The UK is to announce five new freeports and a new investment zone in the Budget next week as part of a bid to boost economic growth.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it is part of a plan to help create thousands of jobs and more trade in the UK.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir Keir said freeports – low tax zones – were “working well” despite criticism that they do not increase overall jobs numbers.

But he said “they could work better” with more involvement from local businesses and politicians.

Sir Keir acknowledged that freeports were a policy introduced by the Conservatives, but said he “didn’t want to take the ideological view that just because they were introduced by the last government we would stand them down”.

However, he said they need some improvements, including “better structures and more local authority involvement”.

Freeports are areas near shipping ports or airports where imported goods are free from taxes called tariffs that are normally paid to the UK government.

Firms in these areas also pay lower national insurance – another tax – on new employees, and lower property taxes.

The idea is that they boost economic activity like trade, investment and job creation.

Manufacturers in freeports only pay tariffs on finished products that leave the site for elsewhere in the UK.

And, imported goods can be re-exported overseas without UK duties being paid.

They are located around ports in Inverness, the Forth, Teeside, the Humber, Liverpool, Anglesey, Milford Haven, Plymouth, the Solent, the Thames, and Felixstowe and Harwich.

There is also a freeport near East Midlands airport which covers chunks of Leicester, Derby and Nottingham.

Critics have suggested, however, that they simply move economic activity or jobs from one part of the country to another, rather than creating new opportunities or roles.

Sir Keir said “that’s why we would do well to make some tweaks to freeports to make sure they work in their own right”.

He said Labour wanted to see growth plans “for every area, every place” drawn up by mayors, local authorities and local businesses, “so freeports don’t sit on their own as the only source of jobs and investment in a given area”.

He also said that a new investment zone in the East Midlands, which will aim to boost high tech green industry, was “really important”.

There are already two investment zones in the UK, which apply to specific local areas and see firms offered financial incentives.

“These zones attract investment, and they’re measured in tens of thousands of well-paid jobs, so this is really good news,” Sir Keir said.

He added that economic growth is the “number one mission of this government”.

However, the watchdog that looks at the government’s finances, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility predicted in 2021 that tax breaks in England’s freeports would cost the UK government £50m a year.

It said that historical evidence suggests their “main effect” would be to move economic activity from one place to another.

Internationally, freeports have also been linked to organised crime, money laundering, smuggling, and low wages, the Scottish Greens argued in 2023.

But according to the government, freeports in the UK have attracted £2.9bn of investment and created an estimated 6,000 jobs.

Three new permanent executive directors have been appointed to the board of The Pensions Regulator (TPR).

The appointments, which will “help deliver TPR’s new regulatory approach”, were approved by pensions minister Emma Reynolds.

The new directors are Nina Blackett, executive director of strategy, policy and analysis, Gaucho Rasmussen, executive director of regulatory compliance and Neil Bull, executive director of market oversight.

They will help accelerate the shift in TPR’s regulatory approach to meet the challenges and opportunities of a changing pensions market.

Blackett has served as both director of digital services and interim director of strategy, policy and analysis since joining TPR in September 2023.

She brings considerable experience in leading digital transformation in finance, healthcare and education to her new role.

Neil Bull has more than 25 years of experience in the commercial pensions sector and brings a deep understanding of the pensions market and risk management to the role.

He previously served as TPR’s head of investment before becoming interim director of market oversight in April 2024.

Gaucho Rasmussen is a regulatory and enforcement leader with extensive experience in organisational change and development.

He joins TPR from Amazon, where he has been advising on regulatory compliance across Europe.

Prior to this, Gaucho held positions as director of enforcement at both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

TPR chief executive Nausicaa Delfas said: “The pensions market is rapidly changing and moving towards fewer, larger schemes, bringing new opportunities and new risks. We are evolving as a regulator to meet these challenges.

“Gaucho, Neil and Nina will each play a critical part in accelerating the shift in our regulatory approach that will help us to protect, enhance and innovate in a changing pensions market, and become a more efficient and effective regulator.”

In February, TPR announced the establishment of three new regulatory functions – regulatory compliance, market oversight and strategy, policy and analysis.

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A water company co-founded by the treasurer of the Conservative party is in discussions to take a stake in Thames Water, which is looking to raise billions of pounds to avoid a potential renationalisation.

Castle Water — which acquired Thames Water’s corporate customers from the utility in 2017 — is looking at contributing new equity to bolster the balance sheet of the UK’s largest water utility, according to four people familiar with the matter. Castle Water is looking to take a controlling stake, one of the people has said.

Graham Edwards, who has donated millions of pounds to the Conservative party and serves as its treasurer, is one of Castle Water’s co-founders, directors and shareholders.

Castle Water recently signed a non-disclosure agreement to potentially provide new equity funding for Thames Water, the people familiar with the situation said, allowing the company to conduct due diligence on the utility’s private financial information.

Under Castle Water’s plans, shares in Thames Water would be publicly listed in two to three years to “bring the transparency that stock market-listed water companies deliver”, said one person close to the discussions. They added that Castle Water had funding in place for the equity raise and that it would bring in additional management capabilities for a turnaround of the troubled utility, which serves about 16mn customers in and around London.

The size of the stake under discussion is unclear but would be expected to give Castle Water control over the utility.

Thames Water is looking to raise as much as £3bn from new investors in this equity raise, overseen by investment bank Rothschild, after the pension and sovereign wealth funds that own the company declared it “uninvestable” and walked away from providing further funding in March.

