It could secure £3.5bn of funding over the next four years based on its UK population share

What could a more effective relationship with three of the UK’s most powerful economic institutions be worth to Wales? Based on our share of the UK population, the answer could be around £3.5bn over the next four years.

This is not a guaranteed allocation but combines different forms of support, namely research investment from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), commercially repayable finance backed by the British Business Bank, and the loans, guarantees and insurance provided by UK Export Finance (UKEF). Nevertheless, it demonstrates the scale of the opportunity if Wales were to develop a coherent strategy for working with all three.

For much of the devolution era, political debate has concentrated on the block grant and money controlled directly by the Welsh Government. Far less attention has been paid to UK institutions whose decisions influence where research takes place, which businesses obtain finance, and which companies receive support to win international contracts.

This has become more relevant following Andy Burnham’s commitment to rebalance economic power and investment away from London and his establishment of No. 10 North and revival of a National Economic Council suggest that regional fairness will become an important test of UK economic policy.

That should be welcomed, but rebalancing the economy must also include a re-examination of the geographical impact of UK institutions shaping research, business investment and exports.

UKRI provides the first test as it will control £39bn between 2026-27 and 2029-30 with its new strategy connecting scientific discovery with commercialisation, company formation, private investment and industrial growth. Yet Wales currently receives only around 3 per cent of UKRI expenditure, and in 2023-24 received £168m, equivalent to £53 per person, compared with £134 per person across the UK.

If Wales increased its share of UKRI funding to its share of the UK population, it could generate around £500m to £600m in additional investment over four years. That would strengthen our underfunded universities, attract researchers, develop specialist facilities and help create companies in sectors where Wales has recognised strengths, including compound semiconductors, advanced materials, clean energy and creative technologies.

The second opportunity comes from the British Business Bank, whose permanent financial capacity has increased to £25.6bn and its planned activity between 2026-30 provides the most appropriate basis for estimating what Wales could receive.

During that period, the economic development bank of the UK Government, expects to make approximately £10.2bn of funded commitments and issue £8.4bn of guarantees, producing total financial activity of £18.6bn, and a share by population would be worth approximately £860m. To put that into context, that is around two and a half times the amount of non-property business finance provided by the Development Bank of Wales over the last four years.

The largest, but also the most uncertain, element of the opportunity comes from UKEF, which during 2025-26 provided £11.2bn in loans, guarantees and insurance, supporting 937 businesses and an estimated 85,000 jobs. Its statutory capacity has now doubled from £80bn to £160bn, and a 4.6 per cent share of the Welsh population in its current annual activity would be approximately £515m, or just over £2 billion across four years.

That figure must be treated carefully, as any spend can be transformed by a single major defence, aerospace, or infrastructure contract. Some activity is already taking place in Wales, so the entire amount is a benchmark against which Welsh access should be assessed over several years, not an entitlement.

To put the overall opportunity into perspective, the Welsh Government’s entire Economy, Energy and Planning budget for 2026-27 is approximately £843m and if maintained at that level, it would amount to around £3.4bn over four years. In other words, the potential £3.5bn Welsh share of UKRI, the British Business Bank and UKEF activity over four years is slightly greater than four years of spending through the Welsh Government’s whole economy, energy and planning portfolio.

The comparison is not exact and the Welsh budget finances public programmes, while much of the UK support takes the form of repayable lending, guarantees and insurance, but it demonstrates that securing a fair share of these institutions is not a peripheral issue and it could be as important to the Welsh economy as almost everything the Welsh Government itself spends on the economy.

The scale becomes clearer when compared with two of the most prominent demands in Welsh politics.

Plaid Cymru has campaigned for more than a decade for the devolution of the Crown Estate, while successive Welsh Governments have demanded a fair settlement from HS2. However, the Crown Estate generated an estimated £210m from its Welsh assets during 2025-26 and even if that unusually high level were sustained, four years of revenue would amount to around £840m, less than a quarter of the £3.5bn opportunity identified here.

The latest potential cost of HS2 is £102.7bn, of which a simple 4.6 per cent Welsh population share would be approximately £4.7bn , although that would relate to expenditure over the project’s lifetime rather than four years.

