Reeves must get ruthless on welfare October 2, 2025 Rachel Reeves’ plans for a youth guarantee scheme and lifting the two-child benefit cap are not enough to tackle the spiralling welfare bill, says Jamila Robertson This week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her plan to fix the unemployment crisis, which has seen 621,000 under-24s out of work this year. Reeves’ ‘youth guarantee’ scheme would provide [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Asos and Close Brothers lead City stocks’ fall as economic growth slows September 30, 2025 Good morning from the City PM liveblog team. When Rachel Reeves prepared her inaugural budget last year, she had little in the way of good news to impart to the people of Britain. The chancellor said she’d been left a bad inheritance, and had to raise tens of billions of pounds in extra taxes to plug spending [...]
Labour say manifesto stands ‘today’ as Reeves ducks VAT hike September 29, 2025 The Chancellor would not rule out fresh rises to VAT ahead of her speech to Labour Party Conference later today, when pressed on the issue by LBC’s Nick Ferrari this morning. Asked whether Brits could face increases to the retail levy, Reeves said: “You’ll know we made those commitments in our manifesto, and those commitments [...]
Employers are barely an afterthought for Labour September 17, 2025 The economy is flatlining. Unemployment is rising. Investors are fleeing our shores. At times like these, businesses needs support. But instead of a shot in the arm, they get a series of knives in the back. One of Labour’s first acts after coming to power was to hike Employer National Insurance Contributions. And now the employers [...]
Universities are failing to train young people for the jobs of tomorrow September 12, 2025 Nearly 12 per cent of people on universal credit are graduates. It’s time our universities stepped up by training students for the jobs they, and the British economy, need, writes Jamila Robertson In response to a written question by shadow minister Neil’ O Brien, the UK Statistics Authority revealed that 11.9 per cent of those [...]
London hiring slumps as employers suffer from rising costs September 8, 2025 London hiring has continued its steep decline as employers suffer the consequences of Reeves’ tax raid and rising costs. The latest jobs report from KPMG and the REC showed demand for workers in the capital has “continued to deteriorate” with both permanent placements and temp billings slumping further. Permanent staff places, hires with no fixed [...]
Cut interest rates to four per cent, City PM Shadow MPC says August 5, 2025 Top economists have voted 8-1 for interest rates to be slashed by 25 basis points in City PM’s new Shadow Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). Amid high inflation and falling job numbers, the Bank of England is set to face a difficult finely balanced decision on Thursday on whether to cut interest rates from the current [...]
Rachel Reeves urges cabinet to boost British jobs as employment slides July 26, 2025 Rachel Reeves has told cabinet ministers to ensure government contracts go to companies that will boost British workers as employment figures continue to struggle. The Chancellor, along with Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, told their colleagues that the billions in public spending on transport and infrastructure projects must be utilised as an [...]
Government must ‘take its head out of the sand’ after jobs plunge July 17, 2025 Small businesses have urged the government to “take its head out of the sand” over tax hikes and a flurry of fresh employment regulations after the Office for National Statistics reported another consecutive month of jobs losses. Responding to Thursday’s unemployment figures, the Federation for Small Businesses said the jobs plunge was “disturbing” and that [...]
Week in Business: Reeves bets on the banks but economy still hurting July 17, 2025 Rachel Reeves set out to charm the City this week, but elsewhere, the economy is reeling from high taxes and low confidence.
