Bloomberg Spanish inflation unexpectedly quickened in January after a five-month run of slowing price growth, prompting traders to boost their bets on how high the European Central Bank will raise interest rates. Consumer prices advanced by 5.8% from a year ago, up from the previous month’s 5.5% increase, the statistics institute in Madrid said Monday. That’s well above the ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s homebuilders have six weeks to sign a UK government contract that will commit them to repair unsafe cladding on apartment blocks — or face banishment from the housing market. The pledge will commit firms to spend an estimated £2 billion ($2.5 billion) to fix tall buildings they developed or refurbished over the past 30 years, according to ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he cannot raise UK taxes to fund pay rises for workers in the state-run National Health Service. “Where we are with taxes at the moment, we can’t put them up,” Sunak told an audience of health-care workers in northeastern England, adding that government spending on the NHS is at a historical high. “The pie ...