When Labour swept to power in 2024, party leaders repeatedly pledged to make their government the most pro-growth and pro-business in modern British history.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer talked up plans to unlock investment, cut red tape, and deliver rising living standards through a revitalised economy.
But the boss of Asda, one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, says that promise has fallen flat, and the government no longer truly backs business, the Telegraph reports.
Speaking at the Retail Week x The Grocer conference on Tuesday (3 March), Asda chair Allan Leighton accused Labour of being less helpful in its dealings with companies and declared that the government has shifted away from supporting the private sector.
“Politics and government have a much more bigger impact on what happens today than they did,” Leighton said.
“You know, I think in that period of time, most of government was pretty business-friendly, and over a period of time that’s got, I think, more and more difficult.”
He added that there were “lots of constraints that businesses have today that are not of their own making”.
The criticisms come against a backdrop of several contentious measures introduced under the Labour administration. The Autumn Budget of 2025, in particular, drew ire from the retail and hospitality sectors for raising employer National Insurance contributions, a move critics said would act as a direct tax on jobs and make it more expensive to hire and retain staff.
Business groups have warned that higher employment costs, combined with planned reforms to workers’ rights (including expanded protections and potential increases in the regulatory burden), risk stifling investment and job creation at a time when the UK economy is still grappling with sluggish growth.
Asda itself has faced a challenging period. The supermarket has been in the midst of a turnaround effort under its leadership, dealing with declining market share in some periods, sales pressures, and internal restructuring.
Yet the Leighton’s comments suggest that external factors, particularly government policy, are now compounding those difficulties rather than alleviating them.
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