Anglo American has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sinochem Fertilizer, the largest distributor of agricultural products in China, and BeiFeng AMP, the country’s third largest player in the sector.

The companies will work together to address potential sales opportunities in China, to hone their marketing strategies and to conduct further research on how polyhalite might be applied to various crops. Tom McCulley, the chief executive of Anglo American’s crop nutrients business, said China was a “key customer” in the miner’s ambition to develop a lead in the polyhalite market.

The Woodsmith mine, near Sneatonthorpe, is set to feature what is thought to be the longest tunnel in Britain at about 23 miles and the deepest mine in Europe. It has promised to produce copious supplies of polyhalite, a rarely used fertiliser, the market for which is unproven. Seventeen miles of the tunnel has been completed and the two mine shafts have depths of 2,600ft and 2,000ft.

However, work on the mine was scaled back dramatically under a restructuring plan set out in May, part of a defence against a £39 billion takeover attempt by BHP, the world’s largest miner. Spending has been reduced to $1 billion over the next three years, from the near-$3 billion that had been set out, which includes $900 million planned for this year. The decision has left about 2,000 jobs in the balance.

First production from the mine had been due in 2027, but is now more likely to be in 2030, Duncan Wanblad, 57, Anglo’s chief executive, has said. The decision to press ahead with the project will depend on the results of a feasibility study that is due to be completed at the start of next year, on repairing the group’s balance sheet and on finding a partner to shoulder some of the cost.

Wanblad, who has championed the project, said in July that there were no plans to shelve it indefinitely, describing the Woodsmith mine as “one of the most exciting projects in the industry today”.

In July, the London-listed miner revealed a $1.6 billion writedown in the value of the mine. The project has been beset by problems with financing before Anglo became involved in 2020 via the £400 million rescue takeover of Sirius Minerals, the original company behind it.

Shares in Anglo American fell 30p, or 1.3 per cent, to close at £22.09.

The latest Lloyds Bank business barometer, a monthly survey of business sentiment, maintained its 50 per cent reading in August, keeping confidence at the highest level since November 2015. The index is well above the long-term average of 29 per cent.

A sharp increase in optimism in the construction sector offset greater pessimism in other areas of the economy. Lloyds said confidence among builders had risen by 14 points to 58 per cent over the past month.

The rise is likely to be tied to the Labour government’s focus on loosening planning restrictions to increase housing supply. This week Sir Keir Starmer vowed to “take on the blockers by accelerating planning to build homes and boost growth”.

The economy has outperformed expectations this year, growing by 0.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent in the first and second quarters, respectively. Inflation has declined to around the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target, while unemployment remains low, helping to fortify business confidence in future trading prospects.

This month the Bank cut interest rates for the first time since March 2020 and traders in financial markets expect one or two further reductions this year. However, this pace of easing is likely to be slower than central banks elsewhere.

Hann-Ju Ho, a senior economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial, said: “As in July, we’ve seen a particularly strong outcome for business confidence. It remains at an elevated level of 50 per cent, which is well above the long-term average of 29 per cen. And it has been above the average for the past 15 months.

“Official GDP data for the first half of this year was encouraging and the survey results indicate that solid economic performance will likely continue as we move into the second half of the year. Overall, the economy looks to be stable and, from the positive results recorded, businesses are echoing this sentiment.”

However, there were signs in Lloyds’s research that some sectors are concerned about the longevity of the economic rebound. “Trading prospects for manufacturing dropped by two points to 58 per cent, at the same level as construction, while retail and services fell to 53 per cent, down by seven and three points, respectively,” the bank said.

Retail sales have been persistently sluggish this year as people opt to take advantage of high interest rates by saving rather than spending. According to the Office for National Statistics, sales remain 0.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, with consumption weakest for clothing and household goods.

“Price expectations among firms decreased once again for the second time in three months,” Lloyds said. “In August, 58 per cent of firms planned to raise prices in the next year (down from 60 per cent), whereas 4 per cent intended to lower them (up from 3 per cent). The net balance dropped three points to 54 per cent, making it the second lowest in 2024.”

