High street banks ramp up SME lending to highest since 2022 June 16, 2025 High street banks are scaling up their lending to small businesses, with the first quarter of 2022 hitting the highest amount since 2022. Lenders issued £4.6bn worth of loans in the first three months of the year marking a 14 per cent year-on-year jump. The rise was driven by a surge of lending to agriculture, [...]
Reeves to lay out 10-year infrastructure plan worth £725bn June 15, 2025 Chancellor Reeves is set to deliver a 10-year infrastructure strategy plan which will lay out efforts to boost growth and upgrade services across the UK. The new blueprint for UK infrastructure will come around a week after Reeves delivered the Spending Review, which marked out £190bn in extra government spending commitments for the years between [...]
Was Reeves’ Spending Review a fintech endorsement? June 14, 2025 Rachel Reeves has promised to back UK fintech and in Labour’s inaugural Spending Review, she piled billions into the tech sector. The Chancellor handed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) a hefty £16.5bn budget as she took the chop to other departments. DSIT’s expenditure limit is set to grow 7.4 per cent by [...]
Free Thinking: Mel Stride on Farage’s ‘fantasy’ economics and why Tories are different June 13, 2025 City AM's Opinion and Features Editor sits down with Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride for a very special episode of Free Thinking.
Reeves has ‘killed’ Old Kent Road regeneration by scrapping Bakerloo Line extension, say developers June 13, 2025 A major south London regeneration scheme faces an uncertain future after developers warned that the government’s spending review has “killed” the project by not providing funding for the long-expected Bakerloo Line extension. Described as ‘fundamental’ to the regeneration project, the Bakerloo Line extension missed out on funding in Rachel Reeves’ spending review on 11th June. [...]
Big cities, big potential: The Spending Review rightly prioritises urban growth June 13, 2025 The Spending Review empowers UK city regions with transport and innovation funding to boost productivity and drive national economic growth, says Andrew Carter The Chancellor’s Spending Review rightly puts big cities at the centre of a plan for broad-based, long-term national prosperity. The UK’s big cities’ economies have tended to underperform, costing the country £50bn [...]
The Government’s Jekyll and Hyde approach to business is confusing June 13, 2025 | City Talk Businesses were once enthusiastic about a Labour government, but a year on we are growing frustrated, says Ravi Anand In advance of last year’s General Election, conversations I had with small businesses and corporate advisers were overwhelmingly positive towards the prospect of a Labour Government. This was contrary to what you’d expect from the business [...]
Reeves’ tax hikes force Timothy Taylor to raise price of a pint June 13, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ tax hikes have forced brewer Timothy Taylor to raise its prices as it slammed the “hostile fiscal and regulatory environment” it now faces. The family-owned brewer said its industry is facing “significant input and labour cost increases” as well as dealing with the fall in business rates relief. Timothy Taylor added that it [...]
UK firms dodge Labour tax raid with WFH roles abroad June 13, 2025 UK companies are turning to work-from-home (WFH) South Africans and other workers in East Asia in a cost-cutting drive to dodge Rachel Reeves’ £20bn tax raid on employers and stringent workers’ rights. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has spoken about his determination to “put working people’s priorities first” while welfare cuts have been made to [...]
Spending Review: IFS chief suggests Treasury ‘making up numbers’ over DOGE-style Whitehall cuts June 12, 2025 The Ministry of Defence and Department for Health and Social Care are slated to see billions cut in Whitehall budgets in what a DOGE-style body within the Treasury described as “efficiency gains” – despite both departments set to see a real terms increase in spending between 2026 and 2029. A new government document has revealed [...]