Securing a fair share of UKRI, British Business Bank and UKEF activity could therefore be worth considerably more than four years of current Crown Estate profits and approach the total value of Wales’s disputed share of HS2, and yet it has attracted only a fraction of the same political attention.

And the timing couldn’t be better with a new Prime Minister who has placed fairness between the UK’s nations and regions at the centre of his economic agenda. Indeed, that commitment must mean more than moving Whitehall from London to Manchester, and must instead change how the power of UKRI, the British Business Bank and UKEF is fairly distributed.

That will mean not only does Wales get the prize of £3.5bn of financial activity, but also ensure that research is commercialised, businesses are created and scaled, international orders are won, and well-paid jobs are generated across the nation.

Invest Newcastle’s annual report shows 31 companies set up operations in Newcastle and Gateshead during 2025/26, creating 1,619 new jobs and safeguarding 611 existing roles, with a further 12 businesses expanding

Businesses are continuing to choose Newcastle and Gateshead as their base of operations despite broader economic headwinds, according to the organisation responsible for promoting the area.

Invest Newcastle — the NGI-run agency — has released a summary of its 2025/26 performance, revealing that 31 firms opted to establish operations in the area, with a further 12 choosing to expand.

That activity is reported to have created 1,619 new jobs while safeguarding 611 existing positions. The figures encompass a combination of businesses investing in the region for the first time, alongside relocations from other parts of the region and beyond.

The statistics closely mirror those of the preceding year, when 31 companies similarly set up in Newcastle and Gateshead alongside nine firms expanding. Invest Newcastle’s leadership highlights this consistency as an encouraging sign against a demanding economic backdrop, which has included global conflicts, delayed investment decisions and increasingly cautious expansion strategies.

Among the notable investments, German-owned industrial services company Kaefer relocated to the Live Works building on Newcastle Quayside earlier this year, bringing with it 200 jobs. Meanwhile, fintech firm Modern World Business Solutions outlined its ambitions to generate approximately 100 jobs when it announced plans to establish a base at Hoults Yard last summer.

Arden University launched a new campus on Newcastle Helix to broaden access to higher education, while LMA Newcastle, a fresh creative campus designed to cultivate skills and employment pathways across music, performance and screen-based sectors, also opened its doors. Additionally, towards the end of last year, Pneuma Games Group established Last Arrow Games in Gateshead, reports Chronicle Live.

Coun Owen Burbridge, cabinet member for economy, jobs and skills at Newcastle City Council, said: “While businesses around the world are becoming more cautious about expansion, Newcastle has delivered another year of strong and consistent performance, helping to create jobs, safeguard employment and generate significant economic value for the city. These results highlight Newcastle’s strategic position as the commercial engine of the North East’s economy.

“We are increasingly seeing businesses recognise our strengths as a leading centre for innovation, technology, professional services and talent. Whether companies are entering the market for the first time or consolidating activity from elsewhere in the UK, they are choosing Newcastle because it offers the skills, connectivity and business environment they need to grow.

“Our ambition is clear: to position Newcastle at the heart of the UK’s innovation economy and to attract the investment that will create jobs, drive productivity and support long-term prosperity for our residents.”

Coun Steve Campion, cabinet member for economic development at Gateshead Council, said: “These investment figures highlight the value of the strong partnership between Gateshead and Newcastle, and also reflect the growing confidence businesses have in Gateshead as a destination in its own right. From our thriving digital and creative sector to our advanced manufacturing and engineering industries, Gateshead offers the talent, connectivity and business support that companies need to succeed.

“We’re particularly pleased to see continued growth in our gaming and digital cluster, with businesses such as Pneuma Games Group choosing Gateshead for their development studio. Alongside major regeneration projects, high-quality commercial space and excellent transport links, this demonstrates how Gateshead is creating the right conditions for innovative businesses to start, invest and grow.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced the largest change in local authority funding in over a decade — but the county will miss out on income tax retention powers due to its lack of an elected mayor

Large parts of England are poised to benefit from a sweeping devolution of financial power under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, yet Lancashire will miss out for one straightforward reason.

