The economic figures released on Wednesday show the constraints for John Healey as he puts the finishing touches to his Budget.

Tesla and SpaceX have formed a special committee to assess a merger. The combined company would be valued at roughly $3.5 trillion. SpaceX shares gained 8% in after-hours trading.

It is thought the facility would create up to 600 jobs.

New deep-sea cable factory will 'bolster' Scotland's energy security

Amazon has opened a £107m distribution centre in Peterborough, its largest facility of its kind in Europe. The centre is next to an existing Amazon site that opened in 2010 and is expected to create 1,400 jobs as part of the company's £40bn UK investment plan for 2025-27. The 690,000 sq ft facility can store up to 16 million items at peak, roughly twice the capacity of other sites. It is expected to handle as many as five million packages a week.

UK gross domestic product rose 0.1% in August from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said, beating market expectations of a contraction. GDP was up 0.7% over the three months to August, while July's growth was revised up to 0.4% and June's figure was also upgraded. The Chancellor warned that inflation would still hold back growth, though the IMF had already raised its forecast for the UK economy.

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, booked $16.8bn in revenue in the three months to the end of September, a 45% increase. Revenue in the two preceding quarters came in at $4.7bn and $11.6bn, extending a run of consecutive quarterly gains. Technology shares in Asia fell in early trading on Thursday, with SoftBank down more than 9%, Samsung 9.4% and SK Hynix 10.8%. South Korea's Kospi fell 7.6% and Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 4.8%.

The pace of price rises increased to 3.7% in the year to September, driving by higher motor fuel costs.

The Competition and Markets Authority has fined Wayfair, Appliances Direct, and Gold's Gym £6m in total.