Bank shares rally as Italy waters down windfall tax; UK heads towards five years of lost economic growth business live

News Snapshot:

From 4h ago 07.44 BST Italy backtracks on banking windfall tax Italy’s government have partly backtracked on their plans for a banking windfall tax, after shares in the country’s lenders tumbled yesterday. As we covered on Tuesday, Italy’s cabinet surprisingly decided to impose a 40% windfall tax on its banks, aiming to cream off some of the billions of euros in extra profits they have received from rising interest rates. But overnight, Italy’s finance ministry has announced the levy could not exceed 0.1% of each bank’s total assets “in order to safeguard lenders’ financial stability”. That is a rather lower...