Astrazeneca cancels £450m vaccine plant, blaming state funding cut January 31, 2025 Astrazeneca has cancelled a planned £450m investment in a vaccine manufacturing plant in Merseyside, saying Labour have failed to match the previous government’s offer of funding. It sees the pharmaceutical firm scrap plans to expand its existing facility in Speke, as announced by then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt at last year’s March budget, as first reported by [...]
Britain needs to work harder to ‘compete globally’, Chris Philp says January 31, 2025 Brits need to work harder in order to “compete globally” with rival nations, Chris Philp has argued. The Conservative shadow home secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking podcast that the UK “needs everyone to make a contribution” to keep up with states like China and India. He told presenter Nick Robinson that there were [...]
The Week in Business: is Reeves right to be an optimist? January 31, 2025 Rachel Reeves has been reset, but should we buy into this new optimistic Chancellor?
Rachel Reeves says tax-hiking Budget was needed to stop economic calamity January 30, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has defended her tax-hiking Budget today, saying that without the changes to national insurance, the government would have lost control of the economy. Speaking on Time Radio this morning, Reeves said she recognises there are “consequences to increasing National Insurance,” but the “consequences of irresponsibility would have been far greater” had the [...]
Chancellor Rachel Reeves ‘won’t apologise’ for reforming UK regulation January 29, 2025 Rachel Reeves has said that she “won’t apologise for wanting to reform how regulation works in Britain” after a major economic speech which saw her back a third runway at Heathrow. The Chancellor unveiled a suite of policies the Treasury said would “kickstart” economic growth, including an “action plan” intended to instil a pro-growth approach [...]
Heathrow: Sadiq Khan ‘remains opposed’ to third runway January 29, 2025 Sadiq Khan has confirmed he “remains opposed” to a third runway at Heathrow Airport, putting him on a collision course with Chancellor Rachel Reeves. The mayor of London responded to Reeves’ announcement of the government’s backing for the UK’s only hub airport to expand its facilities during her economic speech on Wednesday. Khan said: “I [...]
Next CEO backs Lords battle against National Insurance tax rise January 29, 2025 The chief executive of retail giant Next has backed an attempt in the House of Lords to change the planned change to employer’s National Insurance Contributions (NICs). Lord Wolfson has supported amendments to the bill which have been tabled by Baroness Noakes. In Labour’s Budget last Autumn, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that the government would [...]
Grow, baby, grow… but will Labour’s growth agenda be enough? January 29, 2025 City AM’s politics reporter, Jessica Frank-Keyes, unpacks the week in Westminster. Today, she tackles Labour’s growing promises. Picture a graph with the x axis stretching from 1800 to the present day. The data is represented as a fairly flat line along the bottom, up to about 1960. Then it bumps around at about a quarter [...]
Rachel Reeves vows to fight for economic growth January 28, 2025 The Chancellor will declare that “growth won’t come without a fight” as she unveils her plan to turnaround Britain’s ailing economy with billions of pounds of investment and new infrastructure projects. Reeves will pledge an £80bn boom to the economy from a new Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor in a move that comes after the pensions industry [...]
CT Group appoints Baroness Helena Morrissey as non-executive January 28, 2025 Sir Lynton Crosby's consulting firm CT Group has appointed Baroness Helena Morrissey as a non-executive director, City AM can exclusively reveal