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Ministers split over aid for Titanic shipbuilder Harland & Wolff

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Ministers split over aid for Titanic shipbuilder Harland & Wolff

The UK government is split over a financial support package for Harland & Wolff in a row that casts uncertainty over the future of the Belfast shipbuilder behind the Titanic.

The Treasury has reservations about approving a taxpayer-backed £200mn guaranteed loan facility, while three rival ministries — Defence, Trade and Business, and the Northern Ireland Office — are all keen to press ahead, according to Whitehall officials.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who must greenlight the package, has not made up his mind and is still receiving advice, with some involved in the talks claiming he is dragging his feet on the decision, three people with knowledge of the talks said. Insiders said a decision is expected in the coming days. H&W wants to borrow up to £200mn from a group of banks at a lower interest rate with the government acting as a guarantor for those loans.

Without the guarantee, the lossmaking business will need to find other sources of financing to help meet its working capital requirements and fulfil key contracts that include building three ships in a £1.6bn Royal Navy contract.

The company’s auditors last year warned the business faced “material uncertainty” unless it could source fresh financing and win additional new work.

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The group is also engaged in pay negotiations with staff and “needs the money” to meet payroll, one person with knowledge of the business said.

Report of the government split comes only days after defence secretary Grant Shapps claimed the UK was entering a “golden age” of shipbuilding, after he approved new warships as part of the UK’s increased military spending.

Two of the officials said that the government was inclined to help the Aim-listed company, which has operations in Scotland and England as well as the iconic shipyard where the Titanic was built and whose yellow cranes dominate the Belfast skyline.

One insisted that the Treasury was concerned about the specific financing mechanism proposed, but was not opposed to the principle of extending support to the 163-year-old company. Officials are weighing alternative support options in the event the chancellor blocks the guarantee scheme.

However, MPs have questioned whether it is right to use taxpayers’ money to support the struggling business at all.

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Kevan Jones, Labour MP for North Durham, on Wednesday called on the National Audit Office to investigate the matter.

“There are serious questions to answer around the use of taxpayer money in guaranteeing a multimillion pound loan to Harland & Wolff, given its current financial position,” Jones told the Financial Times.

Jones, who has previously raised concerns in parliament about the intention to offer an unprecedented 100 per cent guaranteed loan, wrote to Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, earlier this week asking the agency to look into what guarantees were in place to protect taxypayers. 

Jones said there were also questions to be asked about the “due diligence that was done on the ability of H&W to deliver on the £1.6bn contract prior to it being awarded”.

“The National Audit Office should seek answers to these questions on taxpayers’ behalf,” said Jones.

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In a statement on Wednesday, H&W said its management was “comfortable with progress on what is a complex and large transaction for all parties involved”.

H&W shares fell more than 28 per cent on Tuesday before recovering half their losses to close at £10.10, valuing the business at less than £18mn.

The company’s latest annual accounts, to the end of 2022, showed revenues of £27mn but losses of £70mn. H&W also had net debt of £82.5mn, in part thanks to high interest payments on a $100mn loan to New York-based Riverstone Credit Partners.

In December, H&W said it had “sufficient funds” to meet its working capital requirements “until the new loan facility is completed”.

Francis Tusa, analyst and editor of the Defence Analysis newsletter, said “awarding a £1.6bn contract to a company with a market value substantially below this level is not best practice”. H&W has not built a complex warship for more than two decades.

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Ministers had agreed in December to advance the loan guarantee to the next stage, so that H&W could work on financing with its bank syndicate.

The officials said the MoD, DBT and NIO want a financial package agreed swiftly to offer certainty around the future of the shipbuilding business.

The package is critical if H&W is to deliver on a £1.6bn contract to build three support ships for the Royal Navy, which it won in 2022 as part of a Spanish-led consortium. Unions have previously raised concerns that the work could migrate to Spain.

The NIO supports extending finance to Harland & Wolff, mindful of its status as an iconic Belfast-founded business that has particular significance to the unionist community, according to one of the Whitehall insiders. The government pledged in January to support the region’s shipbuilding and defence industries.

Despite the row, first reported by The Times, unions remain confident. Alan Perry, senior organiser for the GMB union in Belfast, said he was “definitely not” hearing the company was in any danger or anything “at the moment that would concern us”.

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A government spokesperson said: “We continue to engage with Harland and Wolff with the export development guarantee. Due to commercial sensitivities, it would not be appropriate to comment further until the outcome of the process is confirmed.”

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.

A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.

The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.

The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”

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Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”

But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.

In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.

Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.

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Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.

The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.

The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.

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According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.

Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”

Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.

The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.

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Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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