Monday newspaper round-up: Tourist VAT, cost-of-living, consumer confidence, strikes

New spending figures have laid bare the damage inflicted on the retail sector’s competitiveness by the government’s post-Brexit tourist tax. After the introduction of VAT on overseas spending, shops in London are struggling to capitalise on a post-Covid uplift in travel as the higher duty encourages visitors to divert to Paris and other European cities. - The Times

The Army is struggling to hire cyber security experts amid intense competition from business, its recruitment chief has admitted. Richard Holroyd, managing director of Defence and Security at Capita, which handles recruitment for the Armed Forces, said it was having difficulty attracting candidates given the wealth of jobs on offer. - Telegraph

The cost of some basic food items such as cheese, butter and bread has soared by more than 30% in the last two years, forcing poorer households to “make desperate choices between keeping up with their bill payments or putting food on the table,” campaigners have said. Food price inflation has slowed in recent months, but costs remain much higher than they were two years ago, disproportionately affecting low-income households, according to research by consumer body Which? shared exclusively with the Guardian. - Guardian

Britain is missing out on four fifths of the benefits of technological innovation because it does not recognise the value of manufacturing, a new government adviser has warned. Scott White, the chief executive of Pragmatic, a Cambridge-based semiconductor business, said Britain had “suffered” over the past few decades because it had not recognised the value of the production process. - The Times

Consumer confidence continues to decline as soaring mortgage rates hit household finances. Confidence, which had been improving since the aftermath of the mini-Budget, slid for the second month in a row in July, according to polling by YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). - Telegraph

About 3.9m working days have been lost to industrial action in the past year, more than at any point since the 1980s, according to a new analysis. The Resolution Foundation, which focuses its research on low- to middle-income households, said many of the strikes were “fuelled” by anger among public sector workers over real-terms pay declines, which amounted to an average cut of more than 9% since 2021, adjusted for inflation. - Guardian