Business Secretary wants staff in ‘at least’ two or three days a week
A minister has told Sky News he would like staff in his department to be coming into the office “at least” two or three days a week, after the government insisted it would follow a “cautious” approach to civil servants returning to their desks.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was asked about his views on people working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Current government guidance says that ministers are ‘no longer instructing people to work from home if they can’
It comes after an unnamed minister was quoted by one newspaper as saying officials should have their pay reduced if they refuse to come back to the office.
Speaking to Kay Burley, Mr Kwarteng said: “I think we should try to come in maybe 2-3 days a week at least.
“But it’s a gradual process, no-one is being forced back against their will.
“You’ve got to make the environment very safe but I think it is probably quite a good thing to spend more time in the week at work, that’s just a personal view.”
Mr Kwarteng added that ministers would not “dictate” to businesses when it comes to working arrangements, but stressed the benefits of “flexibility” and being able to go into the office or workplace.
“I think if you’re trying to make a career it probably makes sense to actually meet colleagues and build a network and learn from other people and I think that’s probably best done in the workplace,” he added.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak last week spoke of the benefits of working in an office, stressing the positive impact it had on his early career.
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Current government guidance, which came into effect when most COVID restrictions were lifted on 19 July, states that ministers are “no longer instructing people to work from home if they can, so employers can start to plan a return to workplaces”.
“During this period of high prevalence, the government expects and recommends a gradual return over the summer,” it adds.
“You should discuss the timing and phasing of a return with your workers.”
But a minister quoted by the Daily Mail advocated a more hardline approach to ending home working.
“People who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work,” they reportedly said.
“If people aren’t going into work, they don’t deserve the terms and conditions they get if they are going into work.”
The chancellor has recently spoken of the benefits of working in an office
The minister also suggested that “people who want to get on in life will go into the office because that’s how people are going to succeed”.
A union leader criticised the comments, describing them as “insulting” and a demonstration that ministers are “out of touch with modern working practices”.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA civil service union, said: “What should matter to ministers is whether public services are being delivered effectively, not where individual civil servants are sitting on a particular day.”
At the weekend it was reported that plans to require staff at the Department of Health and Social Care to be based partly in the office from next month have been scrapped.
According to The Guardian, the department had put staff on notice that from September the “minimum expectation” would be that they should be in the office for a minimum of four and maximum of eight days a month, unless there was a business or wellbeing reason.
But the department’s director of workplace and director of HR told staff on Thursday that “it’s clear that we cannot proceed with this phase on the planned timescale”.
A government spokesperson said: “The Civil Service continues to follow government guidance, as we gradually and cautiously increase the number of staff working in the office.
“Our approach, which builds on our learning during the pandemic, takes advantage of the benefits of both office and home-based working across the UK.”
Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, recently said that he expects a crypto market bill to be passed into law by August 2025.
The chairman also noted the Senate Banking Committee’s advancement of the GENIUS Act, a comprehensive stablecoin regulatory bill, in March 2025, as evidence that the committee prioritizes crypto policy. In a statement to Fox News, Scott said:
“We must innovate before we regulate — allowing innovation in the digital asset space to happen here at home is critical to American economic dominance across the globe.”
Scott’s timeline for a crypto market structure bill lines up with expectations from Kristin Smith, CEO of the crypto industry advocacy group Blockchain Association, of market structure and stablecoin legislation being passed into law by August.
The Trump administration has emphasized that comprehensive crypto regulations are central to its plans for protecting the value of the US dollar and establishing the country as a global leader in digital assets by attracting investment into US-based crypto firms.
Senator Tim Scott highlights the Senate Banking Committee’s goals and accomplishments in 2025. Source: Fox News
Related: Atkins becomes next SEC chair: What’s next for the crypto industry
Support for comprehensive crypto regulations is bipartisan
US lawmakers and officials expect clear crypto policies to be established and signed into law sometime in 2025 with bipartisan support from Congress.
Speaking at the Digital Assets Summit in New York City, on March 18, Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said he expects both the market structure and stablecoin bills to pass this year.
The Democrat lawmaker added that there are about 70-80 other representatives in the party who understand the importance of passing clear digital asset regulations in the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, pictured left, President Donald Trump in the center, and crypto czar David Sacks, pictured right, at the White House Crypto Summit. Source: The White House
Khanna emphasized that fellow Democrats support dollar-pegged stablecoins due to the role of dollar tokens in expanding demand for the US dollar worldwide through the internet.
Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, also spoke at the conference and predicted that stablecoin legislation would be passed into law within 60 days.
Hines highlighted that establishing US dominance in the digital asset space is a goal with widespread bipartisan support in Washington DC.
Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025
The US Social Security Administration (SSA) will move all public communications to the X social media platform amid sweeping workforce cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by X owner Elon Musk.
According to anonymous sources who spoke with WIRED, the government agency will no longer issue its customary letters and press releases to communicate changes to the public, instead relying on X as its primary form of public-facing communication.
The shift comes as the SSA downsizes its workforce from 57,000 employees to roughly 50,000 to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency. The agency issued this statement in February 2025:
“SSA has operated with a regional structure consisting of 10 offices, which is no longer sustainable. The agency will reduce the regional structure in all agency components down to four regions. The organizational structure at Headquarters also is outdated and inefficient.”
Elon Musk, the head of DOGE, has accused the Social Security system of distributing billions of dollars in wrongful payments, a claim echoed by the White House. Musk’s comments sparked intense debate about the future of the retirement program and sustainable government spending.
Source: Elon Musk
Related: Musk says he found ‘magic money computers’ printing money ‘out of thin air’
DOGE targets US government agencies in efficiency push
The Department of Government Efficiency is an unofficial government agency tasked with identifying and curbing allegedly wasteful public spending through budget and personnel cuts.
In March, DOGE began probing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and gained access to its internal systems, including data repositories.
SEC officials signaled their cooperation with DOGE and said the regulatory agency would work closely with it to provide any relevant information requested.
Musk and Trump discuss curbing public spending and eliminating government waste. Source: The White house
DOGE also proposed slashing the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) workforce by 20%. The workforce reduction could impact up to 6,800 IRS employees and be implemented by May 15 — exactly one month after 2024 federal taxes are due.
Musk’s and the DOGE’s proposals for sweeping spending cuts are not limited to slashing budgets and reducing the size of the federal workforce.
DOGE is reportedly exploring blockchain to curb public spending by placing the entire government budget onchain to promote accountability and transparency.
Magazine: Elon Musk’s plan to run government on blockchain faces uphill battle
United States President Donald Trump has exempted an array of tech products including, smartphones, chips, computers, and select electronics from tariffs, giving the tech industry a much-needed respite from trade pressures.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection, storage cards, modems, diodes, semiconductors, and other electronics were also excluded from the ongoing trade tariffs.
“Large-cap technology companies will ultimately come out ahead when this is all said and done,” The Kobeissi letter wrote in an April 12 X post.
US Customs and Border Protection announces tariff exemptions on select tech products. Source: US Customs and Border Protection
The tariff relief will take the pressure off of tech stocks, which were one of the biggest casualties of the trade war. Crypto markets are correlated with tech stocks and could also rally as risk appetite increases on positive trade war headlines.
Following news of the tariff exemptions, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) broke past $85,000 on April 12, a signal that crypto markets are already responding to the latest macroeconomic development.
Related: Billionaire investor would ‘not be surprised’ if Trump postpones tariffs
Markets hinge on Trump’s every word during macroeconomic uncertainty
President Trump walked back the sweeping tariff policies on April 9 by initiating a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs and lowering tariff rates to 10% for countries that did not respond with counter-tariffs on US goods.
Bitcoin surged by 9% and the S&P 500 surged by over 10% on the same day that Trump issued the tariff pause.
Macroeconomic trader Raoul Pal said the tariff policies were a negotiation tool to establish a US-China trade deal and characterized the US administration’s trade rhetoric as “posturing.”
Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser argued that exempting select tech products from import tariffs would not reduce bond yields or further the Trump administration’s goal of lowering interest rates.
Yield on the 10-year US government bond spikes following sweeping trade policies from the Trump administration. Source: TradingView
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury Bond shot up to a local high of approximately 4.5% on April 11 as bond investors reacted to the macroeconomic uncertainty of a protracted trade war.
“The concession just given to China for tech exports won’t reverse the trend of rates going higher. Confidence in US bonds and the US Dollar has been eroding for years and won’t stop now,” Keiser wrote on April 12.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
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