The monopoly is also seeking an increase to its bills of 53 per cent in real terms by 2030 to enable it to raise the £3bn of funding it needs just to keep running and deliver infrastructure improvements.

Edwards co-founded Castle Water with its chief executive John Reynolds in 2014 to capitalise on the deregulation of the business water market, where companies other than the utilities were allowed to handle customer complaints, bills, meter readings and some operational issues.

Castle Water’s most recent accounts state that the company is ultimately controlled by a trust of which Edwards is a beneficiary. Accounts for WPGSS Limited, which is listed on Companies House as owning more than 50 per cent of Castle Water’s shares, also state that Edwards is its “ultimate controlling party” through a British Virgin Islands holding company.

Edwards is also the executive chair of TT Group, one of the UK’s largest privately held property companies, and has close ties to the real estate group’s owners, the billionaire Pears family.

Reynolds, Castle Water’s chief executive, is a former investment banker and a former member of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland. Reynolds also previously served as the chair of the Church of England Ethical Investment Advisory Group and is the author of the book Ethics in Investment Banking.

Separately to the equity raise, Thames Water on Friday said it was seeking to borrow £3bn from creditors to allow it to keep operating until October next year.

The proposals have been tentatively agreed with the creditors involved, who are the largest holders of some of Thames Water’s most senior debt and include hedge fund Elliott.

They would charge interest of 9.75 per cent a year on the funds, far above market rates for most loans, and would also be paid fees.

But Thames Water also needs a decisive majority of its other lenders to agree to extend existing debt by two years and to consent to the new loan arrangements.

Castle Water, Thames Water, the senior bondholders and the Conservative party declined to comment. Edwards did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Additional reporting by Ivan Levingston in London

THE Toob app is “down” as thousands report issues with the broadband provider and blast the “useless” internet.

Downdetector received more than 3,500 complaints about the service just before 12.25pm today.

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The vast majority – 82 per cent – of those were to do with the internet.

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You will have noticed this seems a rather specific question, unrelatable perhaps, if your name is Dennis or Susan. But you will also grasp that this is just a way of expressing the real question, which is “Can I shorten your name from the one you actually use?” 

The answer is no, you bloody can’t. Well, technically you can. There’s nothing I can do to stop you. But I won’t like it, so if it is an attempt to be matey, it will in fact have the opposite effect. 

At least asking allows me an opportunity to say no. Those who ask are not really the problem, though they should still know better. I have, after all, had many more years to consider my options. But people rarely ask. Americans — or Amers, as I like to think of them — are especially committed to shortening other people’s names, seeing it as a sign of chummy informality, rather than an outrageous presumption. 

Few weeks go by without someone chummily shortening my name. They don’t ask if I’m a Rob. They just decide I should be. This shows a basic misjudgment because Rob, in general, seems an easy-going, karaoke-nights, one-more-for-the-road type of guy. Whereas I am an uptight, grumpy, no-thanks-I’m-driving, don’t-call-me-Rob type.

This issue has acquired new urgency, because one of the final two candidates to be Conservative leader has suddenly become a Rob. Robert Jenrick was always a Robert, until this contest. Now, he has come out as a Rob. Perhaps he was always a Rob to his most intimate circle, or alternatively it is just one more policy shift from a man of no fixed ideological moorings. When we first met Robert, he was a liberal-conservative Remainer. Rob, on the other hand, turns out to be obsessed with immigration, ending net-zero targets and ordering the removal of Disney murals at asylum reception centres. These don’t seem like Rob moves? Maybe it’s more a Bert thing.

Anyway, this isn’t a column about Bert Jenrick. He is embracing the name change, either because he thinks it makes him seem more likeable or to distance himself from the more liberal-elitist Robert. (There are rightwingers who worry that, having won as Rob, he might then revert to being Robert.) 

But it’s his choice. The issue is how to deal with others changing our name for us. You could just relax about it. But if I could be relaxed about it, I’d already be a Rob, wouldn’t I? 

The second strategy is to correct people. If it happens over email, you could sign off with your version of “Robert (not Rob)”, followed with a smiley face to show no offence has yet been taken. That could make you look a tad priggish, which is annoying since a) you are being priggish and no one likes to be told that, and b) you are not the one in the wrong here. But you need to nip it in the bud early. Procrastination robs you.

The third approach is to refuse to answer to the short name. In person, don’t respond. On a phone call, you suggest the person must have the wrong number. I did once work closely with a Rob, so I always told people they were obviously looking for him. But this is just a more aggressive version of the second strategy and an unnecessary escalation best saved for repeat offenders. 

We all have those we permit to Rob us. My oldest friend uses it but he’s been doing so since primary school, and five decades seems too long to have let it lie. Also, if I told him it annoyed me, he’d only double-down on it and probably switch to Robbie (a name acceptable only for Scots and toddlers). In any case, it is born of life-long friendship, and I’ve definitely called him worse. Relatives of my wife have also started doing it under the mistaken impression that association with her gives them renaming rights. Nicknames and variations on your surname are less of a problem, especially if they too were picked up in your youth, seem affectionate and aren’t rhyming slang for genitalia.

It’s not that I mind the name. It’s not unpleasant. I just associate it with people who don’t realise they are too old to be skateboarding. (I exempt my colleague Rob Armstrong, who is a top bloke in spite of his affliction.) Naturally, in revealing this I have opened myself up to years of Rob abuse. Then again, if Rob Jenrick wins, perhaps I’ll change my own name.

Email Robert at magazineletters@ft.com

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