Burnham is set to unveil the most significant overhaul of local authority funding in more than a decade, with certain regions permitted to retain a share of income tax – the single largest revenue-raising tool at the government’s disposal.

However, the former Manchester Mayor’s proposals will do nothing for Lancashire, owing to a number of district councils having rejected the notion of the county having its own elected mayor, despite repeated efforts over the past ten years to establish the role.

Instead, in 2023, councils agreed to form the Lancashire Combined County Authority, but without an elected mayor, as seen in comparable areas across the country. This compromise, however, means that today’s announcement could represent a ‘significant loss’ for Lancashire.

That is because only regions with an elected mayor will be eligible to take advantage of this landmark devolution settlement, enabling them to direct their share of income tax towards essential public services such as transport and housing.

While the new administration stopped short of specifying the precise sum involved, it could prove a considerable fundraising mechanism for Lancashire, which contributes roughly £4bn to the Exchequer through income tax each year. The leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, Cllr Phil Riley, responded to the announcement by stating: “It’s just another significant loss for Lancashire in the absence of a Mayor.”

Highlighting the shift towards a mayoral model in neighbouring regions such as the Liverpool City Region and West Yorkshire since 2015, he continued: “This is the national direction of travel and we will continue to lose out till we fix it.”

The power for mayoral authorities to retain a share of income tax represents just one element of the broader push to transfer powers from the UK Government to local councils throughout England, with additional authority to keep some business rates revenue also being devolved.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said: “I said we’d take power out of Westminster and carry it into every postcode in the country. Today, we make good on that promise.

“Under our plans, more of the taxes raised in a community will stay in that community. Soon, every local leader will have the power and resources to improve public transport, build homes and create jobs.

“I know what it’s like to be ignored by politicians in Westminster. I’m not going to make that same mistake now I’m PM.

“The whole of government will now pull together behind the people and places that desperately need our support. This is how we’ll bring back hope and bring power home to you.”

The new Labour government has indicated it intends to devolve power and decision-making closer to communities, fostering more resilient local economies capable of enhancing public services.

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey MP said: “The people who best understand what skills employers want, what transport an area needs and where investment can make the biggest difference are those who live there.

“For the first time we’re giving Mayors a share of income tax so communities directly benefit when their economy grows – passing power out of Westminster and driving growth in every postcode.

“This is the way we start to build new hope and advance the working people of this country.”

These measures are anticipated to take effect from spring next year, with a framework for the devolution set to be outlined in this autumn’s Budget.

Shares of SK Hynix surged 29.95% on Friday, climbing 396,000 won to close at 1,718,000 won on the Korea Exchange, effectively hitting the exchange’s daily limit for individual stock price movements as South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index posted the largest single-day rally in its history.

The KOSPI closed up 17.91% at 6,595.45, marking a record in both point and percentage terms, according to the Korea Herald. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix’s chief domestic rival in the global memory chip market, surged as much as 26.81% during the same session, according to TradingKey, as both of South Korea’s dominant chipmakers effectively erased much of the ground they had lost during three brutal preceding trading sessions.

Friday’s rally traced its origins directly to a powerful overnight session on Wall Street. Microsoft’s shares soared 15.5% Thursday for the company’s best single-day performance in nearly 18 years, according to the Associated Press, after the technology giant reported that its Azure cloud computing division grew 43% during the quarter, easing broader investor concerns about the sustainability of massive capital spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Amazon and Meta Platforms also posted results that exceeded market expectations, reinforcing confidence that AI-related computing demand remains robust, according to CNBC, sending a wave of optimism through Asian technology markets overnight.

SK Hynix’s own recent earnings had already demonstrated the underlying strength driving Friday’s rebound, even though the company’s stock had initially sold off sharply following the results. SK Hynix reported record revenue of 79.3 trillion won for the second quarter, up 51% from the prior quarter and 257% from the same period a year earlier, alongside operating income of 60.5 trillion won. The company said DRAM prices rose approximately 30% during the quarter while NAND flash memory prices surged into the mid-50% range, pushing its operating margin to a record 76%. Despite those record results, SK Hynix shares had initially fallen because the figures came in below the elevated expectations investors had built up around AI-related chip demand, contributing to the broader selloff that gripped the KOSPI over the following days.

