Business

A senior adviser to Rachel Reeves has drawn sharp criticism from the hospitality sector after saying Britain does not “need any more restaurants”. Alex Depledge, appointed last year as the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser, argued that ministers should prioritise high-growth industries such as technology and advanced manufacturing rather than hospitality and retail. Speaking to Insider Media, Depledge said: “We don’t need any more restaurants. I’m not anti-hospitality, but that’s not where my efforts are.” She added...

Peter Mandelson was arrested at his Regent’s Park home amid concerns he posed a potential flight risk, according to his legal team. The former cabinet minister and peer was detained on Monday afternoon on suspicion of misconduct in public office, following allegations that sensitive government documents were leaked while he was serving as business secretary under Gordon Brown. Police questioned Mandelson for several hours before releasing him on bail in the early hours of Tuesday...

In many organisations, portfolio is still viewed as a list of products and services – something to be expanded in the hope that more choice will unlock more opportunity. In reality, sustainable growth rarely comes from volume alone. For high-performing businesses, a strategic portfolio is one that is deliberately designed around customer outcomes. It supports acquisition, strengthens retention and creates long-term value through clarity, consistency and service excellence. In this blog I will be exploring...

The UK’s data protection watchdog has fined Reddit £14.47m after finding serious failings in how the platform handled children’s personal information. The penalty, issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), follows an investigation that concluded Reddit had failed to implement robust age assurance mechanisms and did not have a lawful basis for processing the data of children under 13. Under UK data protection law, children’s information must be given special protection. The ICO said Reddit...

Britain’s human resources sector has grown disproportionately large and is costing businesses billions of pounds a year, according to a new report from the think tank Policy Exchange. The centre-right research body claims that the UK’s HR industry is almost twice as large, proportionally, as that of the European Union and around 60 per cent bigger than in the United States. It estimates that this “misallocation of labour” is costing the economy roughly £10bn annually...

Rachel Reeves will deliver her Spring Statement on March 3, just over three months after her November Budget, in what is expected to be a lower-key fiscal event focused more on forecasts than fresh policy announcements. Unlike the autumn Budget, the Spring Statement is not expected to contain tax rises or major spending cuts. Reeves has pledged to limit significant fiscal changes to a single annual event, giving herself £21.7bn of headroom in November to...

More than half of young Britons are unable to name a single entrepreneur, according to new research that campaigners say highlights a worrying disconnect between the UK’s startup culture and the next generation. A YouGov survey conducted for Enterprise Britain found that 56 per cent of 18 to 25-year-olds could not name an entrepreneur, founder or chief executive. Among those who could, Richard Branson was the most frequently cited, named by 16 per cent of...

A new purpose-built workspace aimed at supporting Jersey’s growing community of founders and independent professionals will open its doors in Charing Cross this spring. House of Champions, located in a private courtyard in the centre of St Helier, has been designed as a flexible entrepreneurial hub with capacity for 40 members. The three-storey space blends traditional Jersey architecture with contemporary interiors, featuring exposed wooden beams, floor-to-ceiling windows and curated artwork intended to create a calm...

Violence and abuse against shop workers declined by a fifth last year, but retail leaders say crime levels remain far higher than before the pandemic and continue to pose a serious threat to staff safety. New figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Sensormatic Solutions show there were 1,600 incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers every day in 2024/25, down from 2,000 daily incidents the previous year. That equates to around 590,000...

FedEx has launched legal action against the US government seeking a full refund of tariffs imposed under Donald Trump, after the US Supreme Court ruled last week that the levies had been introduced unlawfully. The case, filed in the US Court of International Trade, names the United States, US Customs and Border Protection and its commissioner Rodney Scott as defendants. FedEx did not specify the amount it is seeking to reclaim but said it is...