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You and Yours: Black Friday

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24/11/2017

Black Friday

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Black Friday

Consumer news. Including Black Friday, NHS 'healthy new towns' and apprentice pay.

Consumer news and issues presented by Peter White. Including Black Friday, the NHS 'healthy new towns' programme and apprentice pay.

It's Black Friday and retailers are forecasting record sales as they try to tempt people with heavily promoted discounts. Last year we spent about three billion pounds and the big shops will be hoping for a pre-Christmas sales boost, despite warnings on this programme that some Black Friday deals are not as good as they seem. The Chancellor too will no doubt be watching closely after doubts over consumer confidence. We report from a shopping centre in the West Midlands.

In this week's budget, Philip Hammond said he wanted three hundred thousand new homes to be built in the UK every year. Plans are well underway for some of them in England with, for the first time, the NHS playing a part in their design. They're known as "Healthy New Towns". There are ten projects. Some are vast, like at Ebbsfleet Garden City in Kent, which will get fifteen thousand new homes. Others will deliver just a few hundred new houses and flats. The idea is that by promoting a healthy lifestyle, the NHS will end up spending far less looking after us further down the line. But what do they actually mean when they describe these new towns as "healthy"? We report from one of the towns in the north west of England.

One hundred and thirty five thousand apprentices in England are being paid less than the apprentices' minimum wage, according to the the TUC. We explore why some employers are not meeting their obligations.

Presenter: Peter White 
Producer: Helen Roberts.

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