PRESS DIGEST-British Business - March 27

March 27 (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

- Andy Street, the former managing director of John Lewis, who was elected as mayor of the West Midlands, said it would be a "tragedy" if the retailer abandoned its partnership model

- DP World, a Dubai-owned company that admitted it had broken employment law by dismissing 800 British crew at P&O Ferries last March and replacing them with cheap foreign labour has been awarded a multimillion-pound windfall under British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's freeports scheme, in what unions condemned as an "appalling" decision.

The Guardian

- The cost of HS2's revised and postponed London Euston terminus has almost doubled to 4.8 billion pounds ($5.88 billion) since 2020, according to the public spending watchdog, with millions wasted on botched decisions.

The Telegraph

- Phoenix Group, the FTSE 100 life insurer, has created a 50-strong team of analysts and specialists to examine what projects it can invest in once Jeremy Hunt relaxes EU-era rules in the insurance industry, The Telegraph understands.

Sky News

- A major incident has been declared after an oil leak from an onshore field in Dorset.

The Independent

- The impact of Brexit on the UK economy is on the same "magnitude" as the Covid pandemic and energy price crisis, the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

($1 = 0.8169 pounds) (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)