rather costly slap on the wrist after the Financial Conduct Authority found it had failed to report nearly 69 million transactions over the course of two years. The fine is still something of a drop in the ocean for parent company Bank of America, which reported revenues of $89.7bn (￡68bn) last year. The fine was initially going to be 30% higher, but was reduced after the bank agreed to settle early on in the discussions.

Forget pints of lager and glasses of gin, craft beer is the order of the day: More than 300 new breweries were launched in the UK last year as the appetite for craft beer boomed across the nation. Microbreweries have been springing up, benefitting from a tax break that sees those producing less than 5,000 hectolitres pay 50% less beer duty than bigger brewers. Research by UHY Hacker Young found there were 1,994 breweries in the UK at the end of 2016, up 18% since the end of 2015. This has continued to rise over the course of 2017, with the number of breweries rising above 2,000 for the first time since the 1930s.

Idea of the Day: We’re in a ‘hustle’ culture, says author and big data expert Bernard Marr, who says many companies position it as “impossible to avoid if you have any hope of getting ahead.” But is that really the best way to live — or even the best way to get ahead at work? Not only do we miss out on things we love, burning the candle at both ends doesn’t even help productivity.

“Being creative requires space, silence and slow time. When you give yourself that, you will likely be more innovative and more on your game.”

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