The approach of business to general elections is not what it was.
Not that long ago, it was common for big corporates to make donations to political parties, including big FTSE 100 names such as SmithKline Beecham, United Biscuits, General Accident and Whitbread.
Most of these donations would go to the Conservatives but there were some companies, such as Marks & Spencer and Pearson, which also made donations to other parties.
Some, such as Hanson – whose founder Lord Hanson was a loyal supporter of Margaret Thatcher – continued to do so even after the 1992 Cadbury Report recommended companies stop making contributions to political parties.
Even after the political contributions dried up, FTSE 100 chief executives were not shy about endorsing or criticising politicians at election time.
In 1997, a number of well-known business people including Robert Ayling of British Airways, Bob Bauman of the old British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) and George Simpson of GEC endorsed Tony Blair’s Labour ahead of that year’s election, while John Major’s Conservatives also had plenty of backers.
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Business people were also happy to speak out about particular policies. Ahead of the 1997 election, BT’s chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, lashed out at Labour’s proposals for a windfall tax on the privatised utilities while Brian Stewart, chief executive of the pubs and brewing giant Scottish & Newcastle, criticised Labour’s plans to create a Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers.
None of that happens any more. Most CEOs, while having their own political opinions like the rest of us, prefer to keep them to themselves. The more astute, realising that it makes sense to speak to politicians, are careful to ensure they are seen to be behaving even-handedly and not expressing a preference for one side or the other.
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Business wish-lists
That does not mean businesses do not have their own wish-lists of policies.
This is particularly true of small businesses. Their wish-list has not changed in the last couple of decades and is topped by wanting a change in the law to enforce prompt payments from larger businesses to their suppliers and the reform of business rates, which is also a bugbear for larger companies in sectors such as retail and hospitality.
Higher up the corporate food chain, what big businesses crave most is clarity and consistency in policy.
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4:45
Why has an election been called?
As Dame Amanda Blanc, chief executive of insurance, savings and pensions giant Aviva, told Sky News today: “Obviously we’re apolitical. What we want is for the environment to be one where we can invest, with certainty. You know, we want consistency and stability and so that whoever is the winner of the election, we want the election to be decisive, and we really want there to be certainty for us to be able to invest in things like UK infrastructure.”
Dame Amanda, who has served on both the prime minister’s business council and on the business taskforce put together by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, added: “We’ve invested £9.5bn in UK infrastructure in the last three years.
Image: Dame Amanda Blanc has been chief executive of Aviva since July 2020.
“Our commitment is £25bn over the next 10 years. In order to do that, you have to have a more certain environment. And so that’s what we look forward to.”
That desire for stability and consistency was why the brief tenure of Liz Truss in 10 Downing Street was so damaging and why, off the record, a lot of business executives will admit to being grateful to Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt for restoring order to public finances after the firestorm created by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget in September 2022.
They feel it is the first time, since David Cameron was in office, that a PM had the corporate world’s back. Theresa May alienated a lot of globe-trotting CEOs with her infamous 2016 speech in which she said “if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere”. She was replaced by Boris Johnson who, as foreign secretary in 2018, infamously said “f*** business.” And then came Ms Truss.
If business leaders are grateful to Messrs Sunak and Hunt, there is also warmth towards Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves for their constructive approach.
Yes, there is some unease about deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner’s proposals to ban zero-hours contracts, end fire and rehire and to give workers full rights and protections from day one of their employment.
But there is a sense that after the leadership of Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, who went into the 2019 election campaign threatening to nationalise much of the energy industry, the water industry and BT’s broadband network, this is the most pro-business Labour leadership since the days of the much-missed Tony Blair.
While big businesses chiefly seek stability and consistency of policy, that is not to say they do not have specific wish-lists of their own.
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Sky News election studio unveiled
The big leisure, hospitality and luxury goods companies would like the restoration of VAT-free shopping for international visitors, the loss of which, they argue, has driven business away from the UK to destinations like Paris and Milan.
Most businesses with property interests – which is nearly all of them – would like to see a more coherent planning regime. Housebuilders would like a relaxation of rules requiring a proportion of housing developments are devoted to affordable homes.
Shoplifting scourge
Retailers would like the police to be required to make tackling the scourge of shoplifting a greater priority.
Manufacturers, in particular, would like to see an easing to some trade frictions that have built up since Brexit.
And carmakers – currently under threat of being fined if a certain proportion of their sales are not electric vehicles – would like to see a restoration of government incentives to buy EVs and for the roll-out of EV charging points.
Businesses, it is often pointed out, do not have votes.
