Royal Mail lifted one of the biggest clouds over its future on Monday with a deal in which postal workers could receive pay rises worth 6.9 per cent over three years and greater job security in return for delivering a “transformation” of the business.

The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global ­settlement.

Volkswagen, a long-time sceptic about hybrid and electric cars, has officially shifted gears.

At last week's Geneva motor show - where nearly every leading carmaker showcased a planned or experimental hybrid or battery-powered model - the German carmaker said it planned an "unprecedented" drive into electric vehicles.

Britain will suffer decades of economic decline if the next government cuts science spending to help to contain the £178 billion national debt, an influential panel of researchers, business leaders and former ministers warns today.

A cost-cutting raid on the research budget, expected widely whoever wins the general election, would be a false economy that would risk “relegation from the scientific premier league” and reduce growth, a report by the Royal Society has found.

Britain's banks have been given a period of grace before strict new rules on liquidity are introduced that will cost more than £2bn and potentially derail economic growth.

Reflecting concerns expressed by lenders, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) yesterday conceded it would be "premature to increase liquidity requirements across the industry at the current time". When it announced the revised standards last October, the FSA said it would "not tighten before economic recovery is assured".

Gordon Brown on Monday threatened “serious action” to ensure companies appointed more female directors unless there was a sharp increase in the number of women on company boards.

Aides said, however, that any measures would fall short of strict quotas such as those in Norway, where there is a requirement for 40 per cent female representation on boards of all public companies.

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