Instead, Drax Group, the owner of Britain’s biggest power station, has been mired in controversy since it converted four of the six units at its plant in North Yorkshire from burning coal to biomass. Scientists and environmental groups are at odds over the green credentials of burning wood shipped in from overseas to generate electricity — and the findings of an Ofgem investigation into how the company reports figures around the sustainability of the wood pellets it sources are likely to provide further fuel for the energy generator’s detractors.

The regulator has ordered Drax to pay £25 million in redress after finding that it had failed to put “adequate data governance and controls in place” when it came to reporting details around the type of wood sourced from Canada for use in its power plant near Selby between the end of March 2021 and April 2022.

Drax had been unable to demonstrate how its “annual profiling submission had been arrived at and unable to support the reliability of its profiling data reporting of forestry type and saw logs for Canadian consignments for that same period”, the regulator said.

Last year the company shipped in 90 per cent of the biomass used in its plant from Canada and the United States. Now it has been asked to appoint a third-party auditor to review the data submitted for the most recent reporting period and to resubmit information for 2021-22.

Will Gardiner, 60, the chief executive of Drax Group, said that it recognised “the importance of maintaining a strong evidence base” and was “continuing to invest to improve confidence in our future reporting”.

Ofgem’s investigation was launched in May last year after a review of the information submitted by Drax for the historical reporting period. The latest findings relate to the additional details that Drax and other biomass generators need to supply to Ofgem about how the woody biomass they burn is sourced, information that is not used to issue renewables obligations certificates.

The investigation found no evidence that Drax had been incorrectly issued with the renewables certificates, a form of subsidy funded via customer bills, or that it had not met a threshold for a minimum of 70 per cent of biomass to come from “sustainable sources” in order to qualify for funding.

Wood from sustainable sources is defined as being grown within an area of forest or other land that is managed in a way consistent with the Forest Europe Sustainable Forest Management Criteria or a set of international principles for the sustainable management of land.

Drax received £548 million in renewables obligations certificates subsidies last year and £599 million in 2022. The support scheme, which is administered by the energy regulator, places an annual obligation on electricity suppliers to present a specified number of renewables obligations certificates per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to their customers, or to pay into a buyout fund.

Renewables obligations certificates are issued to certain power companies for the eligible renewable electricity they generate, which they can then trade with other operators or sell directly to suppliers, providing an extra revenue stream. The four units at Drax that have been converted to burn biomass wood pellets qualify for renewable energy subsidies on the basis that trees absorb carbon as they grow, offsetting the carbon emitted when they are burnt.

The penalty Drax has been told to pay to atone for its misreporting is the second largest issued by the energy watchdog and equates to almost a third of the £77 million of the fines, redress payments and customer repayments recovered by Ofgem last year.

However, Ember, an independent energy think tank, criticised the 15-month investigation as “light touch” and said that Drax would be “relieved to only receive a £25 million fine for these multiple compliance failures, in light of the more than £500 million it makes every year from public subsidy”.

The closure of the investigation has been viewed by analysts as a victory for Drax, clearing the way for an extension of subsidies. The existing support regime comes to an end in 2027 and Drax has been seeking an extension to the subsidies until the end of the decade, when at least one of the units at the Drax power station, which supplies about 4 per cent of the UK’s electricity, will be converted to biomass with carbon capture and storage technology, known as BECCS.

Alexander Wheeler, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, the broker, said the ending of the investigation would remove an overhang that had lingered over the company’s share price since May last year. “This announcement also confirms no issues with biomass sustainability, which is clearly important as Drax continues its discussions with the government around the bridging mechanism,” he said.

Yet the findings of misreporting will provide fresh ammunition for environmentalists who have criticised the sustainability claims made by Drax. Its detractors argue that classifying biomass as sustainable because replacement trees are planted to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted fails to stack up against the time taken for forests to grow and lock away the pollution.

An analysis by Ember suggested that Drax was Britain’s biggest carbon emitter, accounting for almost 3 per cent of emissions, or 11.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide last year. Drax said the report was flawed and had chosen “to ignore the widely accepted and internationally recognised approach to carbon accounting”.

An investigation by the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2022 found that wood from two areas in British Columbia were used to make wood pellets for generating electricity in Britain. Drax said at the time that it had not taken wood from the two areas looked at by the investigation and that four fifths of the material it used to make pellets in Canada were from sawdust, wood chips and bark left over when timber was processed.