But they do create the jobs and wealth on which this country relies. Those hitting the campaign trail over the next six weeks will need no reminding of that.
The mastermind of a £5bn Chinese investment fraud was found with a device containing £67m of cryptocurrency in a secret pocket of her jogging bottoms when she was arrested after years on the run, a court has heard.
Prosecutors are setting up a compensation scheme after Yadi Zhang, 47, conned around 128,000 Chinese investors into fraudulent wealth schemes between 2014 and 2017.
Zhang, who is also known as Zhimin Qian, admitted money laundering charges after police discovered more than 61,000 Bitcoin, now worth more than £5bn, in digital wallets, in the UK’s biggest ever cryptocurrency seizure.
She arrived in the UK on a false St Kitts and Nevis passport in September 2017 before coming to the attention of police after trying to buy some of London’s most expensive properties.
Image: Zhang rented a £17,000-a-month house in Hampstead, north London. Pic: CPS
Zhang vanished after police raided her £5m six-bedroom rented house near Hampstead Heath in north London in 2018, but was finally arrested in York last year.
In written legal arguments, Martin Evans KC representing the Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson, said a ledger and passwords were found in a purpose-made concealed pocket in the jogging bottoms she was wearing.
She revealed the access code for two wallets during interviews in prison, leading investigators to cryptocurrency worth around £67m.
The stash has been added to the £5bn Bitcoin hoard, which has reportedly been earmarked by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to help plug the hole in the public finances.
The fortune is at the centre of a High Court battle between the UK government and thousands of Chinese victims, who want to recover their investment and say it should reflect the huge rise in the value of Bitcoin.
Law firm Fieldfisher, which is representing around 1,000 victims, said some have lost their life savings and many are old and vulnerable.
The court heard the DPP is also setting up a compensation scheme for the victims not represented in court, although no further details have been given.
The judge, Mr Justice Turner, will make orders on the case at a later date.
Zhang pleaded guilty to charges of possessing criminal property and transferring criminal property on or before the 23 April 2024 last month and is in custody awaiting sentencing in November.
Her trial heard that Wen, who previously worked in a Chinese takeaway, was not involved in the alleged fraud but acted as a “front person” to help disguise the source of the money.
The court heard how the two women travelled the world, spending tens of thousands of pounds on designer clothes, jewellery and shoes.
Seng Hok Ling, 47, is said to have replaced Wen as Zhang’s “butler”, organising helpers and booking Airbnbs, including in Scotland, for the fugitive while she was on the run.
Image: Seng Hok Ling. Pic: Met Police
Police found Zhang after carrying out surveillance of Ling and seized assets including encrypted devices, cash, gold and cryptocurrency.
Ling, a Malaysian national from Matlock in Derbyshire, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to entering into a money laundering arrangement with Zhang on or before 23 April 2024 and will be sentenced alongside her.
Prosecutors said Zhang masterminded a scam in China, before converting the money into cryptocurrency to get it out of the country.
The Government has vowed to pursue a company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone for millions of pounds paid for defective PPE at the height of the COVID pandemic after a High Court deadline passed without repayment.
Earlier this month, the High Court ruled that PPE Medpro, a company founded by Baroness Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman and promoted in government by the Tory peer, was in breach of contract and gave it two weeks to repay the £122m plus interest of £23m.
In a statement, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “At a time of national crisis, PPE Medpro sold the previous government substandard kit and pocketed taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.
“PPE Medpro has failed to meet the deadline to pay – they still owe us over £145m, with interest now accruing daily.”
It is understood that is being charged at a rate of 8%.
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“We will pursue PPE Medpro with everything we’ve got to get these funds back where they belong – in our NHS,” Mr Streeting concluded.
Earlier a spokesman for Mr Barrowman and the consortium behind the company said the government had not responded to an offer from PPE Medpro to discuss a settlement.
“Very disappointingly, the government has made no effort to respond or seek to enter into discussions,” he said.
During the trial PPE Medpro offered to pay £23m to settle the case but was rejected by the Department of Health and Social Care.
While Mr Barrowman has described himself as the “ultimate beneficial owner” of PPE Medpro, and says £29m of profit from the deal was paid into a trust benefitting his family including Baroness Mone and her children, he was never a director and the couple are not personally liable for the money.
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£122m bill that may never be paid
PPE Medpro filed for insolvency the day before Mrs Justice Cockerill’s finding of breach of contract was published, and the company’s most recent accounts show assets of just £666,000.
Court-appointed administrators will now be responsible for recovering as much money as possible on behalf of creditors, principally the DHSC.
