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 [...]
Lammy set for further talks with counterparts as Iran and Israel exchange fire June 14, 2025 David Lammy is expected to spend the day in talks with counterparts across the Middle East after Iran launched retaliatory attacks against Israel overnight. The Foreign Secretary will be briefed by officials on Saturday and will speak to figures in the Middle East and elsewhere. It comes after conversations with representatives from Iran, Jordan and [...]
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 [...]
Westminster upheavals: Labour MPs could resign, Lib Dems courting Tory MPs June 13, 2025 Political intrigue is alive in Whitehall’s corridors, as Labour’s welfare reforms have landed a number of MPs on ‘resignation watch.’ On the benches opposite, Tories on the left of the party are being courted by Lib Dems. Work and Pensions (DWP) secretary Liz Kendall has told the party she will be pushing through with controversial [...]
Starmer calls Israeli strikes ‘concerning’ June 13, 2025 Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear programme. In what the Israeli Defence Forces called a “preemptive attack,” 200 fighter jets struck 100 targets, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility, according to Israel. The PM called reports of strikes “concerning,” calling for Israel and Iran to “step back and reduce tensions urgently.” [...]
London Mayor brands ULEZ scrappage scheme a success June 13, 2025 The London Mayor extolled the benefits of his controversial Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) scrappage scheme this morning. A new report has found that the scrappage scheme has seen 35,094 cars and 17,964 polluting vans in London taken off the streets in exchange for grants. According to City Hall, ULEZ has decreased carbon emissions equivalent to [...]
Bank of England loses hundreds of laptops amid rising cyber threats June 13, 2025 The Bank of England has come under fire after losing hundreds of tech devices worth nearly £300,000. Figures seen by Morning Wire reveal the Bank of England lost or had stolen over 300 laptops, tablets and phones between May 2022 and March 2025. Patrick Sullivan, chief executive of think tank Parliament Street, said: “The Bank [...]
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 [...]