Sunday newspaper round-up: Hard Brexit, Putin, Hammond

Theresa May will announce that Britain is seeking a clean and hard Brexit in a speech this week that will promise to create a “strong new partnership” with the European Union. The prime minister will finally lay her cards on the table, making clear that the UK is set to pull out of the single market and the European customs union in order to regain control of immigration and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. - The Sunday Times

Donald Trump is planning to hold a summit with Vladimir Putin within weeks of becoming president — emulating Ronald Reagan’s Cold War deal-making in Reykjavik with Mikhail Gorbachev. Trump and his team have told British officials that their first foreign trip will be a meeting with the Russian leader, with the Icelandic capital in pole position to host the superpower talks as it did three decades ago. In a bid to reset western relations with the Kremlin, Trump will begin work on a deal limiting nuclear weapons. - The Sunday Times

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, has suggested Britain could transform its economic model into that of a corporate tax haven if the EU fails to provide it with an agreement on market access after Brexit. In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Hammond said that if Britain were closed off from European markets after leaving the EU, it would consider abandoning a European-style social model with European-style taxation and regulation systems, and “become something different”. - The Guardian

The US media giant 21st Century Fox and Sky have begun privately reassuring MPs about plans for their controversial £18bn merger, in hopes of heading off political opposition to full Murdoch control of Britain’s dominant pay-TV operator. Lobbyists for the two companies are fielding inquiries from all sides of the Commons by insisting that the deal will not mean changes to Sky News. - The Sunday Telegraph

Tata Steel’s offer to pay ‘hundreds of millions’ of pounds into its pension scheme in return for the release of the fund’s claim over the firm’s key Dutch plant is unlikely to clear the way for the company to hive off the scheme, experts warn. The Tata Group is looking at merging its European steel operations, including Tata Steel UK, with German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp. But Tata says it needs to separate the 130,000-member British Steel Pension Scheme from the business for the plan to go ahead. - The Mail on Sunday

A bidder for the Green Investment Bank (GIB) has launched a last-minute attempt to seize control of the state-owned eco-friendly lender. The government is weeks away from awarding Australian bank Macquarie the taxpayer-owned renewable energy lender in a deal worth £3.8bn. However, Jonathan Maxwell, chief executive of Sustainable Development Capital (SDC) has urged energy minister Nick Hurd to reject the Macquarie bid. - The Sunday Times

The US may soon adopt a more European approach to drugs procurement, with a national body or insurance companies tasked with negotiating on pricing, amid mounting concern that president-elect Donald Trump is planning a major clampdown. US government-funded healthcare programmes, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are not allowed to negotiate on pricing, which means prices of certain drugs have soared in recent years. - The Sunday Telegraph