PRESS DIGEST-British Business - March 12

March 12 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

- Britain's last minehunter in the Gulf, HMS Middleton, was towed home to Portsmouth just days before the outbreak of the Iran war, leaving the Royal Navy without a manned mine-clearing presence in the Middle East for the first time in nearly 50 years.

- Sir Keir Starmer has signaled a potential U-turn on the planned September fuel duty increase, placing the hike "under review" as the Iran war drives UK petrol prices to a 20-month high and threatens a fresh inflationary spike.

The Guardian

- Lloyd's of London has pushed back against claims of a "coverage blackout" in the Middle East, confirming that while it continues to insure vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, war risk premiums have surged to 1.5% of ship value, a sixfold increase since the start of the Iran conflict.

- Unite, one of Britain's largest trade unions, has slashed its membership fees to the Labour Party by 580,000 pounds, a 40% cut triggered by a bitter, year-long dispute between waste collection workers and the Labour-run Birmingham City Council.

The Telegraph

- Britain has joined over 30 nations in the largest-ever release of emergency oil reserves, unlocking 400 million barrels of crude to stabilize a market throttled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

- The founder of the collapsed shadow bank Market Financial Solutions (MFS), Paresh Raja, has been accused of using a network of eight shell companies to extract funds from creditors under false pretenses, contributing to a massive 1.3 billion pound ($1.74 billion) hole in the firm's accounts.

Sky News

- Ofcom and the ICO have issued an April deadline for major tech giants including Meta META.O, TikTok, and YouTube, to provide evidence of robust age-verification and child safety measures after the House of Commons rejected a blanket under-16 social media ban.

- The Treasury Committee has launched a cross-party inquiry into the "fairness" of the student loan system, specifically targeting the controversial Plan 2 loans after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a three-year freeze on repayment thresholds starting in 2027.

($1 = 0.7482 pounds)