New Chancellor, higher profits: it’s time to #TaxTheBanks

The results are in. After HSBC finished reporting, following Barclays, Lloyds, and Natwest last week, total profits for the UK’s four biggest banks in January - June 2026 came to over £29.2 billion - a 21% increase on the same six months in 2025. 

These latest profit announcements mean our proposal for a windfall tax would bring in £19 billion from these four banks alone (and over £20 billion if you add in Santander). Enough to cover Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s cost of living measures for a VAT cut on electricity bills, the £2 bus fare cap, and business rate cuts to pub, club, and music venues, more than 13 times over.

Our new figures have reignited calls to #TaxTheBanks and made a media splash, with headlines and a full-page spread in the Mirror, The Guardian, (twice), at one point featuring as the second story on their website, and CityAM. Alongside Sky News’ economics and data editor Ed Conway saying this week that a tax on banks is “the most likely thing to happen in a Budget”.  

Banks are already divvying up these profits. Almost half has gone to their shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, and they’ve dished out the highest quarterly total in bonuses since the 2008 global finance crisis - back when taxpayers were forced to bail out the banking sector to the tune of billions - proving banks could easily be paying more. 

Especially considering banks have all of us to thank for these record-breaking profits. Following years of higher interest rates, banks have raked them in from customers’ higher debt, rent, and mortgage payments, alongside the Bank of England, who are forced to pay interest on private bank reserves, a cost ultimately borne by the Treasury - a.k.a us. 

Rates are (misguidedly) expected to stay higher for longer given inflationary pressures, so, if banks are going to profit from the cost of living crisis like oil and gas companies, we believe they deserve a windfall tax like them too. That’s why we’re proposing a 38% rate on profits made directly from the UK public - not those from wider investment activities - partly to assuage concerns that a windfall tax would make the UK’s financial sector less competitive, but also to reflect the real source of these profits. As Diane Abbot posted on X; imagine how we could invest them instead.

With Emma Reynolds MP - former managing director of TheCityUK - back in the Treasury, and continuity with Lucy Rigby MP as City Minister, it’s hard to know yet if Andy Burnham’s new government will really make a break with the previous one, and stop cosying up to city lobbyists. 

Chancellor John Healey’s first autumn Budget, set for 28th October, will be the first big test to prove whose side this new government is really on. Let’s hope he’s prepared to stand up and succeed where predecessor Rachel Reeves failed, and instead of burdening ordinary households and small businesses, targets the banks instead. 

If you haven’t yet, sign the petition to #TaxTheBanks