David Simmonds, MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, said the energy regulator had to “pull its finger out” and clamp down on the energy suppliers that are yet to pass on the discounts available under the government’s Energy Business Relief Scheme [EBRS] to thousands of businesses.

The savings under the scheme, which runs until the end of March, should be applied automatically. But four of the five biggest energy providers in the UK – British Gas, EDF, ScottishPower and SSE – told The Times last month that thousands of small business customers had yet to see the relief reflected in their bills.

EDF blamed “systems issues” and all four said that customers would receive backdated discounts if they had been overcharged. But Simmonds said this was not good enough as struggling businesses may “go to the wall” in the meantime.

“The big frustration is Ofgem’s decision not to intervene on the fact that these energy companies can use customers’ money as working capital for their businesses. That really concerns me,” he said.

Simmonds was the first MP to raise the matter in parliament in January after a number of his constituents said they’d not seen the subsidy applied. One of them, a small wine shop, had seen energy bills increase from £1,500 a month to £9,000 and “had not received a penny of help”, despite being eligible.

Simmonds said it remained a “significant” issue. “A lot of these businesses survived Covid by the skin of their teeth… and are now not seeing the relief they should be getting.”

“We in parliament think ‘We’ve done our job here. We voted this thing through and that means they’re going to get this money and it’s going to help them,’ but it isn’t – it’s not making it through to their bottom line.”

The politician, who worked in financial services before entering politics, advised affected small businesses to “contact their member of parliament, because the more people know about the situation, the easier it is to get something done.”

He said he was hopeful that the prime minister’s decision to separate the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and create a dedicated Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero would bring about “a renewed focus” on the problems faced by small firms trying to access the support scheme.

Ofgem said: “We are ready for enforcement action if necessary to make sure customers receive the help that they are entitled to.”

But it would not confirm if it was looking into the admissions by British Gas, EDF, SSE and ScottishPower that they had not passed on the EBRS discount to all small business customers. “Ofgem does not comment on any enforcement action it may or may not be undertaking,” said a spokesperson.

Chinese cars accounted for 9.9 per cent of electric vehicle registrations in Europe in July, down from 10.2 per cent a year earlier, according to Dataforce, the automotive sector analyst.

The decline comes after the EU increased duties on imported electric vehicles with the introduction of provisional duties on July 5. Manufacturers in China now face tariffs ranging from 17.4 per cent to 37.6 per cent, on top of the bloc’s existing 10 per cent duty on all car imports. The EU’s duties are expected to become permanent in November, pending a vote by member states.

Fewer than 14,000 electric vehicles from Chinese carmakers were registered in Europe in July, down from 23,000 in June.

The tariffs come after a European Commission investigation into what it described as “unfair subsidisation”, which it claimed allowed China-made electric vehicles to be sold at prices undercutting European-produced vehicles. They were calculated based on how much state aid each company received and whether they had co-operated with the investigation.

BYD, which briefly overtook Tesla as the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer last year, faces a 17 per cent tariff, while SAIC Motor, the owner of MG, has been hit with a 36.3 per cent levy. The California-based Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, has avoided the harshest tariffs, with a 9 per cent duty.

China has denied the commission’s allegations and the levies have escalated trade tensions. This week the country’s commerce ministry claimed that European companies had been selling brandy at a “dumping” margin rate of 30.6 per cent to 39 per cent. While it said its domestic industry had been harmed, it said that provisional tariffs would not be imposed “for the time being”.

Last month Rachel Reeves hailed the benefits of Britain’s trade with China, suggesting that the government was unlikely to impose punitive tariffs on imported goods from the country. The United States imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles in May, while Canada announced plans to do the same this week.

In July Reeves said: “We are a small, open trading economy and we benefit from those trade links with countries around the world, both for exports and imports, but also for foreign direct investment.

“Our view is that where possible we trade, we co-operate and we challenge in areas where it’s important to challenge, but we don’t want to close the UK economy down to imports and exports. We benefit from those trade links around the world, including with China.”

