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Priya Aiyer

My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money – and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here Priya Aiyer from Canterbury in Kent takes us through a week in her life during the coronavirus pandemic.

Priya is 29 and works full-time as an architect for a global construction company. When she’s not designing buildings, her interests include drawing cartoon illustrations and enjoying a good exercise session to train towards becoming a fitness instructor. She is also active in campaigning for racial equality and diversity.

She lives with her fiancé Ben and his mother. She and Ben would have been on holiday in Madeira this week, but it was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Over to Priya…

I would have preferred to spend this week on holiday with Ben. Alas, Madeira was cancelled so have decided to have the week off anyway to refresh. We did luckily receive a full refund from the travel company a week before we were due to fly out, without any problems.

Instead of an all-inclusive breakfast buffet which would have been on offer, I had to settle for some toast with cherry jam, a boiled egg and a mug of tea. To wake my bank balance up, a direct debit went out for my share of our rent (£475). To wake my body up, I booked an ad hoc morning session at 11:00 with my personal trainer (£15). I have a virtual practical assessment in six weeks’ time to become a Bodycombat instructor myself, so have planned my workouts and meals for the next month. Just before lunch at 12:30, I placed some of the ingredients I need for the week in our online grocery shopping order (£15.40).

I spent the afternoon going through some theory reading for my instructor course, followed by a bout of the Animal Crossing game on Nintendo Switch. I “met up” with my brother on there and we usually explore our “islands” and buy/sell fruit, clothes and other items. Needless to say, the spending on the game will not be included in this diary! We caught up for an hour together from 17:00, then after some dinner, I watched a film with Ben and his mum.

Total spend: £505.40

I woke up around 8:00 again, which isn’t a surprise given that my body has hit a regular rhythm. After finishing breakfast, I was pleased to see that it was pay day! Not that I was worried as I managed to put aside a good £700 last month towards savings, thanks to less eating out and splashing on any gadgets/electronics, which is a guilty habit of mine from time to time.

I did, however, use my credit card last month to buy new clothes (mostly trousers), renew our home/contents insurance and on other supermarket shops, so I managed to pay this bill off (£299.65), and am keeping track of the remainder of my bills that will go out tomorrow.

Total spend: £299.65

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Priya Aiyer

I have no idea why I woke up at 5:00 today, but forced a couple more hours’ sleep before getting up at 8:15 and cooking scrambled eggs on toast. According to transactions that went out, my share of the gas/electricity bill (£29.93) and council tax (£74.50) were both paid today. In addition, my monthly car finance payment went out (£128.39), but I have no regrets having my first car as it’s been getting me from A to B on many occasions when I needed it. Right now, it’s not been on the road much, but saves an average of £30 or so a month on petrol!

At 10:00, I dialled into a weekly call with my Slimming World group (£2), to connect with other people who have the same goal of living healthier lifestyles. I have lost a stone so far since the start of lockdown, and have still got another six pounds before I get to my target weight. It’s great to have a group who can hold each other accountable, while motivating each other.

At 11:00, I started doing chores, such as ironing clothes. I ate lunch at 13:00, then spent the afternoon and early evening working on a new digital cartoon illustration artwork as part of a “lockdown” series. The themes have been based on common activities that people have been up to during the Covid-19 period. I will sell them as prints and use the proceeds to go to charity.

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Priya Aiyer

After finishing dinner at 20:00, Ben, his mother and I played a German dice game called Kniffel, which we have been playing most evenings before going to bed. It does get competitive, even though a lot of the time, it’s down to luck!

Total spend: £234.82

I slept in a bit until around 9:00, before opting for some cereal for breakfast and jumping straight onto my laptop to complete some architectural work for a friend. Yes, I know, I should not have been working, but this was more of a freelance job and meant some extra earnings to go towards savings. The very last bill went out for our Spotify Family account (£14.99), which has been justified for a long time, given that Ben and I listen to our respective music playlists on a daily basis. I wrapped up what I needed to finish by lunch at 13:00, and Ben, his mother and I treated ourselves to our weekly Thursday lasagne.

