Barclays boss urges UK ministers to limit public sector pay rises
The chief executive of Barclays has said the UK government needs to limit pay rises for public sector workers and resist a further “squeeze” on banks with tax increases.CS Venkatakrishnan said the government needed to look at its own spending levels as the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, seeks ways to address a fiscal hole when she announces her budget in November.“We need to curb expenditure at the government level,” he told the Financial Times.“We need to find a way to curb wage inflation.”Venkatakrishnan said that while the government needed to restrict rising “public sector” wages, the inflationary impact of pay rises was an issue across the UK economy.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said Venkatakrishnan had a “brass neck” calling for pay rise curbs when his pay packet doubled to £10.5m last year, the highest for a Barclays boss since Bob Diamond received £17m in 2011.“It is frankly insulting for him to call on nurses, teachers and paramedics to tighten their belts when he’s just pocketed a bumper pay rise,” said Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC.“Instead of talking down public sector workers, those with the broader shoulders – including the mega-wealthy like CS Venkatakrishnan, banks and gambling companies – should contribute their fair share to funding our schools, hospitals and local authorities.”While UK wage growth has slowed in recent months, it is still running at an annual rate of 5.
7% in the public sector, excluding bonuses.Private sector wage growth is running at an average of 4.8%.Luke Hildyard of the High Pay Centre said: “Someone happily accepting a pay package of £10.5m doesn’t really have the moral authority to tell nurses and teachers and local government workers they shouldn’t get a pay rise.
“It would be a lot easier to fund decent wages for public sector workers if the wealth of multimillionaires was taxed more effectively, so if the Barclays CEO is concerned about the sustainability of public finances, he would look a lot less crass and hypocritical if he used his position to argue for a wealth tax on the super-rich instead.”Venkatakrishnan also said the banking sector should not be a target of further taxation.“UK banks are taxed more than banks anywhere else,” he said.“How much more are you going to squeeze this?”Banks are concerned that the industry’s reliable profits, fuelled by higher interest rates, could make it one of the targets for tax increases as Reeves comes under pressure to raise taxes to address a hole in her fiscal plans.Last month, UK bank shares tumbled, cutting the combined market value of some of the biggest companies in the sector by more than £6bn, as fresh calls for a windfall tax on large lenders in the budget spooked investors.
Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotion“I hope it’s an extremely low possibility,” said Venkatakrishnan.“London is a great global financial centre and the path to growth does not lie to taxing the sector even more.I have had the view from day one that this is a government that is pro business and particularly pro the financial industry.”He claimed the UK banks had, in effect, a total tax rate of about 46% last year, compared with 28% in New York and 29% to 39% in the EU.Barclays made £5.
7bn in pre-tax profits last year in the UK, and paid almost £1.4bn in total tax.Of this, £198m was corporation tax and £154m for the bank levy.“What I hope and expect is that they will take this time to think through the difficult choices they have to make,” Venkatakrishnan said.“No budget keeps everyone happy, but the object of it is to foster growth in the country.
”Venkatakrishan has been a vocal supporter of Reeves and the wider Labour government’s policies since it took power last summer, but has recently spoken out against proposals to change ringfencing rules that force UK banks to separate their retail and riskier investment banking operations.
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The drugmaker AstraZeneca has paused a planned £200m expansion of its Cambridge research site, completing a depressing week for the UK pharmaceutical industry.The decision by the UK’s largest company means none of its much-trumpeted £650m investment package in the UK – which was originally announced in March 2024 – is proceeding.The now stalled £200m Cambridge project had been expected to create 1,000 jobs. In January, AstraZeneca scrapped plans to invest £450m in its vaccine manufacturing facility in Speke, Merseyside, citing a cut in government support, after months of negotiations.An AstraZeneca spokesperson said on Friday: “We constantly reassess the investment needs of our company and can confirm our expansion in Cambridge is paused
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The pound has weakened since today’s GDP report showed the UK economy failed to grow in July.Sterling is down 0.2% at $1.355 against the US dollar this morning.Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, points out there is “not much to like” from the July monthly GDP update, with zero growth in the economy at the start of the third quarter
AI content needs to be labelled to protect us | Letters
Marcus Beard’s article on artificial intelligence slopaganda (No, that wasn’t Angela Rayner dancing and rapping: you’ll need to understand AI slopaganda, 9 September) highlights a growing problem – what happens when we no longer know what is true? What will the erosion of trust do to our society?The rise of deepfakes is increasing at an ever faster rate due to the ease at which anyone can create realistic images, audio and even video. Generative AI models have now become so sophisticated that a recent survey showed that less than 1% of respondents could correctly identify the best deepfake images and videos.This content is being used to manipulate, defraud, abuse and mislead people. Fraud using AI cost the US $12.3bn in 2023 and Deloitte predicts that could reach $40bn by 2027
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Records tumble as England thrash South Africa by 146 runs: second men’s T20 international – as it happened
I’ll leave you with Simon Burnton’s report – night night.I’m pretty lost for words! The way [Salt and Buttler] started the night off was just phenomenal. Me and Jos were in the field and we both said that we never thought anybody would get 300. But with the batting line-up we’ve got, there aren’t many heights we can’t reach.[On Salt v Duckett v Smith at the top of the order] There are some tough decisions to be made
Records tumble as Phil Salt’s stunning ton leads England to T20 rout of South Africa
England made history, and for the first time more than 300 runs, on an extraordinary night in Manchester as they buried South Africa under a mountain of runs and shredded statistics. Their highest T20 total was turbocharged by a brilliant opening stand of 126 between Phil Salt and Jos Buttler and by their highest individual score, Salt knocking himself off the top of that chart with an unbeaten 141. Within a week and against the same opponents they have set new national records for winning margins in both one-day internationals and now T20s, the final difference here an almost comic 146 runs.Salt described his evening as “really good fun” but the experience for Shukri Conrad, South Africa’s head coach, was anything but. He described a bowling performance that – having invited England to bat first – “was way off, bereft of ideas” as England were allowed to plunder 30 fours and 18 sixes en route to a score of 304 for two, with nearly twice as many boundaries (48) across the innings as there were dot balls (25)
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