Demand for electric vehicles has continued to decline in Europe, largely driven by Germany prematurely ending its subsidy programme last December. Electric vehicle sales in Europe’s largest car market declined by 37 per cent month-on-month in July, marking a 20 per cent year-on-year drop, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

Dataforce’s analysis, based on battery-electric unit sales in the EU, the European Free Trade Association area and the UK, found that Chinese-made electric vehicles accounted for 11 per cent of registrations in Britain last month, down from 17 per cent in July 2023. However, the market share increased month-on-month in the UK and the Netherlands, reaching 11 per cent in both regions, up from 9 per cent and 7 per cent in June, respectively.

The Netherlands and Belgium were the only European markets where there was a year-on-year increase in the market share of Chinese-assembled electric vehicles.

The 82-year old retired BT manager from Whitstable in Kent has been into scooters since 1959. He had two Vespas, a PX150 and a GT60, and paid about £150 for third-party insurance on each. This covered fire, theft and damage he may have caused to other vehicles.

On May 25 Hastings sent a renewal quote of £178 for the GT60 but would not insure the other scooter. The firm said: “Factors can include the increased risk of a claim associated with your vehicle type or the increased risk of a claim in your area.”

• Motor insurance costs up by a fifth in ‘nasty shock’ to drivers

Herring had to sell his beloved Vespa because he couldn’t find any other cover, despite asking local insurance brokers to help. “I think it’s an age thing,” he said. “I’m now worried that I won’t get insured on my car when it renews at Christmas or my other scooter next year.”

Hastings said Herring’s insurance for his Vespa PX150 had a maximum age limit of 83, so it could not offer him a renewal. The insurance for his GT60 was a different level of cover and had a maximum age limit of 87.

Many insurers are ditching riskier customers because of a rise in claims. Some 31 per cent of 2,023 drivers in a survey by the consumer site Compare the Market were not offered a renewal when their policy expired in the past year.

Mohammad Khan from the consultancy PwC UK, said: “A significant and sustained rise in supply chain costs for car repairs and personal injuries means some insurers have reviewed the risks they take on. This year many are tightening up their approach to issuing policies.”

You normally get a renewal quote 21 to 30 days before your cover ends which tells you what you paid a year ago and what the new cost will be, usually a higher amount.

The average fully comprehensive car policy was £622 in the second quarter of this year, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), a trade body, up 21 per cent on the same period a year ago.James Daley from the consumer group Fairer Finance said it was “definitely plausible” that drivers were being declined a renewal more often, with insurers having a lower appetite for risk. “They could be trying to cherry pick the most profitable customers and avoid the ones most likely to cost them.”

The most common reasons customers were not offered a renewal, according to Compare the Market’s survey, were an increase in car accidents or thefts in their area or a rise in thefts of their type of car.There has been a rise in the cost of car parts and labour, replacement cars and personal injury claims. The ABI said the average claim payout was up 39 per cent from £3,414 in 2019 to £4,760

• New young drivers pay £1,000 more for insurance

in the first half of the year. The consultancy EY said that last year was the worst for motor insurers since 2011 because of the higher cost of claims. The amount paid out was 112.8 per cent of what they took in premiums, it said. This is up from 111.1 per cent in 2022. It is the second year in a row that motor insurers have suffered losses.

Rising costs for insurers typically lead to higher premiums for drivers but sometimes a price increase is not enough.

Ian Hughes from the market researcher Consumer Intelligence said: “Insurance companies must consistently analyse their claims data and make informed adjustments to their risk appetite. “This process naturally leads to some drivers being re-rated, resulting in higher or lower premiums, or affecting whether they are covered at all. However, this isn’t something that should be taken lightly or done arbitrarily.”

‘I asked my insurer to beat a competitor and then it said it wouldn’t cover me at all’

When Loc Bui called his car insurer to ask if it would match a cheaper deal, he was refused any kind of insurance altogether.

The insurance firm Dial Direct had sent Bui, from Addingham in West Yorkshire, a renewal quote of £349 for his 2009 BMW 1 Series before his policy was due to end on July 27. Bui, who works as a chef, checked a comparison site and was hopeful of getting a better deal because his annual mileage had dropped from about 16,000 miles to 2,500 miles after he changed jobs.

The cheapest quote was £250 from Hastings Direct. After updating his details with Dial Direct and asking it to match the deal, he was told that the insurer would no longer cover him. “There was no reason,” Bui, 49, said. “Surely I’m now at a lower risk of being involved in an accident? That seems a win-win for an insurer.”