At 14:00, I decided to go for a walk into town and visited the one shop which sells specific South Asian ingredients. I had been craving for a very long time a dish called dosa, which is essentially a lentil and rice pancake, originating from South India, where my family are from. Making the batter for dosa is a lengthy process which involves soaking lentils, rice and fenugreek, grinding it, then leaving it to ferment before cooking. I found everything I was looking for in this shop (£12.87), including some vegetables that my Ben’s mum requested. As soon as I got home at 15:00, I began the soaking process for the dosa batter.

Total spend: £27.86

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Priya Aiyer

Today would have been when Ben and I would have returned from our now-cancelled holiday. I failed miserably in terms of not thinking about work, as I still had to wake up at 7:45, have a quick cereal breakfast, and jump on a call at 8:30 to meet my company’s events team and one of our new directors who agreed to participate in the virtual event I am helping to organise with another colleague for the following week. It was a highly positive call and I felt so much more relaxed that the event will go smoothly.

Ben’s mother invited guests round for lunch in our garden (keeping social distancing, mind!) at around 12:00, and it was a delightful occasion with lots of chatter until around 15:00 when they left. I immediately left to head into town to meet a friend, and parked my car at a place where parking was relatively decent for the amount of time I was intending to stay (£3.50). My friend and I got to sit in one of the parks by the river in Canterbury and the weather was certainly kind to us.

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Priya Aiyer

We later went for a walk along the main High Street. I do use Hotel Chocolat’s velvetiser machine, which is essentially a hot chocolate machine, at home during the working week as an occasional treat, and I was starting to run out of sachets. So, we popped into the Hotel Chocolat store where I bought a box of a new flavour I hadn’t tried yet: raspberry and white chocolate (£12).

Total spend: £15.50

My Money

More blogs from the BBC’s My Money Series:

The weather was up and down during the day, which didn’t make it an entirely exciting agenda ahead. I woke up at 8:15, had a quick breakfast, then at 9:00, Ben’s mother and I took part in a virtual pilates class. Even with some relatively sore muscles afterwards, we spent the rest of the morning clearing out the garage of any items which could be either given to charity, sold online or thrown away into a skip. We ate lunch at 13:00, and I decided to spend most of the afternoon having a nap from about 15:00 until 19:00. I recharged by getting into a quick strength-based workout in the evening and playing another dice game of Kniffel before heading to bed. A relatively lazy but spend-free day!

Total spend: £0

I can categorically say that during this week off, this was genuinely the best and most relaxing day of the entire week. A shame it is just before going back to work, but still got to at least feel like the day was well spent. I woke up at 9:30, finished breakfast at around 10:30, then spent the morning sitting outside in the garden, completing more of my digital illustration.

I had seen an email the day before about the pub down the road from us being open for the weekend only to test the waters to see how their revenue goes, before opening up more regularly as coronavirus lockdown restrictions are eased. Ben, his mother and I figured that it was worth seeing how things were going, so we headed down there at 12:30 as soon as it opened and split the cost of some drinks between us (£5.60). The pub had a one-way system, we got to order from the table itself using a phone app, and we sat outside in the garden where the sun was shining. A great way to spend Sunday, before we headed back to the house for lunch at 13:30.

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Priya Aiyer

From 15:00 until 17:00, I played online board games with my brother and one of our mutual friends. It is something we choose to do on a weekly basis, also given that my brother is a huge fan of board games in general. I proceeded to do a dance aerobic exercise at 19:00, before having dinner and ending the week with a final dice game of Kniffel.

Total spend: £5.60

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Priya Aiyer

Total spent this week: £1,088.83

How does Priya feel about her week?

It happens to be one of those weeks where it is the end of the month, so there is income but also natural outgoings. I feel generally, I am not spending on shopping or eating/drinking out as much as I used to, but the coronavirus lockdown has forced me to plan for the more important, justifiable things that I can save towards, including in the long run. The small “treats” could add up, but I will be sure to continue to be careful going forward.

It has been an interesting process to look at my week, not only in terms of spending but the simple things in daily life which make each day purposeful, especially with people I appreciate very much.

We’re looking for more people to share what they spend their money on. If you’re interested, please email or get in touch via our My Money (World) Facebook group, or if you live in the UK, please join our My Money (UK) Facebook group and we’ll aim to contact you.

