A lack of commercial literacy inside government is making it harder for companies to do business and is stunting growth in Britain, the boss of Iceland has warned.
Richard Walker, executive chairman of the frozen food retailer and a newly appointed Labour peer, said he had met a lot of MPs during his career and “very few understand how a business actually runs”.
There is a “lack of understanding and knowledge of business generally within the government that they need more help with”, he said, adding: “Some of them think profit is a dirty word, when actually profit is what lets you invest, employ people and pay tax.”
While some politicians were willing to learn, Walker said, too many failed to engage with the practical realities of running large employers on tight margins. “The best ones want to learn, they’ll visit stores, talk to staff, understand the reality. But too many just want a photo and then disappear.”
Walker says the Treasury, Defra and local government are all pulling businesses in different directions
YUI MOK/PA
Walker’s frustration extended beyond individual ministers to what he described as a broader failure of joined-up thinking across Whitehall. Businesses, he said, were being pulled in different directions by departments pursuing conflicting priorities.
“The government doesn’t make it easy,” he said. “Whether it’s business rates, energy policy or food regulation, it’s a mess. There’s no joined-up thinking. You’ve got Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] saying one thing about sustainability, the Treasury saying another about taxation and local councils all doing their own thing.”
Walker is preparing to enter the House of Lords as a Labour peer this month, a notable shift for a businessman who previously backed the Conservatives.
In February he rated Sir Keir Starmer’s government six out of ten, urging Labour to focus on “inclusive growth and everyday growth” that could “trickle down in everyday people’s lives”.
He said in September that he had ruled out frontline politics after Rishi Sunak told him to “wind his neck in”, prompting a reassessment of his support for the party. “I realised pretty quickly I’d be useless at toeing the party line. I’d end up saying what I actually think, which is career suicide in politics.”
CHRIS RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Walker took over leadership of Iceland in 2023 after his father, Sir Malcolm Walker, stepped down from the business he founded in 1973. Both had previously supported the Conservatives, with Walker donating nearly £10,000 in 2020 and briefly being added to the party’s approved candidates list in 2022.
Walker said the challenge for the Labour government was to focus on delivery rather than grand infrastructure projects, particularly for employers with staff in every corner of the country.
He said the government should be focusing on “real life” changes, instead of “ridiculous” projects such as HS2 and the third runway at Heathrow “that will probably never happen, certainly in my lifetime”.
“It should be more about the cancelled bus route, the local crime on the high street, the loss of civic pride, the littering, the crumbling town hall. It’s more about the politics of the everyday and the politics of the ordinary.”