
Gary Neville adds voice to business leaders' condemnation of national insurance hike
Mr Neville, previously a vocal supporter of the Labour Party, believes the increase 'could have been held back' due to the tough economic climate.
He joins other business leaders and economists in expressing concerns over the chancellor's tax-raising decisions since the government took office.
While supporting the minimum wage increase, Mr Neville highlighted the national insurance rise as a significant 'challenge' for businesses, including his own.
The chancellor faces a £5bn gap in her spending plans following Sir Keir Starmer 's benefits U-turn and potential further financial pressures from a global trade war.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Sun
9 minutes ago
- The Sun
Angela Rayner's department spends thousands in taxpayers' cash on woke diversity training
ANGELA Rayner's department has spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers' cash on woke diversity training. Her housing department splashed £47,272 on the coaching — including nearly £5,000 to a firm that advises on the dangers of banter at work. Inclusive Employers Ltd teaches how to 'decolonise the workplace' and offers 'inclusion allies' training. The Deputy PM's department refused to give full details of what this training involved when quizzed in parliamentary questions. But the company provides courses on unconscious bias and micro aggressions, according to its website. It warns workplace 'banter, when unchecked, can escalate into harmful behaviour including bullying, harassment and discrimination'. The website also provides tips on how to 'navigate the anti-woke backlash' and suggests many Baby Boomers are anti-woke. It states boomers 'may be uncomfortable with the rapid shifts and evolving language associated with being woke' and have a 'nostalgia for the values and beliefs' of the past. The Tories, who helped to uncover the near £50,000 spend, bashed it as a waste of taxpayers' cash. Shadow cabinet office minister Mike Wood said: 'Angela Rayner seems determined to push through her divisive Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda by any means necessary — even though it's clearly not in the national interest. 'This is part of a wider pattern of taxpayers' money wasted across Whitehall under Labour on woke virtue-signalling. It must be stopped.' Ms Rayner is in charge of steering the new Employment Rights Bill, which massively beefs up the powers of trade unions, through parliament. Angela Rayner says lifting 2-child benefit cap not 'silver bullet' for ending poverty after demanding cuts for millions It will force businesses to recognise union 'equality representatives' and let them have paid time off for their trade union work. A government spokesman said: 'The vast majority of this spend went on accredited, practical training to help managers better support disabled colleagues.' 1

Western Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Rachel Reeves making ‘even bigger mistakes' than Liz Truss, says Kemi Badenoch
The Tory leader hit out at the Chancellor and the Prime Minister for their economic decisions as she drew a critical comparison to her predecessor at the top of the Conservative Party. 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes,' Mrs Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph. 'They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.' Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch hit out at the Chancellor and the Prime Minister (Paul Marriott/PA) Short-lived Conservative prime minister Ms Truss's mini-budget spooked the financial markets in 2022 and led to a spike in mortgage rates. 'As we all saw in 2022, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are reliant on the bond markets,' Mrs Badenoch added. 'Yet those bond markets are increasingly jittery about the levels of borrowing today with no balancing spending decreases. 'Rachel Reeves's unfunded series of U-turns have only added to the pressure. She is boxed in by her party on one side, and her fiscal rules on the other.' The Chancellor earlier admitted Labour had 'disappointed' people while in Government, but said that the Government had got the balance right between tax, spending and borrowing. Rachel Reeves said she could not please everyone as Chancellor (Yui Mok/PA) She told an audience at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that balancing the books meant making tough decisions, even if the are unpopular. Appearing on the Iain Dale All Talk Fringe show, she said: 'The reason people voted Labour at the last election is they want to change and they were unhappy with the way that the country was being governed. 'They know that we inherited a mess. They know it's not easy to put it right, but people are impatient for change. 'I'm impatient for change as well, but I've also got the job of making sure the sums always add up – and it doesn't always make you popular because you can't do anything you might want to do. You certainly can't do everything straight away, all at once.' Ms Reeves pointed to Labour's £200 million investment in carbon capture in the north-east of Scotland, which she said was welcomed by the industry. The Chancellor defended Labour's windfall tax on energy companies (Andrew Milligan/PA) At the same time, Labour's windfall tax, she said, was not liked by the sector. 'I can understand that that's extra tax that the oil and gas sector are paying, but you can't really have one without the other,' she said. Defending Labour's record, she said her party had the 'balance about right'. 'But of course you're going to disappoint people,' she added. 'No-one wants to pay more taxes. 'Everyone wants more money than public spending – and borrowing is not a free option, because you've got to pay for it. 'I think people know those sort of constraints, but no-one really likes them and I'm the one, I guess, that has to sort the sums up.' Ms Reeves said Labour had to deliver on its general election campaign of change, adding that her party did not 'deserve' to win the next election if it does not deliver the change it promised.


The Independent
39 minutes ago
- The Independent
Yvette Cooper's fast-track asylum plan revealed after protests across UK
The Home Secretary plans to introduce a fast-track scheme to tackle the asylum backlog that aims to turn around decisions within weeks. Yvette Cooper said Labour was planning a 'major overhaul' of the appeal process in the hope it would help to make a significant dent in the numbers. 'We need a major overhaul of the appeal [process] and that's what we are going to do in the autumn… If we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers in the asylum system, because that is the best way to actually restore order and control,' Ms Cooper told The Sunday Times. The aim would be to compress the process so decisions and returns could happen 'within weeks', the newspaper reported, citing a source familiar with the plans. The Government faces pressure to cut how many asylum seekers are housed in hotels while awaiting the outcome of a claim or appeal. The Home Secretary has previously said she was eager to put a fast-track system for decisions and appeals in place so that people from countries considered safe would not sit in the asylum system for a long time. 'We should be able to take those decisions really fast, be able to take those decisions, make sure that they go through the appeals system really fast and then also make sure they are returned really quickly as well,' she told the Home Affairs committee in June. 'That would mean a fast-track system alongside the main asylum system, I think that would be really important in terms of making sure that the system is fair. 'That will require legislation in order to be able to do that, as well as a new system design.' The Government is also seeking to reduce the number of Channel crossings. More than 25,000 migrants have arrived in small boats this year so far. Tensions over asylum hotels have flared up in recent weeks, with a protest and counter-protest taking place on Saturday outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in north London, and also in Newcastle. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament. Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently. They are housed in hotels if there is not enough space in accommodation provided by local authorities or other organisations.