Grow Your Business, Not Your Inbox

Stay informed and join our daily newsletter now!

Grow Your Business, Not Your Inbox

Stay informed and join our daily newsletter now!

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Alison George

Rum distiller Mark Watkins is reflecting on his disastrous first attempt at making his own spirits when he was a teenager.

The then 16-year-old had set up a rudimentary distillery at the back of his parents’ banana farm in the small town of Walkamin, in north-eastern Queensland, Australia.

His questionable safety standards nearly saw the family’s crop go up in flames, and he almost poisoned his school friend.

“He’s still alive, but he doesn’t talk to me anymore,” says Mr Watkins, now 39.

Nevertheless, this stumble out of the starting blocks left him unperturbed. He was on a mission to make top-quality spirits, with the ultimate goal of creating the best rum in the world. Two decades later, he’s accomplished his mission.

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Last year, the World Rum Awards named Mr Watkins’ Iridium rum “the world’s best pot still rum, five years old and under”. It put his small business, Mt Uncle Distillery, on the global map.

Although the company is a tiny drop in the global spirits pool, Mt Uncle is one of a small but growing number of rum distilleries around the world taking the spirit in a new direction – low volume, premium production.

So, is rum now starting to follow the path set by gin over the past decade, which has seen a huge rise in the number of independent producers as demand has soared?

But first a reminder – what exactly is rum? It is a spirit made from distilling sugarcane juice, sugar cane syrup (concentrated juice), or sugarcane molasses, which is the thick, dark treacle you are left with after granulated sugar has been produced. It can be drunk neat, with water, a mixer or as a cocktail base.

A brief history of rum

• Rum is synonymous with the Caribbean, where the first modern rums were distilled on sugarcane plantations in the 17th Century

• The history of the spirit is intrinsically linked to slavery, as it was slaves working on the plantations who discovered that molasses, the dark treacle left over after sugar has been refined, could be fermented and then distilled into a spirit

• Rum also became associated with the British Royal Navy, with sailors being given a daily “rum ration” from 1850 until the practice was ended in 1970. A type of dark rum called “navy rum” is still made and sold by a number of producers

• Today the world’s largest exporter of rum in value terms is the US ($159m in 2018), followed by Germany ($150m), Italy ($142m), Cuba and the Dominican Republic (both $105m) and Guatemala ($98m)

Assessed in its entirety, global rum production – which is dominated by mass market brands produced in huge volumes – has flat-lined in recent years.

Total worldwide sales by volume of standard or value-priced rum grew just 0.6% from 2014 to 2019, according to the latest figures from research group IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.

Yet at the same time, “high-end rum” bottles costing $28 (£22.50) or above grew by 8.3% over the same period, says the organisation.

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“I think, in general, new generations of [rum drinkers] are drinking less, but they’re drinking better,” says Roberto Serralles, a sixth-generation rum-maker. His family own and run Puerto Rican business Destileria Serralles, which has been making rum since 1865.

“The rum category is heavily weighted at the lower end, so the higher premium end is growing, but with small volume, and that’s why it gets lost.”

Many rum aficionados, like Mr Watkins, say that rum still has an inferior image, purveyed by cheap brands, and often, their subsequent hangovers.

“Lots of people got smashed on rum when they were 17, and haven’t given it another chance,” says the Australian. “Lots of people are familiar with cheaper brands, and [for small distilleries] it can be a hard game to crack into, as there are so many big multinational companies involved.”

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Don Q

Rum consultant, and World Rum Awards chair of judges, Peter Holland agrees that the rum industry has some repositioning to do. “A problem that we have in the rum world is that it’s represented invariably by price, and that price is low,” he says. “When you race to the bottom you’re not really driving up quality.”

Thus, Mr Holland’s passion lies in re-educating the market about rum. He feels it is a spirit that has enormous potential, and a level of complexity – attained through different distillation and aging techniques – that is currently not well marketed or understood.

As Queensland is a big grower of sugar cane, Mt Uncle has a ready source of sugar syrup from which to make its rum. In fact, Mr Watkins’ family farm in Walkamin, which is home to Mt Uncle Distillery, is right next to a sugar mill.

