Britons taking out package holidays will have to pay an extra £1.50 levy on the cost of their trip, to help meet the potential cost of tour operators going under.

The Air Travel Organiser’s Licence protection scheme, which currently costs £1 per passenger, will now increase to £2.50. The scheme is designed to protect holidaymakers in case of the financial collapse of their tour operator.

Passengers who book an airline ticket only will not be covered by the scheme.

Thousands of holidaymakers made claims following the collapse of the XL Leisure Group last year, and the protection scheme has been in financial difficulty ever since. A number of smaller tour companies have also collapsed in the last year.

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A renewed legal battle to abolish the UK’s enforceable retirement age of 65 has begun in the High Court.

The charities Age Concern and Help the Aged are leading the challenge, which questions whether it is legal for employers in the UK to force their workers to retire at 65.

They will argue that the Default Retirement Age introduced under the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 fails to adhere correctly to an EU directive against age discrimination. This directive states that the UK’s enforceable retirement age could only remain if it had a “legitimate aim” linked to social or employment policy.

Although the European Court of Justice rejected the campaigners’ request to outlaw the Default Retirement Age, the UK government must still justify its decision in the High Court.

The hearing comes in the same week as the government announced it would be bringing forward a review of the compulsory retirement age to 2010. This week also saw 68-year-old solicitor Leslie Seldon bring a case at the Court of Appeal against his partners after he was forced to leave his job at the age of 65 by the terms of his contract.

Along with over 300 other employment appeals, Seldon’s is now on hold until today’s case clarifies the law.

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Travellers who contract swine flu should be covered for any resulting losses by their insurance policy, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has said.

Customers who are forced to cancel their holiday or seek medical treatment abroad because of swine flu will be able to claim compensation, as long as the disease was not contracted before the policy was taken out.

However, travelling against official advice could jeopardise travel insurance policies. When deciding whether to pay out on a claim, insurers would take into account doctors’ notes advising those affected by the flu virus against travelling.

More than 100,000 new cases of the H1N1 virus a day are expected by the end of the summer in the UK, though most are mild.

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Children as young as 13 will be able to apply for pre-paid Visa cards which can be used in shops, online and at cash machines.

The so-called “Load and Go” cards are being issued by mobile network O2 and can be obtained without parental consent, although parents will be informed when an application has been made.

The card, which is being launched in partnership with Natwest bank, comes with no fees and no overdraft facility, meaning that young users will not be able to spend more than they have loaded on the card. Money can be loaded online, at O2 stores, PayPoint and e-pay outlets. Users will be sent real time balance reports to their mobile phone.

A spokesman for O2 said: “This offers a much safer alternative to carrying cash around as it uses Chip and Pin security and can be blocked and replaced if stolen or lost, ensuring the money is safe and secure.”

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A government scheme to revive the UK’s ailing mortgage market was “doomed to fail” from the beginning, ministers have said.

The £50bn asset-backed guarantee scheme (ABS) has not resulted in the expected increase in sales, according to the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee. The committee added that further steps were needed to boost mortgage lending for the housing market to recover.

Skills and jobs within the UK’s construction industry must also be protected, according to the committee’s report. It warned that following the previous recession it took ten years to rebuild capacity in the industry.

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The UK’s sluggish economy is likely to dampen any recovery in the housing market for months to come, two separate surveys have found.

According to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), there will be no “sustained” increase in house prices until more mortgages are made available to consumers.

Meanwhile PricewaterhouseCoopers has predicted further price falls in 2009 and 2010. This warning comes in spite of recent price rises in some parts of the property market.

Recent housing surveys have suggested that the housing market is stabilising, with the Nationwide building society reporting a steady 6% rise in UK house prices since February.

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A government review of the default retirement age of 65 has been brought forward by a year, signalling an end to the current age at which employers can force their staff to retire.

The majority of people in the UK retire before they reach 65. However, 1.3 million people continue to work beyond the state pension age. Many more people say they would work beyind their 65th if their employer allowed them to.

The review, which had been planned for 2011, will now take place a year earlier in 2010. Minister have brought forward the review in response to changing demographic and economic circumstances.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented: “Evidence suggests that allowing older people to continue working, unfettered by negative views about ageing, could be a big factor in the success of Britain’s businesses and our future economic growth.”

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Two UK banks have begun screening customers’ transactions in order to combat so-called boiler room scams.

Boiler room fraud involves criminals ringing potential investors and persuading them to buy shares which are effectively worthless.

The Financial Services authority estimates that up to 30,000 a year are falling victim to these scams.

HSBC and Barclays bank are now suspending transactions to known boiler room firms, using a list of hundreds of questionable companies published by the FSA. The regulator says that these companies are not authorised to trade, and pose a high risk to consumers.

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The housing market is in a far stronger position than it was 12 months ago, the president of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), Gary Smith, has said.

Smith added that the market had stabilised in June after “several months of continuous improvement”, ahead of an expected dip over the summer.

“The Government should scrap Home Information Packs and must pressure banks to ensure lending is available. We know that there is demand for property and that our professional agents are successfully finding buyers for their clients’ properties,” he said.

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Estate agency firm Foxtons today lost a legal battle against the Office of Fair Trading over claims that some of the charges it imposes on landlords are unfair.

The OFT had asked the High Court to uphold the regulator’s decision that terms in its letting contracts, which include charging landlords ongoing commission even if it could not find them new tenants, breached consumer regulations.

The OFT said that clauses hidden among the small print of Foxtons’ agreements for managing tenanted properties were a “trap”.

Following court proceedings that began last February, Justice Mann ruled that parts of Foxtons’ contracts breached the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, and added that the estate agent had failed to make its terms clear in its literature.

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