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The government is to forge a "leaner, more efficient state" on a permanent basis, David Cameron has said, as he signalled he had no intention of resuming spending once the structural deficit has been eliminated, a clear change to claims made after the last general election. Cameron said that the government would press ahead with tackling the deficit after cutting it by a third. But he made clear that his party intended to go further, The Guardian reports. Loosely regulated non-bank lenders have emerged as among the biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve's ultra-low interest rates with three specialist categories increasing their assets by almost 60% since the height of the financial crisis. Such lenders, widely considered part of the "shadow banking" system, have expanded rapidly on the back of investors who are clamouring for the higher returns on offer from financing riskier types of lending, the Financial Times says. Sir Ian Wood, former Chairman of oil services firm Wood Group, urged the government to accept his recommendations to boost oil output in the North Sea by an extra 3-4bn barrels over the next 20 years and safeguard 450,000 industry jobs. The strategy he proposes would include setting up an "arms-length" industry regulator with additional powers to drive collaboration between oil and gas operators such as encouraging them to share pipelines and data and explore new fields, The Daily Express writes. Speaking at the opening of M&S's largest store so far in India, a 35,000 sq ft multistorey shop in Bandra, a northern suburb of Mumbai, Marc Bolland, the Chief Executive, said that the push to expand its Indian network from 36 stores would place India at the centre of an international growth drive. It also reflected a strategic shift away from a previous focus on China, where M&S has more modest expansion plans and expects to leave its network of 15 stores in Shanghai unchanged, The Times reports. The Chief Executive of the UK's largest general insurer RSA came under increasing pressure yesterday as shares tumbled as much as 17% over an investigation into losses at its Irish unit. The company behind the More Than brand is looking into issues stretching back at least two years after an internal audit of the business triggered the group's second profit warning in a week. Analysts questioned whether the company's dividend may be under threat and also suggested it could become a takeover target, The Scotsman reports. More than £4bn of taxpayer funds was paid out last year to four of Britain's largest outsourcing contractors - Serco, Capita, Atos and G4S - prompting concerns that controversial firms have become too big to fail, according to the National Audit Office. Increasingly powerful outsourcing companies should be forced to open their books on taxpayer-funded contracts, and be subject to fines and bans from future contracts in the event that they are found to have fallen short, the NAO finds, according to The Guardian. More than four million more households face spiralling energy bills this winter as another of the Big Six prepares to push up prices amid accusations from the government that they risk being seen in the same light as "greedy" bankers. E.ON is preparing to push up charges by more than double the rate of inflation, The Daily Telegraph says. Norway's $800bn oil fund would undergo its biggest organisational change in a decade under proposals from a government-appointed strategy council that could make it a more active ethical investor. The council, which advises Norway's finance ministry, recommended that decisions on whether the world's largest sovereign wealth fund should exclude companies or entire industries should be taken by the country's central bank, a unit of which already manages the oil fund, the Financial Times reports. AB