For rum producers in cooler countries where sugarcane cannot be grown, they typically rely on easily transportable and readily available molasses. This is the case at the UK’s Two Drifters Rum.

Located outside the city of Exeter in the south west of England, the company is run by husband and wife team Russ and Gemma Wakeham.

They started out making beer in 2019, with a small distillery on the side “for a bit of fun” but have now switched to solely making rum.

“It was completely driven by the fact that we couldn’t make enough of it,” says Russ.

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Matt Austin

The company buys its molasses from UK sugar producers including Tate & Lyle. It now produces a range of rums, with the spiced version being the bestseller – though Mr Wakeham admits that purists would not see spiced rum as a true representation of the spirit.

Mr Holland says that if rum wants to cement its move upmarket, the industry should stop categorising the drink by its colour.

“Colour is not a flavour,” he says. “I think white, gold and dark are very disingenuous terms to categorise a very diverse market.

“You don’t order gold whisky or dark cognac, so why should rum be tarred with that brush? If we can make the language around rum a bit more grown up, then I think we have a better chance of bringing people over [to the rum market].”

Mr Serralles says the industry also needs to better educate drinkers. “Most people don’t know what to do with rum.

“They’ve usually always thought of it as something you drink with Coke, or with an umbrella on vacation.”

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Alison George

With global rum sales totalling $16.5bn in 2019, according to the IWSR, it trails far behind vodka ($43.6bn) and whiskies ($74bn), but is still ahead of gin ($10.8bn).

So is rum really about to mirror gin’s huge growth in sales, and see a significant rise in the number of small producers as it surges in popularity?

“That’s the question on everyone’s lips,” says Mr Watkins. “I think rum could be the next boom spirit. It’s definitely due for it.”

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A financier embroiled in a £1.6bn court battle with Barclays was referred to as a “tart” and “that dolly bird” by bank executives, a court has heard.

The comments about Amanda Staveley were made in phone calls in 2008 when the bank was trying to raise billions of pounds from Gulf states.

Ms Staveley was involved in talks with investors to help broker the deal.

But ex-Barclays boss Roger Jenkins told the court she was a “complete unknown” when it came to such transactions.

• The inside story of the Barclays trial

In a written witness statement, Mr Jenkins said that at the time Ms Staveley had received “some publicity” for her role in brokering an investment in Manchester City.

But he told Mr Justice Waksman that, as far as he knew, she had “no qualifications in finance”.

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The judge has heard that Mr Jenkins referred to Ms Staveley as “the tart” during an October 2008 telephone call with fellow Barclays boss Richard Boath.

Mr Boath referred to her as “that dolly bird” during the call.

Ms Staveley, 47, has made complaints about the behaviour of Barclays bosses when negotiating investment deals during the crisis 12 years ago.

She says Barclays agreed to provide an unsecured £2bn loan to Qatari investors, but the loan was “concealed” from the financial markets, shareholders and PCP Capital Partners, a private equity firm she runs.

PCP is suing the bank for up to £1.6bn in damages.

Ms Staveley, currently working on a deal which could see a Saudi consortium take control of Newcastle United football club, says PCP introduced Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour to Barclays and he “subscribed” to invest £3.25bn.

• Finance chief quits over Amanda Staveley comments
• Who’s involved in the Newcastle takeover?

She says PCP is owed money for the work it did. Barclays disputes PCP’s claim and says it is made “of sand”.

Mr Jenkins said: “Ms Staveley, as leader of PCP, had received some publicity by 2008 for her role in brokering the Abu Dhabi investment in a major English football club, but she was a complete unknown in terms of large, complex, public market transactions of the kind we were undertaking.”

‘Self-publicity’

At the time, he was Barclays executive chairman of Middle East business. “So far as I knew at the time, PCP did not employ experienced analysts familiar with the finance sector and Ms Staveley herself had no qualifications in finance.”

He said he knew little about Ms Staveley’s background in 2008. “I was aware that she had once owned a restaurant by a racecourse and that was how she had made connections with Middle Eastern individuals,” he said.

“I knew that she had played a role in Sheikh Mansour’s purchase of Manchester City.”