Dial Direct said it could not offer Bui a renewal quote when he called because of a “system issue” with its underwriter. It said it found another underwriter to offer him a renewal, but he had found a quote elsewhere by that time.

It also said it had no choice but to cancel his policy because it did not have up-to-date details of his mileage. Bui said he was never offered another quote from Dial Direct.

Owners of high-powered SUVs like Range Rovers have also been finding it tougher to get cover. Premiums, where they are offered, can run to tens of thousands of pounds because of high thefts, insurers say.

But there are signs that things may be starting to improve. The ABI said the average motor payout increased just 0.5 per cent between the first and second quarters of this year, while the average fully comprehensive car premium fell 2 per cent — although it is still much higher than a year ago. EY also said motor insurers are likely to return to profitability this year.

The ABI said: “While insurers regularly review their risk appetite, the motor insurance market remains competitive. Cover is available from a wide range of providers, with a variety of products to meet people’s needs.”

If you are struggling to find cover, try the Find Insurance service from the British Insurance Brokers’ Association on 03709 501970, which can help you to find a broker.

Britain’s biggest household energy supplier is expected to announce the voluntary funding package alongside its interim results today, adding to the £50 million of support that it provided to households and businesses last year.

Nevertheless, the company is braced for a backlash and questions over whether it should be doing more to help customers as it enjoys a huge increase in profits.

Centrica, its parent company, indicated last month that British Gas’s first-half adjusted operating profits would significantly exceed the previous record of £585 million set in 2010. Analysts’ estimates vary, but they suggest profits of anywhere from £687 million to £857 million — up from £98 million in the same period last year. This reflects a huge one-off income boost after Ofgem increased the energy price cap this year.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said this week that companies reporting strong profits must “tell us what they’re doing to keep the cost of living down for their customers”.

British Gas supplies about 7.5 million household customers and 480,000 small business sites. Last year it provided about £28 million in voluntary support to its household customers through grants and non-repayable credit, £6 million to £8 million of support to household customers of any supplier through the British Gas Energy Trust and £15 million of support to its small business customers.

Analysts say the recovery in the fortunes of British Gas could help to lift interim group profits at Centrica — which also has interests in nuclear plants, gas production and storage and energy trading — to a record high. The shares fell ¾p, or 0.5 per cent, to 124p.

• Energy suppliers will have to keep their phone lines open for longer during evenings and at weekends, Ofgem said. The energy regulator is proposing rules to make suppliers easier to contact as a measure to improve customer service. Ofgem also confirmed plans to make suppliers meet minimum capital adequacy standards to try to prevent more company failures.

The chief executive of Pets at Home is indeed fresh-faced, dressed in trainers, jeans and a company-branded zip-up jacket, having spent the morning walking her two labradors, Freddie, aged 10, and Barney, a “naughty” one-year-old.

The down-to-earth, laid-back leader prefers to keep things casual. Instead of the upmarket restaurants favoured by many executives, for our lunch she opted for a picnic in the staffroom of the company’s newly refurbished store in Brentford, west London.

McGowan, 46, insisted on bringing the food herself. “A selection of her favourite things,” I was told before the interview, expecting an assortment of pre-packaged nibbles and snacks from her local supermarket.

To my surprise, the FTSE 250 boss arrived with a spread of home-cooked dishes that she and her husband had prepared the night before: poached trout with tzatziki, chicken breast wrapped in Parma ham, celeriac remoulade, honey-roasted butternut squash, chargrilled courgettes with feta and mint, and roasted cauliflower with miso-tahini dressing.

For dessert, a lemon posset with fresh raspberries (which we ending up forgetting about). “All the ingredients were bought from Waitrose,” she tells me.

McGowan, whose mother is a chef, has “always loved cooking — it’s a hobby and a passion of mine”. But her culinary skills faced a challenge on the home front when her husband, Murray, took gardening leave just before the pandemic and did a six-month chef’s course at the Tante Marie Culinary Academy, where her mother had also trained.

“He’s now so much better than me, it’s actually embarrassing. The kids went from being like, ‘Yay, Mum is cooking’ to ‘Oh, Mum is cooking’. They forget that I cooked for them for the first 15 years of their lives.”

