Latest news with #PublicFirst
BBC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Report predicts West Midlands jobs boom and economic boost
The West Midlands economy could be boosted by billions over the next decade, an independent report has predicted, alongside a jobs boom in the report, commissioned by the universities of Warwick and Birmingham, found the region has the potential to create nearly 100,000 new jobs and deliver an extra £6.5bn to the UK economy by Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said the report, which comes ahead of a regional growth plan to be published in June, said it was a region of "real opportunity".The report is by Public First, a policy, research and strategy consultancy. Public First grounded its vision of economic renewal for the region in advanced manufacturing, green energy, electric vehicles, logistics, professional services and digital analysis, based on other regions which increased productivity and employment growth in the same sectors, predictedUp to 99,000 additional jobs across key industries, nearly double current projectionsGrowth outpacing the UK average, reversing a decade-long trend of regional under-performanceA £6.5bn addition to economic growth, generated through focused investment in high-productivity sectorsIt showed how each of the seven West Midlands local authorities – Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton – and the region's universities had a part to play in driving economic growth. Focus on key industries West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said: "This report confirms what I, and others, have been saying for a long time – when we back the West Midlands to succeed, we can deliver real jobs, real growth and real opportunity. And we can do that in every corner of the region."After almost a decade of under-performing on growth – below the national average – we need a focus on our key industries that can be the catalyst we need to become a region of global significance."Public First's chief executive, Rachel Wolf, said: "Our modelling shows that this is a place currently under-performing compared to its potential."Learning the lessons from international comparators could significantly increase productivity and jobs in the region – giving the West Midlands a clear route forward."The report stressed the role of local leaders and devolved powers, but also called for a stronger partnership with central government to maximise the impact of investment and reforms. This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations. Follow BBC Wolverhampton & Black Country on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Labour can't keep papering over the cracks in the care sector
When Yvette Cooper announced she was cancelling visas for social care, in a round of tough-talking TV interviews earlier this month, she made clear that pay and conditions in this chronically understaffed sector must improve. The home secretary is right. As any regular care home visitor will attest, these are highly skilled, overwhelmingly female workers, surrounding those they look after, not with an 'island of strangers,' but with diligence and love. Wherever they come from, we should be treating them better. In truth, the number of health and care visas being issued each month has already plummeted by more than 80%, since a Home Office crackdown on rogue employment agencies, and tougher rules about bringing in dependents. And as Andrew Harrop, director of the consultancy Public First, pointed out last week, the vacancy rate in social care has declined, from 8.1% to 6.8%, over the period since the Tories tightened up the system. That offers some hope that choking off the supply of new visas won't be the disaster some have predicted. But improving terms and conditions across this neglected sector remains an urgent national challenge. Labour came into government with a plan, to improve these low-paid and undervalued workers' lives – though like so much of its agenda, the question of whether the Treasury is ready to foot the bill, is left hanging. Wes Streeting has postponed confronting the political tradeoffs involved in long-term reform of social care funding, handing the fraught issue over to Louise Casey to have a good long think (the final report is not expected until 2028). In the meantime, though, Streeting and the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, have pressed ahead with discussions over a 'fair pay agreement' (FPA), for England's 1.6 million social care staff. Both cabinet ministers have popped up at recent closed-door meetings between unions, social care employers and government officials, about how to negotiate an agreement that would create a statutory floor for pay and conditions. It is a painstaking process: given the fragmentation of social care, with 18,500 different employers, even the question of who will sit around the table is potentially contentious. And while the unions involved are naturally experienced with negotiations, many care employers have never participated in collective bargaining – a recent meeting involved what one person called a 'teach in' about how it usually works. Labour's employment rights bill, now in committee stage in the House of Lords, will give Rayner the power to set up the bargaining structure for an FPA. But even after the legislation has received royal assent, the government will have to consult publicly on the details. It will then table regulations to establish the negotiating body with the outcomes – on pay and potentially other factors such as travel time and career progression – expected to be given legal force, right across the sector. It's worth pausing to underline how radical a change this would be in a fragmented and barely unionised sector. Staff have often been seen as less valued than their counterparts in the NHS, which has a long-established process of collective bargaining, known as Agenda for Change. Optimists involved in the FPA discussions hope social care workers might expect to see the benefits in their pay packets as soon as April 2027; pessimists fear it could even be pushed beyond chancellor Rachel Reeves's next spending review period, into 2029. Transitional measures announced by Cooper to smooth over the cancellation of social care visas, by allowing employers to hire staff who arrived in the UK by another route, are due to expire in 2028. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion A timely new Fabian Society pamphlet, published on Monday, makes a first stab at envisaging what an FPA might need to do to tackle the recruitment crisis in the sector and give staff the dignity they deserve. It recommends that care workers in England should be offered a higher minimum wage, of £13.17 an hour (Scotland and Wales have their own approaches), putting them on a par with healthcare assistants in the NHS. That would be a rise of about £2,000 a year and the analysis also recommends better pay progression for more experienced staff, which is currently dismal. In addition, the Fabian Society calls for all social care staff to receive sick pay worth 50% of wages and employer pension contributions at 5%. With the councils that commission much social care already on their knees, it makes clear that such a proposal is only workable if fully funded by central government. As a package, the Fabian Society calculates these improvements would cost £2bn a year – a chunk of which would come back to the state in reduced benefits payments. Presumably wary of proposing anything that resembles a 'death tax,' a 'dementia tax,' or any of the other doomed efforts at resolving social care funding, the Fabians suggest several small tax tweaks to pay for it instead, including raising VAT on private healthcare premiums. Given the government's determination to stick to its self-imposed fiscal constraints, this may be a reasonable way of bridging the gap between the pressing need to raise the floor for these workers, and whatever long-term fix Casey comes up with. But it is no substitute for funding the creaking social care system in a fairer and more sustainable way, whether through an Andrew Dilnot-style cap on fees, an Andy Burnham-style 'death tax' on estates, or any of the other well-studied options available. And ducking that urgent question, for Labour's entire first term, is every bit as politically 'squalid' as the Tories' decision to paper over the cracks with an influx of extremely hard-working staff from overseas.
Politico
09-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
Poll shows big problem for Trump's trade deal: It's Trump
There's a fundamental challenge facing the nascent trade deal the United States and United Kingdom just unveiled: Neither country trusts the man behind it. A wide majority of American and British adults support their governments reaching a deal, according to a POLITICO-Public First poll conducted last month, but less than one-third of respondents in the U.K. and 44 percent of Americans said they believed President Donald Trump would abide by it. Nearly half of Americans, including 25 percent of his own voters, said Trump's unpredictability is the biggest barrier to negotiations. The poll offers a sobering assessment of how Trump's whiplash-inducing approach to tariffs has eroded the United States' credibility in other countries — a warning for the White House that its combative approach is pushing longtime allies toward its biggest economic rival: China. After all, the U.K. deal is among the easiest to broker of the dozens the Trump administration is scurrying to complete by July 8. The administration announced Thursday an agreement that will lower tariffs on British-made cars, plane parts, and steel and aluminum and open up the British market for American agricultural products, ethanol and machinery. But the agreement also dodged some of the thorniest trade issues between the two countries. And it was reached with a partner, the U.K., that has been working on striking a trade deal with the U.S. since the first Trump administration. The POLITICO-Public First poll found that nearly half of Americans agree that the U.K. is the most important country for the United States to have as an ally — but only one in five say it's the most important country to have a good trade deal with. And the specifics of the deal did not bother Americans, who generally supported any deal that did not introduce new tariffs, giving the administration room to maneuver on a deal. But even as Trump takes a victory lap, the poll found serious warning signs about how Trump's approach to tariffs is damaging the U.S. image both at home and abroad. A 42 percent plurality of British adults said that China would be a more reliable trading partner than the United States — with a majority citing Trump's unpredictability as the top pitfall in any deal. That sentiment was particularly strong among young people, raising questions about the country's future standing: A majority of U.K. adults younger than 34 said China is the more stable partner. 'China is looking a lot better these days, given that they're not unilaterally and without provocation lashing out at even folks they thought were their closest allies and trading partners,' said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. The news that the United States is nearing a deal with the United Kingdom is likely to be welcomed by adults in both countries. A majority of American and British adults surveyed by London-based pollster Public First for POLITICO last month said they support their governments reaching a trade deal and agreed that the bilateral relationship is important not just on economic terms but also for national security. The online poll of about 2,000 adults in each country was conducted from April 23 to 27. While Trump largely spared the U.K. from his harshest tariffs — in large part because the U.S. ran a trade surplus with Britain in 2024 — the British automobile and steel sectors were hit hard by Trump's 25 percent tariffs that went into effect earlier this spring. The U.K. exported $11.8 billion in automobiles to the U.S. in 2024, and the U.S. is Britain's second most important export market for steel. The framework announced Thursday will provide tariff relief for those sectors but also comes with a guarantee that the U.K. will open its market to billions in U.S. agriculture, ethanol and machinery. 