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The mortgage market has had its strongest start to a year since 2008, with lending up by 2% from January 2016. Mortgage approvals hit a nine-month high in December, more figures from the British Bankers Association reveal today. The Council of Mortgage Lenders said that gross mortgage lending was £18.9 billion last month, although this wasn't as strong as December. To discuss the figures, Nigel was joined by Mohammad Jamei, an economist from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Next week is 'Wales in London' week with a number of events scheduled across the capital. Cardiff recently beat London in terms of its combination of talent AND quality of life in a recent recruitment survey. Deloitte moved a number of back office jobs from London to Cardiff recently. Chair of Central Cardiff Enterprise Zone Chris Sutton joined Nigel; he'll be talking at an "Invest in Wales" event in London on Monday.

Chairman of the Lafferty Group, Michael Lafferty, joins Nigel in the studio to discuss the loss announced by the Royal Bank of Scotland this morning.

It's time to talk politics. On today's programme, Simon Rose will be looking at the latest net migration figures with Jonathan Isaby, Editor of Brexit Central, the Government's prison shake-up with Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at The Howard League for Penal Reform, as well as checking in with Lord Teverson, Liberal Democrat peer, to see how the Government's Brexit bill is getting on in the Lords.

Hello and welcome to today's edition of The Apprentice Investor. Regular listeners to the show will know that our Apprentices are four members of the Share Radio team who've each been given fifteen thousand pounds of virtual money to build their own share portfolios. They have a minimum of eight stocks, which they've been buying and selling through The Share Centre for the past couple of years. Today Share Radio's Simon Rose was joined in the studio by Apprentices Alexi Phillips and Olivia Demitriades. Standing by with advice and useful observations was Share Radio's sparkling Senior Analyst Ed Bowsher.

Share Radio's Simon Rose brings you Market Wrap, a roundup of what's been happening in the businesses of Britain and the world. To help put the day's events in context, Simon was joined by Share Radio's Senior Analyst Ed Bowsher. On today's show: Barclays has seen a jump in its annual pre-tax profits which nearly treble; British Gas owner Centrica has reported an annual pre-tax profit of £2.2bn, against a loss of £1.1bn the year before; pressure on the sales of French bonds eased earlier today, as the likelihood of a win for Marine Le Pen decreased. All this and much more on the Market Wrap.

"The Investment Trust Show", brought to you in association with Henderson Global Investors. Each week we explore the main features, factors and developments affecting investment trusts. This week we're going to be looking at using investment trusts to invest for income. To do so, Share Radio's Simon Rose was joined on the phone by Alan Borrows from the Seneca Global Income & Growth Trust and Simon Elliot, Head of Research at Winterflood. Also with Simon, as ever, was Share Radio's senior analyst Ed Bowsher.

Barclays has reported a surge in profits, from a net loss of almost £400 million in 2015 to net profit of £1.6 billion in 2016, but the share price is slightly softer - for more on why, Richard Hunter, head of research at Wilson King Investment Management, joined Share Radio's Ed Bowsher to talk through the day's biggest company stories.

With increasingly busy lives many of us struggle to fit a healthy and affordable lunch into the working day. It's that experience that inspired Becky Alexander and nutritionist Michelle Lake to put together recipe book Packed. To find out more about workplace lunch trends and how to save time and money on food Share Radio's Tom Hill spoke to the two authors.

What would a Marine Le Pen victory in the French presidential election mean for markets? Panmure Gordon's chief economist Simon French says the right-wing candidate could win and, given a possible exit from the Euro, the impact would be more immediate than Brexit and 'strike at the heart of an economic system'. He joined Share Radio's Ed Bowsher to talk through this and the day's big economic stories including possible US rate increases, gold price rise and more.