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5 September 2024

Finance sector scores two-fifths of Treasury meetings

Labour urged to be more resistant to City influence than the previous government, as banks intensify lobbying against higher taxes

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London, 5 September 2024 - The financial sector received more facetime with Treasury ministers than any other sector in the first quarter of 2024, according to fresh analysis from research and campaign group Positive Money. 

Treasury ministers met 102 times with private finance and its lobbyists, equating to 40.5% of the 252 external meetings they had between January and March this year. This represents a slight uptick on the 39% and 38.3% of meetings which Positive Money found private finance secured in 2023 and 2022, respectively, and a marked increase on the 30.5% the sector scored over 2021 and 2020. 

The ministers in question - including Jeremy Hunt, Laura Trott, and Bim Afolami - met to discuss a range of issues, from cryptoassets to the competitiveness of the UK financial sector, whilst the Conservative government still controlled the country’s purse strings. While dominating meetings, banks have managed to secure tax cuts and resist calls for windfall taxes on the record profits they’ve made at the public’s expense from higher interest rates.

Now banks are reportedly intensifying lobbying efforts in response to speculation that the new Labour government is considering higher taxes on banks in the October Budget. Positive Money has previously calculated that a windfall tax on banks at the 35% rate implemented on oil and gas companies would generate £14 billion from just the 2023 profits of the “big four” UK banks: HSBC, Barclays, NatWest and Lloyds. 

Positive Money’s Chloe Musto, author of the research, said:

“The last government gave unequal attention to the City of London at the expense of the wider economy; this new government can’t make the same mistake.

“We don’t know how many meetings the finance sector has secured with the current government yet, but if recent appointments to public positions are anything to go by, banks and their lobbyists have ready access to policymakers.

“This government cannot let the finance sector talk it out of fair taxes behind closed doors. A windfall tax on banks would redress the unequal impact higher rates have had on households, who don’t have the luxury of one-on-one time with the Chancellor to recount the impact soaring borrowing costs have had on them.

“New ministers would do well to remember it was a lax approach to the City that ultimately cost the last Labour government the public’s trust.” 

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