With PPE Medpro in administration and potentially limited avenues to recover funds, there is a risk that the government may recover nothing while incurring further legal expenses.
In June 2020, PPE Medpro won contracts worth a total of £203m to provide 210m masks and 25m surgical gowns after Baroness Mone contacted ministers including Michael Gove on the company’s behalf.
While the £81m mask contract was fulfilled the gowns were rejected for failing sterility standards, and in 2022 the DHSC sued. Earlier this month Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that PPE Medpro was in breach of contract and liable to repay the full amount.
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Baroness Mone ‘should resign’
Mr Barrowman has previously named several other companies as part of the gown supply including two registered in the UK, and last week his spokesman said there was a “strong case” for the administrator to pursue them for the money.
One of the companies named has denied any connection to PPE Medpro and two others have not responded to requests for comment.
Insolvency experts say that administrators and creditors, in this case the government, may have some recourse to pursue individuals and entities beyond the liable company, but any process is likely to be lengthy and expensive.
Julie Palmer, a partner at Begbies Traynor, told Sky News: “The administrators will want to look at what’s happened to what look like significant profits made on these contracts.
“If I was looking at this I would want to establish the exact timeline, at what point were the profits taken out.
“They may also want to consider whether there is a claim for wrongful trading, because that effectively pierces the corporate veil of protection of a limited company, and can allow proceedings against company officers personally.
“The net of a director can also be expanded to shadow directors, people sitting in the background quite clearly with a degree of control of the management of the company, in which case some claims may rest against them.”
A spokesman for Forvis Mazars, one of the joint administrators of PPE Medpro, did not comment other than to confirm the firm’s appointment.
Royal Mail has been fined £21m for failing to meet delivery targets for the third year in a row and warned fines are likely to continue unless there’s an improvement.
As well as failing to meet current delivery times for both first and second class mail, Royal Mail did not meet revised down targets agreed with Ofcom.
The delivery network delivered 77% of first class mail and 92.5% of second-class mail on time from April 2024 to March this year, “well short” of its 93% and 98.5% targets, the communications regulator said.
It’s also below the reduced goals which were set out for the delivery company at the start of the year – bringing down the percentage of first class post delivered the next day from 93% to 90%, and second class mail delivered within three days from 98.5% to 95%.
It’s the third-largest fine ever levied by Ofcom and would have been higher, £30m, but for Royal Mail’s admission of wrongdoing and agreement to settle.
Millions not getting what they pay for
Royal Mail has, without justification, failed to provide an acceptable level of service and breached its obligations, Ofcom said.
“It took insufficient and ineffective steps to try and prevent this failure, which is likely to have impacted millions of customers who did not get the service they paid for.”
People have also been experiencing times when letters have taken weeks to arrive.
Ian Strawhorne, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said: “Millions of important letters are arriving late, and people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp.
“These persistent failures are unacceptable, and customers expect and deserve better.
“Royal Mail must rebuild consumers’ confidence as a matter of urgency. And that means making actual significant improvements, not more empty promises.”
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December 2024: Sale of Royal Mail approved
Real world harms
In highlighting the real-life consequences of the delivery delays, Citizens Advice said it had encountered someone who got a pile of mail with their council tax bill, a court summons for a passed court hearing date and a liability order for the debt, all at the same time.
Another client of the service was sent an eviction notice, which had not arrived more than a week after a copy came from the landlord’s solicitors.
They were unsure if the warrant would arrive by the time the bailiffs came and were unsure how to act, Citizens Advice said.
What next?
Royal Mail has been ordered by Ofcom to urgently and publicly set out and implement a “credible plan” on how it is going to change.
The regulator said it expects to see “meaningful progress soon”, rather than “more empty promises”.
Improvements Ofcom had pressed for have not materialised, it said, and Royal Mail has been called on to make “actual significant improvements”.
“If this doesn’t happen, fines are likely to continue,” the regulator warned.
Ofcom said the “persistent failures” are unacceptable, and customers expect and deserve better.
“Royal Mail must rebuild consumers’ confidence as a matter of urgency,” it added.
The company has also been set a new enforceable target for 99% of mail to be delivered no more than two days late.
How has Royal Mail responded?
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We acknowledge the decision made by Ofcom today and we will continue to work hard to deliver further sustained improvements to our quality of service.”
The company has implemented “important changes across our network including recruiting, retaining and training our people, and providing additional support to delivery offices”, they said.
“Where we have piloted universal service changes, we can see that our model is working, with improvements in deliveries,” the spokesperson added.