He added: “My assumption and hope at the time was that Barclays would deal with Sheikh Mansour directly as the principal, not through advisers.

“I did not at any point understand PCP to be acting as a principal, or as a prospective investor in its own right.”

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Mr Jenkins said his impression was that Ms Staveley was seeking to use her involvement in the deal to “generate publicity for herself”. He told how Ms Staveley arrived for one early-morning meeting accompanied by a photographer.

Lawyers representing PCP referred to the telephone conversation between Mr Boath and Ms Staveley early in the trial.

Detail of the words used emerged on Thursday, when Mr Jenkins began giving evidence and a transcript of the call was made available to journalists.

Mr Boath said, during the October 2008 call: “Yes. Now, that dolly bird that represents – is it – what’s her name?”, the transcript showed.

Mr Jenkins replied: “Amanda Staveley.”

Later in the call, Mr Jenkins said: “Well I am – you know, I’m going to call the tart; I was going to call the tart.”

Mr Boath asked: “Who’s the tart?” Mr Jenkins replied: “Amanda.”

In February, Mr Jenkins, Mr Boath, and another former Barclays boss, Thomas Kalaris, were cleared of fraud over a £4bn investment deal with Qatar at the height of the banking crisis.

The Serious Fraud Office had alleged that lucrative terms given to Qatar were hidden from the market and other investors through bogus advisory service agreements.

But the three men were acquitted by jurors following a five-month trial at the Old Bailey.

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More than 100 holiday companies have been told to speed up their refunds policy for coronavirus cancellations.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has received more than 17,500 complaints from people whose holidays have been hit by the virus.

In an open letter from the CMA, companies have been reminded of the 14-day refund rule for cancellations.

Travel firms say this has been an unprecedented crisis that put many of them on the brink of collapse.

Consumers’ rights

By law, if a package holiday is cancelled by the provider, then a refund should be provided for the whole holiday within 14 days.

Many thousands of getaways were cancelled during lockdown, when the Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel outside of the UK.

The CMA said its investigations found that some businesses may not have been giving these legally-required refunds.

Other problems included:

• Holidaymakers only being offered a voucher for future travel, rather than a full refund
• Customers losing their deposits or being charged cancellation fees
• Companies misleading customers about their rights
• People finding it difficult to contact travel companies or to claim refunds

In the letter, CMA director Cecilia Parker Aranha said the regulator recognised the “extraordinary pressures” faced by the sector.

“Although we were sympathetic to the challenges faced in the early days of the pandemic, it is nonetheless important that businesses comply with consumer law,” she added.

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A spokeswoman for Abta, which represents the package holiday sector, said the pressures were continuing and that many companies, with loyal customers, had mutually agreed to a rebooked holiday rather than a refund.

She said Abta had conducted its own investigations of members when customers had been misled.

However, she added that package holiday companies were themselves facing delays from airlines in refunding them the flight element of any holiday.

• Coronavrus: What are my holiday travel and insurance rights?

“Many airlines, in particular, have been and continue to be very slow in passing refunds back to package holiday businesses, which means that those package holiday businesses are unable to refund their customers as promptly as they would wish,” she said.

“It is essential, therefore, that effective regulatory action is taken against the airlines that are not currently refunding with seven days, as required under relevant consumer protection legislation.”

Airlines are regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority which has been putting pressure on companies to comply.

What are my rights?

• If you have a package holiday cancelled by the provider, then a refund should be provided for the whole holiday within 14 days
• If your flight is cancelled, you are entitled to a full refund to the original form of payment within seven days, although many airlines are struggling to meet that deadline. You can accept, or refuse, vouchers or a rebooking but a voucher will probably be invalid if the airline later goes bust
• If you decide against going on a future flight, which is not yet cancelled, then there is no right to a refund. Different airlines have different rules over what you can do, but many are waiving any charges for changing to a later flight or having a voucher instead. Your travel insurance is unlikely to cover you

International Trade Secretary Liz Truss has denied the UK is preparing to water down its food safety standards in order to reach a trade deal with the US.

“We will not be negotiating that away as part of a trade deal,” she told the BBC.

Her comments follow reports that negotiators are considering allowing imports of US products that do not meet UK standards.