Friday’s rebound followed a brutal stretch for Korean equities more broadly. The KOSPI had plummeted more than 17% over the three trading sessions preceding Friday, driven by investor concerns about a potential bubble in artificial intelligence valuations and intensifying competition from Chinese chipmaking rivals, according to the Associated Press. At one point during that selloff, the index had fallen roughly 40% from its June peak, wiping out nearly $2 trillion in market value, according to reporting from the Private Banker.

Foreign investors were the driving force behind Friday’s historic rebound, posting net purchases of 7.25 trillion won, or roughly $5.06 billion, on the KOSPI, according to the Korea Herald. That marked a second consecutive day of net foreign buying, following four straight sessions of net selling that had preceded Thursday.

A separate development specific to SK Hynix appeared to reinforce Friday’s rally. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won disclosed personal purchases of SK Hynix shares during the recent selloff, a move that bolstered investor confidence in the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, according to CNBC, offering a visible signal of leadership confidence at a moment when the stock had come under significant pressure. New cash-deposit requirements for investors using leveraged exchange-traded funds also took effect July 31, a regulatory change some analysts said may have contributed to a broader repositioning among traders active in that segment of the market, while short-covering and mechanical rebalancing tied to leveraged ETFs were also cited as factors amplifying the scale of Friday’s move.

SK Hynix has continued advancing its next-generation memory technology even amid the recent share price volatility. The company said it had begun mass production of its HBM4 high-bandwidth memory chips, with a broader production ramp planned for the second half of 2026, and that it had secured long-term supply agreements with approximately 10 customers as it works toward volume production of its subsequent HBM4E chips in 2027.

Despite the historic single-day gain, market analysts urged caution about reading too much into the rebound. Speaking to CNBC, one analyst identified only as Jung said foreign investors appeared to be the primary force behind Friday’s rally, but cautioned against assuming the gains signal a durable trend reversal. “I would not expect gains of this magnitude to continue,” Jung said, adding that asset prices had become “completely disconnected” from underlying fundamentals during the recent volatility.

Even after Friday’s rally, the KOSPI remained well below its levels from earlier in the year. The index recorded its worst monthly performance since 1997, dropping 22.19% over the course of July, according to TradingKey, underscoring that Friday’s rebound, while historic in scale, only partially offset the scale of losses the index had absorbed over the preceding weeks.

South Korean authorities also announced new measures Friday aimed at supporting the country’s technology and artificial intelligence sector more broadly. The government said it would inject a minimum of 20 trillion won, or approximately $13.9 billion, into the Korea Investment Corporation for strategic investments in artificial intelligence, data centers and broader infrastructure, according to the Private Banker, marking the first time the sovereign wealth fund’s mandate has been expanded to include domestic assets.

With SK Hynix shares having now hit the exchange’s daily trading limit and the broader KOSPI having posted its largest single-day gain on record, investors are likely to watch closely in the sessions ahead for signs of whether Friday’s rebound marks a genuine stabilization in sentiment toward AI-linked technology stocks or another dramatic swing within a period of extraordinary volatility that has gripped South Korea’s chip-heavy equity market throughout the second half of July.

LinkedIn has introduced a button allowing users to flag posts they believe were generated by artificial intelligence, with the platform’s chief product officer, Hari Srinivasan, saying on Thursday that tackling so-called AI slop is a “top priority”.

The “Seems like AI slop” option sits in the menu on each post. Flags are private reports to LinkedIn and are not shared publicly.

Srinivasan announced the feature in a post on LinkedIn. “AI slop is a top priority for all of us,” he wrote. “We really care about this. People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas and expertise. Here are a few more changes to keep it that way.”

The launch follows research published in July by AI detection firm Pangram, which found that more than 40 per cent of LinkedIn posts longer than 250 words were fully AI-generated. Pangram said it analysed around one million posts over two months across LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Substack and Medium, and that LinkedIn was the most AI-saturated of the platforms studied.

