Treasury adviser is quitting and warns ministers treat entrepreneurs as a 'sideshow' days before Healey's Budget

Alex Depledge, 45, says Chancellor John Healey has given her "barely any face time", though she met Rachel Reeves fortnightly. After Reeves left in July, Depledge says she had to "relitigate all the arguments I had already won" with Healey and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds. She accuses ministers of channelling taxpayer funds into established, declining industries rather than new ones. She is to leave on Thursday, the day after the Budget.

Depledge founded property firm Resi and Hassle.com, which sold to a German rival for €32m.

She says her first days at the Treasury felt "like organ rejection".

She warns that sidelining founders "erodes confidence at every level".