McGowan has kept a relatively low profile since taking charge of Britain’s largest pet supplies retailer in 2022. Now, in her first interview as the company’s chief executive, she is ready to share her vision and the challenges that have come with it.

Her journey to becoming the top dog at Pets at Home is an unconventional one. Before joining, she spent 12 years at Sky, the British media conglomerate, where she served most recently as chief consumer officer. “I was ready to be a CEO,” McGowan says, recalling the moment she got the call-up from Pets at Home.

Founded in 1991 by Anthony Preston, Pets at Home sells pet products including food, toys, bedding, medication, accessories and small pets. It operates 460 pet care centres in Britain, many of which also have vets’ practices and grooming salons. The group also runs a veterinary business, with 448 practices. The company, valued at £1.4 billion, has enjoyed steady growth since its initial public offering in 2014, which raised £280 million.

As we tuck into the spread, McGowan freely admits that retail was new to her. “I didn’t come in pretending I knew retail or vets, but I had a very complementary skillset,” she says. Her approach was simply to ask questions, rely on experts and empower her team.

She arrived as the business at a key juncture. The pandemic had brought both a boon and new challenges as the pet population surged, followed by the impact of a cost of living crisis. Pets at Home was able to help struggling pet owners by hosting donation points for pet food banks and through its adoption club.

“We did have a huge amount of momentum through Covid,” McGowan says, pausing to take a bite of butternut squash. “The pet population boomed and we went from signing up 9,000 puppies and kittens a week [to its puppy and kitten club] to signing up over 30,000 puppies and kittens a week; that’s now come down and stabilised. We’re lapping a year where we were growing really fast with a year where we weren’t.”

Like-for-like retail revenue fell 0.8 per cent in the 16 weeks to July 18, while total group like-for-like revenue rose 0.5 per cent to £441 million. That was largely boosted by a 13.3 per cent lift in like-for-like revenue at its veterinary practices, driven by higher average spend and growth in visits.

McGowan acknowledges the post-pandemic challenges, particularly a slowdown in demand for “core” accessories like leads and beds. Yet she remains optimistic, pointing out that customers are still investing in premium pet food, clothing and other “humanisation” products, treating their pets as members of the family.

The clock strikes 1pm and shop workers begin joining us in the staffroom for their own lunches. McGowan offers up some of our feast, but they politely decline.

Under McGowan’s leadership, the company is undergoing a transformation into a “unified pet care platform”, integrating its retail, grooming and veterinary services through a new app. The app, which allows customers to book surgeries and consultations, manage subscriptions and order products to its stores, is a key part of her strategy to create a seamless, tech-enabled customer experience. “It is being the one-stop shop for everything a customer needs for their pet and making it super-easy and seamless, using all of our data and consumer insights.”

The work carried out has helped to boost loyalty club membership. The company’s “pets clubs” sign-ups are over 50 per cent up year-on-year with more than 625,000 people joining since April. Total membership is now over 8 million.

One area where McGowan draws the line is the sale of larger pets, citing the company’s commitment to animal welfare. “For larger animals, you just can’t do that in a retail operation,” she says, explaining the rigorous standards Pets at Home maintains for the care of smaller animals, such as guinea pigs, rabbits, rats and hamsters.

She is the first female chief executive at the company, a rarity in the retail industry. Reflecting on the challenges that came with being a woman in business, she says: “There were many ‘me too’ moments, being underappreciated and spoken over,” she says, noting that those experiences only strengthened her resolve to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace. “I’m massively invested in making sure we have a diverse business, not just in terms of gender but in ethnicity and class.”

Is there anything that keeps her awake at night? “My secret talent is I’m amazing at sleeping,” she says. “Literally, my head hits the pillow and I’m out until someone wakes me up. But nothing keeps me up at night. I think the thing that drives me forward is that we’ve got such a huge opportunity at Pets and I just want to make sure we get after it.”

McGowan and her husband, who is the chief strategy and development officer at Imperial Brands, the tobacco company, both have “big, demanding jobs”, yet they make it a priority to have family dinners and host friends on weekends at their home in southwest London.