'I think that it's a great deal for both parties,' Trump said. 'It is for us. We've opened up, I didn't know how closed it was, quite closed, the market, the U.K. And it opens up a tremendous market for us, and it works out very well.' American adults did not have strong feelings about possible elements of a U.S.-U.K. trade deal. Asked about a variety of options, Americans said they were willing to accept them without strong preferences. But there's deep-seated doubt among Americans about whether Trump would stick to his agreement: 47 percent said Trump's unpredictability is the biggest barrier to negotiations between the U.K. and U.S., and 42 percent said they would not trust Trump to abide by a trade deal, including 11 percent of his own supporters and 36 percent of Independents. The poll also shows the White House has not really sold the American public on Trump's aggressive use of tariffs or broader trade agenda. Just 34 percent of American respondents said they supported Trump's decision to impose duties on other countries. Only 25 percent of independents supported raising tariffs, while 48 percent were opposed. Trump has gone after nearly every country in the world with new tariffs but has saved some of his sharpest salvos for key allies like the European Union and Canada. The president's brash approach has been coupled with high tariffs on critical manufacturing sectors and a threat of sweeping global tariffs of up to 50 percent on some rising Asian economies that are strategically important to U.S. efforts to cut down China's influence and economic power. Chinese President Xi Jinping launched an economic charm offense with the European Union and several countries across Asia since Trump rolled out his tariff regime. While Trump paused his most severe tariffs for 90 days, critics have warned his trade agenda, including his willingness to start and stop tariffs on a whim, will drive those countries toward Beijing, a finding borne out in the new polling. China has engaged in a charm offensive with other countries as it seeks to position itself as a better trading partner as Trump tears up agreement after agreement. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited several Asian countries to discuss economic partnerships shortly after Trump unveiled his sweeping April 2 tariff regime, and his government has also made overtures about expanding trade ties with the European Union. While their economic rivalry has intensified, the world's two largest economies are still deeply intertwined, and the ongoing trade war is threatening to do deep damage to the U.S. economy, driving up the price of goods like automobiles, clothes and toys, while risking product disruptions should the tariff wall between the two countries stretch on deeper into the summer. China and the U.S. are set to begin talks this weekend, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has made clear there is still a long, uncertain road ahead. 'I think there is a lot of quite reasonable uncertainty out there,' said Ed Gresser, a former official in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative now at the Progressive Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 'And that's having its effects.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Voters like the UK-US reaching a trade deal – they just don't think Trump will follow it
Across the board, Americans and Britons agree that a free-trade agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom is a good idea, but far fewer are confident that President Donald Trump will abide by whatever deal he strikes. On Thursday, Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the two countries agreed to increase access for U.S. agricultural exports while lowering some levies against the U.K., in the first deal since Trump launched his global trade war. But polling from last month indicates that details of an agreement are less of a concern to adults in the U.S. or U.K. – instead, most people are wary of Trump's unpredictability. While 78 percent of U.S. adults support a free-trade agreement in principle, only 44 percent believe Trump will abide by the terms of an agreement, a Politico and Public First poll conducted last month found. Similarly, 73 percent of U.K. adults said they support the same kind of agreement, but less than 30 percent trust that Trump will keep his word. A signature of Trump's public-facing leadership style is unpredictability. He's known to reverse course on policy approaches and throw people off with sudden sharp rhetoric. Of the 2,000 U.S. adults surveyed between April 23 and 27, 50 percent said they believe the president's unpredictability is his biggest barrier when it comes to negotiations. Those findings are consistent with other polls. In a PBS/NPR/Marist survey, 62 percent of respondents said the president rushes into changes. In a New York Times/Siena College poll, 66 percent of respondents, including 47 percent of Republicans, said the word 'chaotic' described Trump's second term well. Given the majority of U.K. adults opposed Trump's tariffs, they're likely to approve of the deal, which lifted a 25 percent tariff on steel exports and lowered the 27 percent tariff on automobiles to 10 percent for 100,000 vehicles. But for U.S. adults, who are currently facing 145 percent tariffs on China, the U.S.'s second-largest trading partner, and general 10 percent tariffs for nearly every one of its trading partners, the U.S.–U.K. deal is less likely to land happily. While nearly half of Americans believe the U.K. is the most important country to have as an ally, only 20 percent believe it is the most important to have a trade deal with. Trump had only implemented the 10 percent tariff on the U.K., one of the U.S.'s closest allies. That baseline tariff will remain even after the deal. Economists have largely agreed that while the U.S.–U.K. deal is good for their relationship, it's unlikely to make any major economic changes and it certainly won't serve as a blueprint for other trade deals.
