Campaigners urge government to ‘get out of bed’ with the banks

London, 7 August 2025 - Demonstrators from campaign groups including Positive Money, Tax Justice UK, Equality Trust and Green New Deal Rising gathered outside the Bank of England this morning to call for a windfall tax on bank profits.

They presented a giant cheque for £11.3 billion to people wearing masks of Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer, who were tucked up in a bed made of money alongside others dressed as lobbyists from Britain’s biggest banks. 

This amount is how much organisers Positive Money estimated a windfall tax would generate this year from the UK’s four biggest banks based on their results for the first half of 2025. 

The campaigners called on Reeves and Starmer to get out of bed with the banks and accept the money this windfall tax would bring in for the Exchequer.  

The stunt came hours before the Bank of England is due to make its latest decision on whether to raise, hold or lower interest rates. In raising the base interest rate 14 consecutive times between 2021 and 2023, the Bank of England has been paying more and more interest on hundreds of billions of pounds of risk-free reserves held by banks, for which the Treasury foots the bill. The public also contributed to banks’ record 2024 profits of £45.9 billion by way of higher mortgage repayments and other borrowing costs.

Following the half year profit announcements that banks finished reporting last week, one demonstrator, Jake Atkinson, Campaigns Manager at Tax Justice UK, pointed out that "the biggest four banks are on track to make £48 billion in profits this year alone - ten times what the Government was looking to cut from disability social security. Meanwhile, across the UK local businesses are struggling to stay open in the face of rising bills and millions of children are locked into poverty as families are unable to keep up with the cost of living. 

He added that “Existing UK windfall taxes on big oil and gas companies have worked. The big banks should not get a free pass to profiteer whilst the rest of the country struggles.”

But the banks have been busy pushing back against higher taxes, with the CEOs of HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds all publicly attempting to dissuade the Chancellor from increasing their tax contributions over the past fortnight. They cited concerns that such a policy might hamper their international competitiveness or the UK’s GDP growth.

But Hannah Dewhirst, Head of Campaigns at Positive Money, says these arguments don’t hold water. “We have specifically designed this windfall tax to only target banks’ domestic retail operations, which mitigates the risk of them threatening to move their global or investment banking operations elsewhere, and best captures the profits they’ve made directly at the expense of the UK public.

“As for concerns that increasing taxes on banks will stunt economic growth,” she added, “the British public are well aware that gains for the financial sector categorically do not ‘trickle down’ to the rest of us.”

Another demonstrator, Dario Goodwin from Equality Trust, said that “the obscene profits that banks have enjoyed have been at our expense – that's our higher bills, mortgages and rents that become payouts for the richest bankers. This unfair reality is the result of decades of inequality allowing the richest to gain too much power over how our economy works. How can our communities thrive when our system is this unequal?”

According to analysis from Positive Money, the ‘big four’ UK banks paid a record £33.9 billion to shareholders in 2024. 

Ellen Lees, who joined the demonstration on behalf of Green New Deal Rising, said that “right now our country and its potential is being held hostage by these corporations and the super-rich, who profit from high interest rates, tax loopholes, and loose regulations - if Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer want to deliver change and have any chance at the next election, they must finally make the richest pay up to fund the investment our communities need." 

Notes:

• More photos can be found in this Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cH9EwADYA_r6dmZOZms2TeXPs-khSnQe?usp=drive_link 

• Positive Money calculated that a windfall tax on bank profits would raise £11.3 billion this year. Read the full analysis here: https://positivemoney.org/uk/update/how-the-government-could-reclaim-the-huge-payouts-to-banks/ 

• Positive Money’s petition for a windfall tax on banks now has over 32,000 signatures and counting: bit.ly/TaxTheBanks  

• The CEO of HSBC cautioned the Chancellor against raising taxes on banks: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/30/hsbc-boss-says-rachel-reeves-putting-up-bank-taxes-would-harm-uk-growth 

• The CEO of Lloyds Bank warned Rachel Reeves against raising taxes on banks after the bank reported Q2 profits that were 31% higher than Q1: https://www.ft.com/content/ecd74fc5-0c66-42d3-b250-6da946277cdc  

• The CEO of Barclays also warned the Chancellor against raising taxes on banks after Barclays reported its profits for the first half of 2025 were up 23% to £5.2 billion: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/rachel-reeves-barclays-lloyds-banking-group-government-chancellor-b2797891.html  

About Positive Money:

Positive Money is an international research and campaign organisation working to redesign our economic system for social justice and a liveable planet. Set up in the aftermath of the financial crisis, Positive Money is a not-for-profit company funded by charitable trusts and foundations, as well as small donations from its network of supporters. Find out more: www.positivemoney.org 

ENDS