As for juggling their dual careers? “We’ve been doing it for forever,” she explains, as she scoops a spoonful of home-grown tomatoes onto my plate. “It’s actually really good to have somebody to talk to and is on the same journey. We’ve both got our lists. He does the cooking now and the house insurance. I do the school admin, finances and holidays. It’s just divide and conquer.”

Any time she has spare is spent keeping fit. She enjoys high-intensity interval training, yoga, dog walking and cycling. Scuba diving, too, when abroad. “That’s how I discovered my love for turtles. They’re my spirit animal.”

As our conversation winds down, it is McGowan’s turn to ask me a question: what was my favourite bit of the lunch?

“It was all delicious, but it would have to be the chicken,” I tell her, blissfully unaware that I had partaken in a cooking competition between her and her husband.

“Excellent; I made the chicken” she says, fist-pumping the air. “I can say that at home.”

CV

Age: 46

Family: Married with three children aged 20, 15 and 13

Pets: Two labradors, Freddie and Barney

Education: St Helen’s School, Northwood, northwest London; 1995-1999, BA in geography, St Edmund Hall, Oxford; 2003-2005, MBA at Harvard Business School

Career: 1999-2001 and 2006-2010, consultant, McKinsey & Company; 2001-2003, head of telephony, Telewest Broadband; 2010-2022 various roles including managing director comms, chief commercial officer and chief consumer officer, Sky; 2020-2021, non-executive director, Morrisons; 2022-present, chief executive, Pets at Home

Average prices have increased by 2.4 per cent year-on-year, the fastest pace since December 2022, the mortgage lender said. Month-on-month, however, prices dipped unexpectedly by 0.2 per cent. Economists had forecast a 0.2 per cent rise.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist, said the market was showing resilience, given that house prices remained high relative to average earnings, which made raising a deposit more challenging. “Providing the economy continues to recover steadily, as we expect, housing market activity is likely to strengthen gradually as affordability constraints ease, through a combination of modestly lower interest rates and earnings outpacing house price growth,” he said.

At the start of the month, the Bank of England cut interest rates to 5 per cent from 5.25 per cent. It was the first reduction in more than four years, providing relief for homeowners and prospective buyers.

At the end of July, the cheapest mortgage rate was below 4 per cent for the first time in five months, with Nationwide’s five-year fix at 3.99 per cent, raising hopes that mortgages will become more affordable now that the Bank has started to reduce interest rates. The government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, which would weigh on house prices.

This week Lloyd’s Banking Group, Britain’s biggest mortgage provider, said that to help to ease affordability pressures it would allow first-time buyers to take out loans worth up to 5.5 times their household annual income, up from 4.49 times.

The average house is now worth £265,375, according to Nationwide, compared with £266,334 in July.

“The UK housing market is in a better place than it was last summer as inflation comes under control and as lenders trim their rates,” Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, the estate agency, said. “Financial markets are pricing in another cut this year and, as mortgage rates fall this autumn, it should underpin transactions and modest single-digit price growth.”

Ashley Webb, UK economist at Capital Economics, the consultancy, said: “The small fall in the Nationwide house price index in August suggests affordability constraints continue to bite. However, the further drop in interest swap rates over the past month suggests there is scope for mortgage rates to fall further and house price growth to accelerate early next year.”

He said the big picture remained that house prices had gone sideways for the past year and a half and were still 3 per cent lower than the peak reached in the summer of 2022.

House prices fell sharply after Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss’s mini-budget in September 2022 spooked financial markets, sent borrowing costs up and triggering an almost immediate downturn. The market began to recover at the end of last year in anticipation of interest rate cuts, but early in 2024 those hopes faded as some lenders raised mortgage rates. In recent months, more buyers have returned to the housing market, buoyed by rising consumer confidence and economic growth.

Inflation rose for the first time this year in July, from the Bank’s 2 per cent target rate to 2.2 per cent. The increase was driven mainly by gas and electricity prices falling by less than they had a year ago, the Office for National Statistics said.

Forecasters believe that inflation will remain above the central bank’s target for the remainder of the year because of unfavourable comparisons with energy and food prices from last year. Despite that, they think the Bank will trim borrowing costs to 4.75 per cent, with some suggesting a fall to 4.5 per cent.