Wednesday newspaper round-up: BP challenged, UK wine industry, Eversholt...

Oil giant BP is being challenged to confront the risk that climate change may pose to its future in a shareholder resolution published on Wednesday, The Guardian wrote. Pension funds controlling hundreds of billions of pounds are among the 150 investors demanding the company tests whether its business model is compatible with the international community’s pledge to limit global warming to two degrees celsius, the paper continued.

British wine lovers are set to outspend their French counterparts as they develop a taste for more expensive bottles, according to the Financial Times. The newspaper said that although people drank less after the financial crisis, between 2008 and 2014, the value of the UK wine market rose 15% to $16.1bn.

Another chunk of Britain has fallen into the hands of the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing with the £2.5bn sale of the Eversholt train-leasing company to the tycoon’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure, reported The Times.

Britain is “wide open to abuse” by “freeloading” European Union migrants who are exploiting the welfare state, the Foreign Secretary has said, according to The Telegraph. Philip Hammond said that the Government is “determined” to reform Britain’s relationship with Brussels so that there is a “sufficient impact on migration numbers to satisfy the public”, the paper printed.

The long-delayed Chilcot report into why Britain went to war with Iraq will not be published until after the general election, the inquiry chairman is to confirm on Wednesday, according to The Mirror. Sir John Chilcot is expected to outline his reasons for the latest embarrassing postponement in an exchange of letters with David Cameron, the paper wrote.

According to The Courier, finance secretary John Swinney will announce changes to the proposed new tax rates for buying a home in Scotland when the Budget is debated at Holyrood today.

City A.M. said on Wednesday that the world’s leading art business and auction house Christie’s yesterday reported art sales of £5.1bn for the year ended December 2014, the highest such figure of any art company in the history of the market.

The Telegraph reported that the treatment of whistleblowers by the NHS is “a stain on its reputation” which has destroyed livelihoods and caused “inexcusable pain” to health professionals, MPs have warned. The paper added that the Commons Health Select Committee said repeated failures to listen to staff who warned of risks to patients is jeopardising safety and deterring others from blowing the whistle.