Your commercial news round-up: weight loss jabs, Coinbase, migrant crossings, universal basic income, universities

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Weight loss jabs, cryptocurrency, Rishi Sunak’s small boats policy, a universal basic income trial and the legal duties of universities. This week’s commercial news round-up has a diverse group of stories for you, so why not pick a topic and try the PESTLE method to test your commercial awareness?  

• Take a load off and settle in for our first story about how a new NHS-approved weight loss jab could quite literally ‘take a load off’ patients – 15% to be exact. UK ministers have launched a £40 million pilot programme to introduce home access to slimming jab Wegovy. Under current guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence drugs regulator, Wegovy can only be administered through trained weight management services, typically within hospitals. The trial’s set to explore the idea of GPs permitted to prescribe the appetite suppressant, with the government keen to boost the drug’s current limited reach in England of 35,000 people.  
  
  The move is an attempt to address obesity rates in the UK and the subsequent health effects that cost the NHS £6.5 billion each year. Wegovy is the UK’s first obesity-tackling drug to be approved and is currently limited to adults with a BMI of at least 35, who are diagnosed with at least one obesity-related health condition. Rishi Sunak described the drug as a “gamechanger” which will help in “reducing pressure on hospitals”, but his government has been criticised for not first trialling more traditional approaches to increasing the nation’s health, such as restricting multi-buy deals and the advertisement of unhealthy food.  
   
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase following the platform’s alleged violation of US securities law by failing to register as a broker, national securities exchange or clearing agency. The SEC alleged that Coinbase’s operations are “squarely within the purview of the securities law”, as it’s been operating as an unregistered broker since 2019. This isn’t the only legal action the SEC has taken against a crypto trading platform, having recently also launched 13 civil cases against the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. Paul Grewal, general counsel for Coinbase, described the SEC’s “enforcement-only approach in the absence of clear rules for the digital asset industry” as “hurting America’s economic competitiveness”. This case has arisen just months after Coinbase was forced to settle a $100 million lawsuit with New York regulators over the platform’s failures in money laundering controls.  
   
• Back to the UK for our next story: British prime minister Rishi Sunak has insisted that his plan to stop small boats crossing the English Channel is “starting to work”. According to government data, between January-May 2023 the number of asylum seekers making the crossing is down by 20%. The prime minister has drawn particular attention to the fact that there’s been a 90% drop in the number of Albanian asylum seekers arriving by small boats, with his returns deal with Albania resulting in 1,800 Albanians being sent back over the last six months. While Sunak insists these numbers are “proof that our deterrence strategy can work”, a number of MPs have been quick to reflect that the numbers are either not enough, or not truly a reflection of Sunak’s work. Responses to the small boats plan include: 

o    highlighting that poor weather may be the real reason behind its success; 

o    Conservative MP Richard Drax labelling the conditions asylum seekers are held in as “quasi-prison”; and 

o    deputy Tory party chair Lee Anderson insisting the use of barges and forcing asylum seekers to share rooms is “not the answer”. 
 

• Universal basic income (UBI) – it’s not something a lot of people in the UK will be familiar with, but it’s something currently being tested by think tank Autonomy with 30 people set to receive £1,600 a month in UBI. This is England’s first ever trial of UBI and will afford participants a guaranteed income to cover their basic living needs. UBI doesn’t require recipients to meet means testing or listed requirements, as it intends to create a minimum income floor. Throughout the trial, researchers will assess the impact UBI has on recipients and compare this to the lives of a control group who don’t receive the same income. Supporters of UBI attest that it could simplify the welfare system, with Autonomy’s director of research, Will Stronge, stating: “All the evidence shows that it’d directly alleviate poverty and boost millions of people’s wellbeing: the potential benefits are just too large to ignore.” Wales, Scotland and Finland have all also trialled, or are set to trial, their own versions of the initiative.  
   
• Should universities have a legal duty of care for their students? This is what MPs debated in the House of Commons on Monday after a petition launched by families who’ve lost a child to suicide reached the required 100,000 signatures. At current, although universities have a limited duty to ensure students have a safe environment in which they can live, work and study, universities aren’t held to the same caring standards as colleges or schools. The petition argued that there’s a duty of care owed to students by universities, stating “The mental health, safety and well-being of [higher education] students should be a government priority”. Both the Department for Education and higher education minister Robert Halfon said they don’t believe the introduction of a legal duty of care is a necessary move.  

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