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Shares in plumbing and heating supplier Wolseley - which owns Plumb Centre - are down by 2.3%, making it the biggest faller on the FTSE 100.

The drop follows the publication of its results which revealed the firm saw sales growth in all its regions except the UK. The figures are likely to be seen as a further indication UK consumers are cutting back on big ticket spending in the face of rising inflation and falling real wages.

Wolseley plans to change its name at the end of July to match its US brand name Ferguson.

Barclays investors don't seem too concerned about the bank and four former executives being charged in relation to its fundraising at the height of 2008's financial crisis.

Shares in the bank are down only 0.2% so far this morning.

Dominic O'Connell
Business Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

Image source, Getty Images

John Varley would for most have been an unlikely choice as the first former bank chief executive to face criminal charges over the events of the financial crisis.

Avuncular, calm, Mr Varley (pictured during the credit crisis in 2009) was one of the City's patricians, often portrayed - rightly or not - as a check on Barclays' hard-charging investment bank, led by Bob Diamond.

Now, along with the bank he once led, he faces two types of charges, both of which relate to fundraisings from Qatar in 2008.

The first charge, conspiracy to commit fraud, relates to "advisory" fees paid to Qatar. The second - "unlawful assistance" - could be more serious.

It relates to a £2bn loan advanced to Qatar after the fundraisings were negotiated - the implication being that there was a money-go-round at work - Barclays was handing Qatar some of the money it was using to support the British bank.

BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith tweets:

Summing up at the end of his speech, Mark Carney acknowledged the issue of central clearing "could not appear farther from the concerns of people in this country. But they are much more closely related than they appear."

One million people work in UK financial services, he said, and it contributes 7% of economic output and covers nearly two thirds of the cost of the NHS.

"It would be all too easy to give into protectionism," he said.

"But as we learned in the 1930s, that road leads neither to equity nor prosperity. Raising barriers to trade disproportionately hurts the least well off through higher prices and fewer opportunities."

Roger Jenkins, one of former senior bankers at Barclays, that has been charged by the SFO says he will "vigorously" defend himself in court next month.

"As one might expect in the challenging circumstances of 2008, Mr Jenkins sought and received both internal and external legal advice on each and every topic covered by the SFO's accusations today," he lawyer Brad Kaufman told Reuters.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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Lord Myners, who was City minister during the financial crisis, said it was "always very surprising" that Barclays was able to raise billions of pounds in 2008 when other banks couldn't.

Barclays has this morning been charged by the Serious Fraud Office for the money which it raised from Qatari investors at the height of the credit crisis.

Barclays' "senior management was vehement they didn't want to have capital from the government", Lord Myners tells Today.

He suggests that might have been due to "a real fear on their part that this was nationalisation. It was political, they didn't want anything to do with a Labour government".

The other issue for Barclays' bosses at the time, he says, is that a bailout would have restricted their ability to set pay and bonuses.

The pound fell by more than three quarters of a cent on comments make by Bank of England governor, Mark Carney.

A short while ago it was trading at $1.2676, before he started speaking it was at $1.2755.

Last week the markets were surprised when it emerged that more policy makers than expected had voted in favour of a rise in interest rates. But the vote was still 5-3 in favour of keeping them on hold.

Today Mr Carney seemed to back those in favour of keeping rates as they are: "Now is not yet the time to being that adjustment," he said in his Mansion House speech.

Economics producer Mark Broad tweets:

Mark Carney continues with his explicit warnings about the potential for London to lose euro clearing business: "Fragmentation (of euro clearing) is in no one’s economic interest. Nor is it necessary for financial stability. Indeed it can damage it."

More from Mark Carney on the disadvantages of shifting financial clearing funcions out of London.

"Industry estimates suggest that a single basis point increase in the cost resulting from splitting clearing of interest rate swaps could cost EU firms €22bn per year across all of their business," he says.

"Those costs would ultimately be passed on to European households and businesses."

Mark Carney echoes the chancellor's comments about the potential for lucrative euro clearing business to be moved out of London. The warnings follow the European Union's draft law unveiled last week to give it the power to move business out of London and keep it in the EU after Britain leaves the Union in 2019.

Mr Carney points out that the UK houses some of the world's biggest Central Clearing counterparts (CCPs) handling 98% of all clearing in euro swaps.

"Fragmentation of such global markets by jurisdiction or currency would reduce the benefits of central clearing," he says.

"Any development which prevented EU27 firms from continuing to clear trades in the UK would split liquidity between a less liquid onshore market for EU firms and a more liquid offshore market for everyone else," he warns.

Mark Carney has warned about the imbalances of the global economy and notably the trade deficits of the US and the UK, especially as Mr Carney made clear because: "Most fundamentally, the UK relies on the kindness of strangers at a time when risks to trade, investment, and financial fragmentation have increased."

Part of the solution he argued at the Mansion House was to remove barriers to international trade in services and especially financial, which would benefit countries like the USA and the UK which have very large service sectors but run large deficits in trading goods.

"Fragmentation of financial services would result in poorer quality, higher priced products for everyone concerned," warns Phlip Hammond.

"And when we talk about complex financial products like derivatives – we need to remind ourselves that these seemingly esoteric instruments are crucial to facilitating everyday commercial and domestic transactions across our continent.

"Allowing households to obtain fixed rate mortgages, airlines to hedge their fuel costs, and farmers to have certainty over the price they’ll get for their produce.

"Avoiding fragmentation of financial services is a huge prize for the economies of Europe," he adds.

How do we achieve “Brexit for Britain”? Chancellor Philip Hammond asks.

One key way is by taking a "pragmatic approach" financial services, he says.

"Let’s be honest, we are already hearing protectionist agendas being advanced, disguised as arguments about regulatory competence, financial stability, and supervisory oversight," he says.

"We can have no truck with that approach."

Mr Hammond has more to say on immigration:

"Just as the British people understand the benefits of trade – so, too, they understand how important it is to business to be able to access global talent and to move individuals around their organisations.

"So, while we seek to manage migration, we do not seek to shut it down."

"Stronger growth is the only sustainable way to deliver better public services, higher real wages and increased living standards," says Philip Hammond.

He adds that "we must make anew the case for a market economy and for sound money. The case for growth.

"And we need to explain again how stronger growth must be delivered through rising productivity."

He also seems to make a case for some immigration:

"It means the UK remaining open to the talent, the ideas and the capital that have driven the success of our economy in the past, and will drive it in the future."

"Britain is weary after seven years of hard slog repairing the damage of the great recession," Mr Hammond says.

He learnt that during the election campaign when people told him about "fears about job security; about wage levels; the need for good schools for their children; a well-functioning health service; decent care for elderly relatives; or access to the housing market."

Chancellor Philip Hammond is on his feet for the Mansion House speech. He tells business leaders:

"Our economy has come a long way since the dark days of 2009. Last year we grew faster than any other major advanced economy bar Germany. Business has created 3.4 million more private sector jobs. The deficit is down by three-quarters – and below 3% of GDP."