Wednesday newspaper round-up: Brexit, Vodafone, Heathrow

Theresa May privately warned that companies would leave the UK if the country voted for Brexit during a secret audience with investment bankers a month before the EU referendum. A recording of her remarks to Goldman Sachs, leaked to the Guardian, reveals she had numerous concerns about Britain leaving the EU. It contrasts with her nuanced public speeches, which dismayed remain campaigners before the vote in June. - Guardian

The worsening economic outlook could leave Philip Hammond facing a black hole of more than £80bn when he lays out the government’s spending plans next month. The Resolution Foundation thinktank warned the chancellor that lower tax receipts and higher spending following the Brexit vote would leave the Treasury with a shortfall in every year until 2020-21. - Guardian

UK regulator Ofcom has stung Vodafone with a £4.6m fine over “mis-selling, inaccurate billing and a poor complaints handling service”. The fine follows two investigations by the watchdog, one of which found that over 10,000 pay-as-you-go customers lost out when the telecoms company failed properly to credit their accounts, and then failed to deal with the issue quickly. The other probe found that the company failed to comply with rules on handling complaints. – Financial Times

From the outside, the blue Ford Focus looks like any other as it trundles past roundabouts and crosses junctions on a journey around Coventry, in the English Midlands. Only a thick shaft protruding from the exhaust gives any indication this is not a normal car. But inside, an array of boxes and wires measures the fumes pouring from the tailpipe in an example of a real world emissions test that will next year be compulsory for all new cars sold in the EU. – Financial Times

Women will not reach global parity with men for 170 years, the World Economic Forum has said. In its tenth Global Gender Gap Report, it calculated that the world will not eliminate the gender gap until 2186, a rise of 63 years from their 2015 estimate. According to the report, the gap between men and women in terms of economic participation and opportunity is now larger than at any time since 2008 — women have just 59pc of the opportunities and access available to men in this sector. - Telegraph

High youth unemployment is costing the British economy £45bn per year, according to research from PwC, as well as blighting the careers of workers who miss out on a job in their teens and twenties. Youth unemployment has fallen sharply since the height of the financial crisis, but at 15.4pc last year the level remains above the rate a decade ago, and above the average of developed countries in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development. - Telegraph

Heathrow is drawing up plans to build its new runway at least eight metres above Britain’s busiest motorway amid warnings of gridlocked roads and a £3.5 billion bill for the taxpayer. The airport is preparing to scrap plans to create a tunnel for the M25 under the third runway, The Times has learnt, after senior highways officials complained that it would cause years of traffic mayhem. Highways England warned that the 650-metre tunnel would cause a national shortage of contractors, delaying road-building schemes nationwide and causing “frustration” among drivers. – The Times

Thousands of jobs at Vauxhall factories are at risk after the carmaker’s American owner warned that it could shut plants and cut capacity across Europe after taking a $400 million hit from the Brexit vote. General Motors said yesterday that it was “prepared to take whatever action is necessary” to put its European division back on track. The company called the UK “a speed bump on our path to where we want to take the business”. – The Times