The British government announced on Wednesday hundreds of billions of pounds in spending on defense, health care and investment in infrastructure and housing, as it laid out its economic priorities for the next few years, the New York Times reported. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, presented a breakdown of the public finances in Parliament, detailing how much money each government department will have to spend until 2029, around the time of the next general election. It brings to an end months of tense negotiations between Ms.

The U.K.’s labor market cooled in the three months to April, offering reassurance to Bank of England policymakers despite the level still being well above that required to return inflation to target any time soon, the Wall Street Journal reported. Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses rose 5.2% from a year earlier, down from 5.5% in the three months to March, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.6% in the period from 4.4% in the prior quarter, the highest since May-July 2021.

A Northolt woman who invented a business to get a £50,000 Covid Bounce Back Loan backed by the government has been sentenced for fraud, BBC.com reported. Jagoda Rubaszko made up administrative service company which she falsely claimed had a turnover of £210,000. She then paid the loan into five separate bank accounts in Poland over a two-month period. Rubaszko was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, suspended for 21 months, for fraud by misrepresentation at Isleworth Crown Court on 5 June. Read more.

The U.K.'s Insolvency Service, responsible for returning assets to creditors in bankruptcy cases, said it appointed its first crypto intelligence specialist to help trace cryptocurrencies as digital assets become more widespread, CoinDesk.com reported. Former police investigator Andrew Small will take on the role at the government agency, and will primarily focus on criminal cases, the service said. In the past five years the number of cases that have identified crypto as an asset that can be recovered by liquidators rose by 420% to 59.

Administrators are on standby to handle the collapse of the UK arm of Builder.ai, a Microsoft-backed start-up which has filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Sky News has learnt that Alvarez & Marsal has been lined up to oversee the insolvency of Builder.ai's UK entities. News of the impending appointment comes days after Builder.ai, which was founded by Sachin Dev Duggal, collapsed in the U.S. Mr Duggal stepped down earlier this year.

Britain's financial regulator is to remove a ban on consumers buying crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs), ditching its previous position of wanting to keep them out of the hands of retail investors, Reuters reported. The Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday that allowing retail investors to buy ETNs would support growth and competitiveness, in the latest sign that the UK is shifting its approach to crypto as the government seeks to grow the economy and support a digital assets industry.

Builder.ai filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. after creditors seized most of the cash in the British startup’s bank accounts, Bloomberg News reported. The company published a list of creditors in a chapter 7 case in a Delaware bankruptcy court, Builder.ai said in a filing dated June 2. Read more. (Subscription required.)

A liquidator has been appointed for the bankrupt charity that ran two public leisure centres in Lincoln, BBC.com reported. Yarborough and Birchwood leisure centres closed on 3 April after Active Nation ceased trading. Stockport-based firm Beesley Corporate Recovery has been appointed to handle the charity's insolvency process. Both facilities are expected to fully reopen by mid-July after City of Lincoln Council, which owns the buildings, chose charitable social enterprise Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) as the interim operator for them.