Wednesday newspaper round-up: Post Office, Workplace AI, Barclays

Ministers will publish legislation to quash the convictions of hundreds of post office operators who were prosecuted during the Horizon scandal, marking a significant victory for victims after decades of campaigning. The legislation on Wednesday will automatically overturn convictions of theft, fraud and false accounting that were handed down in connection with Post Office business during that period. It will cover prosecutions brought by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales between 1996 and 2018. – Guardian

Exposure to new technologies including trackers, robots and AI-based software at work is bad for people’s quality of life, according to a groundbreaking study from the the Institute for Work thinktank. Based on a survey of more than 6,000 people, the study analysed the impact on wellbeing of four groups of technologies that are becoming increasingly prevalent across the economy. – Guardian

Morrisons plunged to a £1bn loss last year amid a surge in debt interest payments linked to its private equity takeover. The supermarket chain, which was acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) for £10bn in 2021, fell deeper into the red for the year ending October 2023 as finance costs grew. Accounts for Morrison’s parent company, Market Topco, show the group made a pre-tax loss of £1.1bn last year after racking up £735m in interest costs. – Telegraph

Households face paying almost £200 extra on their energy bills under plans to keep Britain’s lights on by building more gas-fired power stations. Experts said the policy, announced by Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, would result in a bill of around £5bn for consumers, equivalent to £178 per household, most likely spread over a decade or more. – Telegraph

A top hedge fund has amassed a bet worth almost £200 million against shares in Barclays despite a recent rally in the bank’s stock price on hopes that the chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan will revive the lender’s fortunes. The short position built by Qube Research & Technologies equates to 0.73 per cent of Barclays’s issued share capital and is the biggest ever disclosed against the bank. It suggests that Qube believes the share price rise, fuelled by a turnaround plan set out by the Barclays boss last month, will run out of steam. – The Times