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Richard Walker, executive chair of food retailer Iceland, has given the Labour party a lacklustre “six out of 10” for its performance in government despite having introduced Sir Keir Starmer at the launch of his election manifesto last summer.
Walker said the rise in employer National Insurance contributions had “added greatly to the cost of business” and that plans to build a third runway at Heathrow and an “Oxford-Cambridge Arc” would do little for economic growth in the medium term.
He called on ministers to instead do more to address Britain’s productivity crisis. “A project that won’t be completed for decades is no help to businesses that need to invest today.”
Walker said he wanted the government to do more on planning reform and fixing relations with Europe. In 2016 he voted for Brexit on a “knife edge decision” because he liked the idea of a “global free trade market” and saw the EU as a “protection racket”.
“Looking back at it, you just think it was maybe naive to think that that was possible,” he admitted.
Now he has welcomed the Labour government’s determination to have a “reset” of relations with Brussels. “We should breathe a sigh of relief that this government are not as neuralgic as the Tories about engaging with the EU,” he said. “I welcome any steps they can take to reduce friction at our borders.”
Walker said he wanted faster planning reforms to make it easier to open new shops, given Iceland has 30 stores in its planning pipeline which are all “delayed”.
He is also urging Labour to revive its idea of an online sales tax to create a “fair balance” between digital and physical retailers — even though Iceland’s online grocery business has a larger market share than its bricks and mortar equivalent.
“I’m not advocating to pay less tax, I’m just advocating for a level playing field,” he said. “If Amazon’s depot burns down, the fire service will put it out. Their staff use the NHS. Their trucks go on the roads. They have agency in our society as much as others do, and yet they’re not paying their fare share.”
Despite some reservations about the government’s strategy so far, Walker said he did not regret backing Labour at the general election.
“I stood alongside Rachel Reeves at Labour’s manifesto launch last June because I believed in the party’s pro-business, pro-growth message,” 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.”
Walker, son of Iceland founder Malcolm Walker — who he says is more of a “Farage man” — raised eyebrows when he switched to backing Labour in 2023, having tried unsuccessfully to become a Tory candidate.
“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?’”
As executive chair of Iceland he has sought to take “direct action”, for example by hiring almost 1,000 ex-offenders through a “Second Chance Initiative” and by introducing micro-loans for struggling customers.
He said Iceland, a budget retailer with more than 950 stores, has first-hand experience of communities hit by the cost of living crisis. “We see the crumbling high streets, the town halls closed down, the cancelled bus routes, I understand the kitchen economy more than most,” he said.
Iceland’s National Insurance bill will rise by tens of millions of pounds due to the October Budget.
Walker said that although the NICs rise was an unwelcome surprise, Iceland could shoulder the extra cost having survived worse shocks — such as the sharp global energy price rise.
“Some companies are cutting jobs in anticipation but we are going to hire 600 extra people this year, we are opening shops . . . we are a private business and can think super long-term,” he said. “If those taxes are spent wisely, and on proper inclusive growth for everyone, productivity growth, no business will begrudge them in four years’ time.”
While other executives have complained about the Labour government’s ambitious employment reforms, Walker is more sanguine. “If they want to reduce the welfare bill and get more people back into work, because we have 9mn economically inactive, then it’s a good thing to give workers more support . . . we’re not hiring any lawyers to look at it.”
Walker was speaking to the Financial Times at the Piccolino restaurant in Mayfair, part of a chain of restaurants owned by Iceland.
The 44-year-old is a keen surfer and mountaineer who scaled Everest in 2023 and is planning a trip to the “super technical, absolutely horrific” Laila Peak in Pakistan.
He said he had abandoned his foray into parliamentary politics: “No I don’t want to be an MP now. I’m done with that, I had a swing and a miss.”
“I spent a year knocking on doors and stuffing envelopes [for the Tories] . . . after a year of that they said ‘you’re too outspoken on food banks and on sewage, so you need to dial in your media profile,” he said.
“I was chair of Surfers against Sewage and Rishi [Sunak] gave me a bollocking for campaigning against poo in the oceans, I was told to pipe down.”