‘Six out of 10’: Iceland boss and Labour backer grades UK government | Iceland Foods

The chair of the food retailer Iceland, Richard Walker, has given the Labour government only “six out of 10” for its record so far, after switching support to the party a year ago.

Walker said Labour needed to do more to help firms investing now, rather than projects that may take decades to be completed, he told the Financial Times.

Walker criticised an increase to national insurance contributions (NICs) from April that he said had “added greatly to the cost of business”, and said that the expansion of Heathrow airport and more building projects between Cambridge and Oxford would not benefit many firms in the medium term.

Walker, son of Iceland founder Malcolm Walker, quit the Conservative party and abandoned his ambitions to become an MP in October 2023 in protest at its “inability to deliver” and support business under Rishi Sunak.

In January 2024, he switched his support to Keir Starmer before the general election, saying the Labour party was the “right choice for everyone in business who wants to see this country grow and prosper”.

However, the Labour government has endured a difficult start to its time in office. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, faced a business backlash after announcing that employers would bear the brunt of tax rises through the increase to NICs. Labour had ruled out rises in income tax during the election campaign.

Walker said he wanted the government to reform the planning system to make building faster – including for Iceland’s planned new supermarkets – to show that the Labour party would be better for economic growth.

He said: “That belief hasn’t changed, and I welcome the recent switch to a much more upbeat tone, in contrast to the black hole dominated gloom that prevailed before and after the autumn budget. Rhetoric is so important.”

Closer trading relations with the EU, as signalled by Starmer in recent weeks, would also be positive, Walker said. He was one of the few prominent business leaders who backed the leave campaign during the Brexit referendum in 2016, but he said his idea of the UK as part of a “global free trade market” was “maybe naive”. He told the FT: “I welcome any steps they can take to reduce friction at our borders.”

On his aborted attempt to become a Tory parliamentary candidate, Walker said: “I got some funny texts when it came out that I was turning my back on the Tories … David Cameron just sent me one word saying: ‘Really?’”