Politico
09-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
Distrust of Trump hangs over the emerging US-UK trade deal
There's a fundamental challenge facing the nascent trade deal the United States and United Kingdom just unveiled: neither country trusts the man behind it. A wide majority of American and British adults support their governments reaching a deal, according to a POLITICO-Public First poll conducted last month, but less than one-third of respondents in the U.K. and 44 percent of Americans said they believed Trump would abide by it. Nearly half of Americans, including 25 percent of his own voters, said Trump's unpredictability is the biggest barrier to negotiations. The poll offers a sobering assessment of how Trump's whiplash-inducing approach to tariffs has eroded the United States' credibility in other countries — a warning for the White House that its combative approach is pushing longtime allies towards its biggest economic rival: China. After all, the U.K. deal is among the easiest to broker of the dozens the Trump administration is scurrying to complete by July 8. The administration announced Thursday an agreement that will lower tariffs on British-made cars, plane parts and steel and aluminum and open up the British market for American agricultural products, ethanol and machinery. But the agreement also dodged some of the thorniest trade issues between the two countries. And it was reached with a partner, the U.K., that has been working on striking a trade deal with the U.S. since the first Trump administration. The POLITICO-Public First poll found that nearly half of Americans agree that the U.K. is the most important country for the United States to have as an ally — but only one in five say it's the most important country to have a good trade deal with. And the specifics of the deal did not bother Americans, who generally supported any deal that did not introduce new tariffs, giving the administration room to maneuver on a deal. But even as Trump takes a victory lap, the poll found serious warning signs about how Trump's approach to tariffs is damaging the U.S. image both at home and abroad. A 42 percent plurality of British adults said that China would be a more reliable trading partner than the United States — with a majority citing Trump's unpredictability as the top pitfall in any deal. That sentiment was particularly strong among young people, raising questions about the country's future standing: A majority of U.K. adults younger than 34 said China is the more stable partner. 'China is looking a lot better these days, given that they're not unilaterally and without provocation lashing out at even folks they thought were their closest allies and trading partners,' said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. The news that the United States is nearing a deal with the United Kingdom is likely to be welcomed by adults in both countries. A majority of American and British adults surveyed by London-based pollster Public First for POLITICO last month said they support their governments reaching a trade deal and agreed that the bilateral relationship is important not just on economic terms but also for national security. The online poll of about 2,000 adults in each country was conducted from April 23 to 27. While Trump largely spared the U.K. from his harshest tariffs — in large part because the U.S. ran a trade surplus with Britain in 2024 — the British automobile and steel sectors were hit hard by Trump's 25 percent tariffs that went into effect earlier this spring. The U.K. exported $11.8 billion in automobiles to the U.S. in 2024 and the U.S. is Britain's second most important export market for steel. The framework announced Thursday will provide tariff relief for those sectors, but also comes with a guarantee that the U.K. will open its market to billions in U.S. agriculture, ethanol and machinery. 'I think that it's a great deal for both parties,' Trump said. 'It is for us. We've opened up, I didn't know how closed it was, quite closed, the market, the UK. And it opens up a tremendous market for us, and it works out very well.' American adults did not have strong feelings about possible elements of a U.S.-U.K. trade deal. Asked about a variety of options, Americans said they were willing to accept them without strong preferences. But there's deep-seated doubt among Americans about whether Trump would stick to his agreement: 47 percent said Trump's unpredictability is the biggest barrier to negotiations between the U.K. and U.S. and 42 percent said they would not trust Trump to abide by a trade deal, including 11 percent of his own supporters and 36 percent of Independents. The poll also shows the White House has not really sold the American public on his aggressive use of tariffs or broader trade agenda. Just 34 percent of American respondents said they supported Trump's decision to impose duties on other countries. Only 25 percent of independents supported raising tariffs, while 48 percent were opposed. Trump has gone after nearly every country in the world with new tariffs, but has saved some of his sharpest salvos for key allies like the European Union and Canada. The president's brash approach has been coupled with high tariffs on critical manufacturing sectors and a threat of sweeping global tariffs of up to 50 percent on some rising Asian economies that are strategically important to U.S. efforts to cut down China's influence and economic power. While Trump paused his most severe tariffs for 90 days, critics have warned his trade agenda, including his willingness to start and stop tariffs on a whim, will drive those countries toward Beijing, a finding borne out in the new polling. China has engaged in a charm offensive with other countries as it seeks to position itself as a better trading partner as Trump tears up agreement after agreement. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited several Asian countries to discuss economic partnerships shortly after Trump unveiled his sweeping April 2 tariff regime and his government has also made overtures about expanding trade ties with the European Union. While their economic rivalry has intensified, the world's two largest economies are still deeply intertwined, and the ongoing trade war is threatening to do deep damage to the U.S. economy, driving up the price of goods like automobiles, clothes and toys, while risking product disruptions should the tariff wall between the two countries stretch on deeper into the summer. China and the U.S. are set to begin talks this weekend, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has made clear there is still a long, uncertain road ahead. 'I think there is a lot of quite reasonable uncertainty out there,' said Ed Gresser, a former official in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative now at the Progressive Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 'And that's having its effects.'