Boosting agricultural exports is a top US priority for a trade agreement.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson drew outcry earlier this year, when he appeared to back away from a pledge to maintain bans on chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef in hopes of securing a treaty.

And on Wednesday, farmers drove their tractors to Parliament Square in London to call for protection for the British farming industry and the current standards of food production in a post-Brexit economy.

But on a visit to the Port of Southampton, Ms Truss denied the government would loosen the restrictions.

“It is against the law to import chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef and we will not be negotiating that away as part of a trade deal,” she said.

The UK is looking for a “win-win” deal that will make it easier for UK car manufacturers and others to sell to the US, she said.

However, the UK will not be bullied into an agreement that does not serve its interests, she added.

“We’re not going to be bounced into a deal by the US – we will take the time it needs to get a deal that suits the UK,” she said.

Ms Truss refused to comment on a leaked letter, in which she reportedly expressed concerns about the government’s plans to phase in checks on EU goods coming into the UK after the Brexit transition period ends this year.

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She reportedly warned fellow ministers that failing to impose full border controls until July could lead to legal challenges at the World Trade Organization, increased smuggling, and even weaken the union with Northern Ireland.

“I’m absolutely confident we have the right plans in place for our border, and we’ll be saying more about that in a few days”, she said.

US-UK trade deal progress

Robert Lighthizer, America’s top trade negotiator, said at a video conference hosted by Chatham House on Thursday that he was optimistic the US and UK would reach a deal.

However, he said the inability to meet in person due to coronavirus had slowed the talks. He warned there remained “very significant issues that we have to come to grips with”.

Alluding to the dispute over agricultural exports, Mr Lighthizer said that food safety standards in some cases were “nothing more than thinly veiled protectionism”.

Fears over chlorine-washed chicken and other US farming practices have been described by Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, as “inflammatory and misleading”.

Earlier this year, Mr Johnson said it was important that US beef and poultry should be allowed into the UK.

He said the process was used by EU farmers to treat vegetables, and that it was the best way to deal with salmonella and other bacteria.

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It sounds too good to be true: free money to make your home cosy and cut your fuel bills.

But this is exactly what is planned for England’s homeowners from September.

That’s when the government aims for a triple whammy – creating thousands of jobs in home insulation while reducing carbon emissions from boilers and shaving energy bills.

Campaigners call this £2bn scheme a “no brainer” policy. So what will it mean for you?

Green homes grant

The Green Homes Grant – which was revealed in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s summer statement – will be available via a website in two months’ time.

You will apply for a voucher of up to £5,000 worth of work, of which you will pay one third or less.

If your income is low, you will get £10,000 worth of work and you won’t pay a thing.

A qualified retrofit coordinator will visit your home and assess how you can reduce your need for heating.

Then the work will be done. Your home should be warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

What improvements can you get?

We are awaiting details from the government, but it looks as though the scheme may cover:

• Loft insulation
• Wall insulation
• Underfloor insulation
• Double and triple glazing
• Eco-friendly boilers, heat pumps, low-energy lighting and energy-efficient doors

The scheme will apparently involve a “whole house approach”, whereby a retrofit co-ordinator will determine what measures will ensure the best value for money for you and the taxpayer in your home.

It could mean your refurbishment priority list starts off with loft insulation, then wall insulation, then underfloor insulation, for instance.

Experts debate whether double and triple glazing should have qualified for the scheme.

These windows often impress the neighbours, but some think it offers relatively poor value for money when it comes to saving energy.

Will home owners have to deal with lots of contractors?

Again, we need details. But it is clear many small firms are only certified by their trade organisation to carry out work within their field of expertise.

For instance, I rang a specialist in underfloor spray insulation, to ask if he could stop draughts letting in cold air from my timber floor. He said yes.

I also enquired if he could also install those fiddly insulating strips on doors and doors. He said no.

Will the retrofit co-ordinator handle all the trades people you will need? This is yet to be decided.

How complicated is insulation?

Well, simple draught-proofing may be tedious but it is effective and the choices on offer are limited. But other forms of insulation generate a blizzard of possibilities.

