Iceland executive chair Richard Walker has hit out against the performance of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government, citing National Insurance increases and slow planning reforms.

Walker, who defected to Labour in 2023 and introduced the prime minister at the launch of his election manifesto last summer, told the Financial Times that Labour’s NIC rise adds “greatly to the cost of business”.

The frozen food specialist’s boss also called on the government to do more to address the UK’s ‘productivity crisis,’ adding: “A project that won’t be completed for decades is no help to businesses that need to invest today.”

Other grievances included faster planning reforms, to make it easier to open new shops. He pointed to his own supermarket’s impending 30 store openings that have all been “delayed”.

Elsewhere, he urged the government to proceed with a formal proposal to implement an online sales tax to create a “fair balance” between online and physical retailers, despite Iceland’s online presence representing a larger market share than its in-store brick-and-mortar equivalent.

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“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 fair share.”

Despite his comments, Walker insisted he did not regret backing Labour, adding that he still believes the party was “pro-business, pro-growth”.

Iceland’s chairman is no stranger to voicing his concerns about government proposals.

In January, Walker criticised the government’s inheritance tax raid on farmers, saying “is right to look at levelling the playing field on tax,” that it had “parked its tractor in the wrong place going after hard-working British farmers”.

Last week, following the CMA’s baby formula report, Iceland launched new infant formula labels in a bid to bring more clarity around products and help parents make informed choices, with Walker also adding that this “next phase is about making sure parents have the facts”.