Theresa May has announced plans to double the cost of plastic carrier bags to 10p. The prime minister hopes to make the changes, which will be applied to all retailers, in order to significantly reduce plastic consumption. “We have taken huge strides to improve the environment, and the charge on plastic bags in supermarkets and big retailers has demonstrated the difference we can achieve by making small changes to our everyday habits,” said May. “I want to leave a greener, healthier environment for future generations, but with plastic in the sea still set to treble we know we need to do more to better protect our oceans and eliminate this harmful waste.” According to reports, Philip Hammond is unhappy with the proposed changes. A Treasury source said that increasing the charge to 10p looks like “profiteering” and would leave consumers feeling “hammered”. The money raised from the plastic bag tax is not a tax so does not go to the government. Instead, retailers are expected to give the money raised to good causes. A Plastic Planet, an environmental campaign group, said increasing pressure on consumers was not the right approach to cut down on plastic. Sian Sutherland, the group’s founder, said: “This levy increase unfairly targets consumers while major brands continue to force plastic upon them. The government needs to shift its focus on to them if it is to become a world leader in tackling the plastic problem.” Since the 5p fee was introduced in October 2015, 13 billion plastic bags have been taken out of circulation. For the UK’s international collaboration, May also announced £61 million in UK aid money to boost global research and help countries stop plastic waste from entering the oceans. The UK government will give an extra £5 million in funding to assist CCOA countries taking action on plastic pollution.

The Competition and Markets Authority has taken legal action against ticket seller Viagogo. The competition watchdog has said the ticket sale website is breaching consumer protection law and consistently failing to change their practices. “People who buy tickets on websites like Viagogo must be given all the information they are entitled to. It’s imperative they know key facts, including what seat they will get and whether there is a risk they might not actually get into the event, before parting with their hard-earned money,” said Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive Officer. “This applies to Viagogo as much as it does to any other secondary ticketing website. Unfortunately, while other businesses have agreed to overhaul their sites to ensure they respect the law, Viagogo has not. We will now be pursuing action through the courts to ensure that they comply with the law.” Viagogo is a controversial platform that has been previously criticized. The UK Trading Standards launched an investigation into the company earlier this year, with the digital minister Margot James saying that “they are the worst”. The CMA said the breaches to the law meant that customers would face several risks including being given misleading information about the availability and popularity of tickets, not being informed which seat in the venue they will get or not being told if there is a risk that they will be turned away at the door. The group has been criticised by the music industry, fans and ministers, who have called for a boycott on the website. This latest attack to the website comes less than a week before Viagogo’s senior executives will appear before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee. Ticketmaster UK recently shut its resale websites, which left Viagogo and StubHub as the only major sites in the ticket resale market.  

Payday lender Wonga has collapsed into administration. Following the collapse on Thursday, the 200,000 customers still owning a combined total of £400 million were told to keep making payments. The Financial Conduct Authority said: “Customers should continue to make any outstanding payments in the normal way. All existing agreements remain in place and will not be affected by the proposed administration.” Wonga has long been a controversial short-term lender, where interest rates rocketed to as high as 5,853 percent before the government capped them at 1,500 percent. A spokesman for the Financial Ombudsman Service said: “We are aware of the recently announced news about Wonga’s administration. Due to the nature of the business, there is no protection offered to consumers under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in this instance.” “Once the administrators have been appointed, we’ll speak to them urgently to clarify the impact on the cases we have with us and whether we’ll be able to work any new cases brought to us after today. We do not yet know what, if any, funds will be available to settle complaints.” The collapse of Wonga will put almost 500 jobs at risk. The group raised an emergency £10 million from shareholders in August but the surge of compensation claims swung the group into heavy losses. Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow economic secretary, did not express sadness at the company’s administration. “Its business model was exploitative and immoral. Wonga had become a testament to so much that is wrong with our economy – too many people stuck in insecure employment reliant on short-term debt just to keep their heads above water.” “We need urgent action from the government to change this broken model and review the way lending is regulated.” Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert, said: “Normally when firms go bust, the fear is diminished competition. Not here. Wonga’s payday loans were the crack cocaine of debt – unneeded, unwanted, unhelpful, destructive and addictive. Its behaviour was immoral, from using pretend lawyers to threaten the vulnerable, to pumping its ads out on children’s TV.”

Sativa Investments PLC (LON: SATI) has appointed Joseph Colliver FCA as Chief Financial Officer and a Director. Colliver has held past directorships and partnerships in Headlight Vision Limited and Henley Centre Headlight Vision Ltd. With his new appointment at Sativa Investments, he has been granted 3,350,000 share options at 1.5p. Sativa Investments is the UK’s first medicinal cannabis investment vehicle. The company focuses on the production, testing and compliance, research and development, including pharmacology, commercialisation and sales and marketing of Medicinal Cannabis. Sativa Investments also aims to drive the research and development of cannabis products by funding university research grants of medicinal cannabis through its Sativa Foundation. Currently, Sativa Investments has four investments. Canada-based Veritas Pharma Inc., Toronto-based Rapid Dose Therapeutics Inc., UK-based CBD products provider George Botanicals and PhytoVista. Commenting on the company’s new CFO appointment, founder and CEO of Satvia Investments, Geremy Thomas, has said: “With four investments to date and a pipeline of potential investments at varying stages of review, the Company needs an experienced, strategically-thinking full-time finance head.” Medicinal cannabis was legalised in the UK earlier this year. After being advised by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, doctors will be permitted to prescribe medicinal cannabis for its therapeutic benefits within months. Products will only be prescribed provided they meet safety standards. Recent studies have shown that cannabis can be useful for the treatment of chronic pain, spasticity, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy and drug-resistant epilepsy, just to name a few conditions. Forbes have recently recorded that spending on legal cannabis worldwide is expected to hit $57 billion by 2027. North America will be home to the largest group of cannabis buyers, going from $9.2 billion in 2017 to $47.3 billion a decade later. However, the largest growth is predicted to be in the rest-of-world markets. Figures in this area are predicted to rise from $52 million spent in 2017 to $2.5 billion.