Srinivasan said LinkedIn’s automated tools were already catching “hundreds of thousands of automated comments” and “have blocked billions of other automation attempts (posting at scale, slop) in the last couple months alone”.

The platform, which is owned by Microsoft, is also rolling out new classifiers designed to identify whether a post is AI slop or otherwise low-quality content, Srinivasan said. User flags will feed into those models. Members whose posts are reported will be notified privately through their analytics dashboards that readers found their content inauthentic.

Alongside the new button, LinkedIn is withdrawing its own AI writing feature. “We asked ourselves why do people post with AI anyway? The answer is LinkedIn isn’t a one-word kind of place and they feel more confident running their posts through AI,” Srinivasan wrote.

“We’re taking this learning, removing the ‘enhance your post’ feature you see when you write a post or message & replacing with a feature that proofreads your words, but does not change your voice.”

LinkedIn has not said what happens to a post once it is flagged, beyond the feedback being used to improve its feed, and it is unclear whether reports could limit the reach of posts or accounts.

Early reaction on the platform has been mixed. Jonny Rose, founder of The Story Club, wrote on LinkedIn that he hoped the feature was “the first step in making the platform more enjoyable for everyone”. Tech ghostwriter Colin Steele wrote that the button could be “ripe for abuse”, suggesting companies and their employees could report competitors without merit.

The change comes amid rapid growth in the use of generative AI tools, which now count more than one billion monthly users worldwide, according to the Digital 2026 report from Meltwater and We Are Social.

Other platforms are grappling with the same question from different directions. Newsletter platform Substack launched its own AI detection tool last week in partnership with Pangram, while TikTok last year cut hundreds of UK content moderation jobs as it shifted moderation work towards AI systems.

Srinivasan said LinkedIn is also expanding access to profile and page verification tools and adding an option to block comments from company pages users no longer wish to see.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

The average price of petrol in the UK has reached 160p a litre, its highest level since the Iran war began on 28 February, according to figures from the RAC.

The motoring group puts petrol at 159.97p a litre and diesel at 178.97p. Diesel remains below its 15 April peak of 191.54p a litre, set as pump prices climbed to their highest level in more than two years.

Pump prices fell after the US and Iran agreed a framework deal in June to end the conflict. In early July, the RAC said, average petrol sank to a low of 150.59p a litre and diesel to 164.52p. Both have risen since the collapse of the peace talks.

Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said the price of diesel was likely to reach 185p a litre “in the next few weeks, barring any major oil price reduction”.

The price of fuel tends to track the wholesale price of oil, and analysts say every $10 (£7.44) per barrel increase in the oil price pushes up pump prices by roughly 7p a litre. Because transporting oil is a slow process, wholesale price movements take about a fortnight to show at the pump.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, was about $70 a barrel before the conflict and peaked above $120 as the fighting disrupted oil supplies across the Middle East. It fell back to near $70 in early July after the framework deal was signed, climbed above $100 when the talks collapsed, and now trades at around $90.

Generally speaking, news of further conflict has driven the price up, while hopes of an end to the war have pushed it down.

Despite the rises, petrol and diesel remain below the levels reached in the summer of 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when petrol hit 191.5p a litre and diesel 199p.

The conflict has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes. Experts warn that even if a deal is agreed to reopen the strait, it will take time before normal levels of shipping resume, and the impact of the war could continue to affect the global economy for months.

The UK is heavily reliant on oil and gas imports, with the majority coming from the US and Norway, and pays the price set on the global market. Although the UK produces some oil in the North Sea, most of it is exported for refining elsewhere.

Fuel retailers have denied accusations of price gouging during the conflict. The official markets regulator said it had “not seen evidence of retailers actively changing their pricing strategies to take advantage of the crisis”.

A government scheme called Fuel Finder lets drivers compare the cost of fuel at petrol stations across the UK. Luke Bosdet, head of policy at the AA, said the group had been surprised at the speed at which prices had fallen and put it down to the scheme.

On 20 May, the then prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said a planned 5p increase in fuel duty due in September would be postponed until 31 December because of the conflict.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.