Spending Review 2025: Faster drug treatments and longer-lasting batteries to come from £86bn science and tech package

Published

6 months ago

June 8, 2025

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Research into faster drug treatments and longer-lasting batteries will form part of the £86bn science and technology funding due to be unveiled in the government’s spending review next week.

On Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will unveil how much taxpayer money each government department will get.

Each region in England will be handed up to £500m to spend on science and technology projects of their choice, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) says.

In Liverpool, the funding is being earmarked to speed up the development of new drug treatments, while in South Wales, it will fund longer-lasting microchips for smartphones and electric cars.

Overall by 2030, Ms Reeves’s spending package will be worth more than £22.5bn a year, the government says.

“Britain is the home of science and technology,” she said on Sunday. “Through the ‘plan for change’, we are investing in Britain’s renewal to create jobs, protect our security against foreign threats and make working families better off.”

Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle added: “Incredible and ambitious research goes on in every corner of our country, from Liverpool to Inverness, Swansea to Belfast, which is why empowering regions to harness local expertise and skills for all of our benefit is at the heart of this new funding – helping to deliver the economic growth at the centre of our plan for change.”

Flat real-terms budget ‘won’t be enough’

Regional leaders such as North East Mayor Kim McGuiness and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker welcomed the funding promise.

But the announcement was met with caution by industry leaders.

John-Arne Rottingden, chief executive of Wellcome, the UK’s biggest non-governmental research funder, said: “While it’s positive under the financial circumstances, a flat real-terms science budget, along with continuing barriers such as high visa costs for talented scientists and the university funding crisis, won’t be enough for the UK to make the advances it needs to secure its reputation for science in an increasingly competitive world.”

He claimed the UK should be “aiming to lead the G7 in research intensity” to “bring about economic growth” and “advances in health, science, and technology that benefit us all”.

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Director of policy and public affairs at the Institute of Physics Tony McBride expressed similar concerns.

“To fully harness the transformational potential of research and innovation – wherever it takes place – we need a decade-long strategic plan for science,” he said.

Mr McBride said a “plan for a skilled workforce… starting with teachers and addressing every educational stage” is key – something he hopes will feature in Ms Reeve’s spending review.

Among the other announcements expected are a potential scrapping of the two-child benefit cap and a green light to a new nuclear power station in Suffolk – Sizewell C.

Politics

Prediction markets bet on Coinbase-linked Hassett as top Fed pick

Published

6 hours ago

December 1, 2025

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Prediction markets bet on Coinbase-linked Hassett as top Fed pick

Prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi view Kevin Hassett, US President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council director, as the favorite to replace Jerome Powell as the next Federal Reserve chair.

The odds of Hassett filling the seat have spiked to 66% on Polymarket and 74% on Kalshi at the time of writing. Hassett is widely viewed as crypto‑friendly thanks to his past role on Coinbase’s advisory council, a disclosed seven‑figure stake in the exchange and his leadership of the White House digital asset working group.

Founder and CEO of Wyoming-based Custodia Bank, and a prominent advocate for crypto-friendly regulations, Caitlin Long, commented on X:

“If this comes true & Hassett does become Fed chairman, anti-#crypto people at the Fed who still hold positions of power will finally be out (well, most of them anyway). BIG changes will be coming to the Fed.”

Kevin Hassett’s crypto credentials

Hassett is a long-time Republican policy economist who returned to Washington as Trump’s top economic adviser and has now emerged as the market-implied frontrunner to lead the Fed.

His financial disclosure reveals at least a seven‑figure Coinbase stake and compensation for serving on the exchange’s Academic and Regulatory Advisory Council, placing him unusually close to the crypto industry for a potential Fed chair.

Still, crypto has been burned before by reading too much into “crypto‑literate” resumes. Gary Gensler arrived at the Securities and Exchange Commission with MIT blockchain courses under his belt, but went on to preside over a wave of high‑profile enforcement actions, some of which critics branded as “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.”

A Hassett-led Fed might be more open to experimentation and less reflexively hostile to bank‑crypto activity. Still, the institution’s mandate on financial stability means markets should not assume a one‑way bet on deregulation.

Supervision pushback inside the Fed

The Hassett odds have jumped just as the Fed’s own approach to bank supervision has received pushback from veterans like Fed Governor Michael Barr, who earned his reputation as one of Operation Chokepoint 2.0’s key architects.

According to Caitlin Long, while he Barr “was Vice Chairman of Supervision & Regulation he did Warren’s bidding,” and he “has made it clear he will oppose changes made by Trump & his appointees.”

On Nov. 18, the Fed released new Supervisory Operating Principles that shift examiners toward a “risk‑first” framework, directing staff to focus on material safety‑and‑soundness risks rather than procedural or documentation issues.

In a speech the same day, Barr warned that narrowing oversight, weakening ratings frameworks and making it harder to issue enforcement actions or matters requiring attention could leave supervisors slower to act on emerging risks, arguing that gutting those tools may repeat pre‑crisis mistakes.

Days later, in Consumer Affairs Letter 25‑1, the Fed clarified that the new Supervisory Operating Principles do not apply to its Consumer Affairs supervision program (an area under Barr’s committee as a governor).

If prediction markets are right and a crypto‑friendly Hassett inherits this landscape, his Fed would not be writing on a blank slate but stepping into an institution already mid‑pivot on how hard (and where) it leans on banks.