With solid walls, should you insulate inside – which shrinks your room size? Or should you do it outside – which usually makes your house look different?

For suspended wooden floors, should you get a robot to spray under the boards? Or lift the boards and fit foam blocks between the rafters? Or should you use natural insulation based on the cannabis plant, hemp?

Hopefully the retrofit co-ordinator will help you choose.

What could go wrong?

The last time the government tried a big energy saving scheme – the Green Deal – it exploded in their faces.

Unlike this new plan, nothing was free. Instead householders were offered loans with interest so high they would have saved money going to the bank manager.

Some of the small number of people who took up the scheme found dreadful faults. Insulation badly installed can create damp.

Unsurprisingly, the scheme was scrapped.

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But that has led to another problem. An industry had grown up with a workforce to provide insulation but as installation numbers collapsed, that industry has shrunk.

Can it be resurrected by September?

One expert said it could take between six and 12 months to set up a watertight scheme yet the government wants all the £2bn fund spent by the end of March.

What guarantee will there be for home owners?

This is a crucial issue. The most successful warm homes schemes worldwide have been when experts visited your home after the work was done to check you’re satisfied.

Joanne Wade from the energy conservation specialists ADE said: “We’re going to need much better quality control than the Green Deal had.

“If there’s something wrong it’ll have to be fixed or consumers will lose faith in the scheme and turn their backs on it.”

Is the scheme ambitious enough?

Some green groups say the £2bn figure is inadequate. But experts who’ve been campaigning on the issue for decades say it’s probably about right, as it will be hard to get all the money spent in the time available anyway.

But they insist that the same amount of cash must be spent year on year and extra private investment has to be attracted too.

Without that, they say, the government won’t sustain the jobs, won’t meet its target for warm homes and won’t meet its goals for cutting carbon emissions either.

Follow Roger on Twitter.

The president of Emirates said the Middle Eastern airline is set to cut as many as 9,000 jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic.

It is the first time the world’s biggest long-haul carrier has disclosed how many jobs will be lost.

Prior to the crisis, Emirates had 60,000 staff.

Sir Tim Clark said the airline had already cut a tenth of its staff but said: “We will probably have to let go of a few more, probably up to 15%.”

The global airline industry has been severely impacted by coronavirus, with activity all but grinding to a halt.

In an interview with the BBC, Sir Tim said Emirates was “not as badly off as others”.

But its current situation marks a steep turnaround in the fortunes of the airline, which he said before the pandemic was “heading for one of our best years ever”.

The job cuts sweeping the wider aviation industry are fuelling concern amongst Emirates staff that things might get worse.

The BBC understands there is growing frustration at what they see as poor communications and transparency from the airline.

At least 700 of the airline’s 4,500 pilots were given redundancy notices this week, which means at least 1,200 have been told their jobs are going since the coronavirus crisis started.

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The cuts have been focussed on those who fly Airbus planes, rather than Boeing aircraft.

Emirates flies superjumbo Airbus A380s which hold around 500 passengers. Whereas the Boeing 777s it flies hold fewer passengers and are therefore easier to fill during this period of decreased airline travel.

00Thousands of cabin crew have also been told they are no longer needed.

Further cuts

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 290 airlines, is forecasting that the world’s airlines will lose more than $84bn and one million jobs this year.

This week United Airlines, one of the big three in the US, warned its staff that it may have to cut 36,000 staff because of the huge fall in demand for air travel.

Helane Becker, managing director and senior research analyst at investment firm Cowen said given “the continuing issues surrounding the pandemic” she expects US airlines to cull up to 200,000 of their 750,000 staff this year.

US aviation unions are pushing the federal government to add to the $25bn bailout package it has provided so far.

As part of the conditions for receiving state help, airlines have to protect jobs until the end of September.

But IATA says there are wider benefits in doing so.

A spokesman said the scale of job cuts in the aviation sector “shows the severe economic crisis facing the industry and all who depend on air connectivity”.

Adding that its perfectly understandable that governments have put restrictions in place to try and keep people safe from coronavirus “but this should be done in the full knowledge of the economic and social consequences”.

Watch Sir Tim Clark’s full interview on “Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst” this on BBC World News at Saturday 2330 GMT.