#TaxTheBanks petition delivered to Rachel Reeves

Today we delivered our #TaxTheBanks petition to Chancellor Rachel Reeves at Number 11 Downing Street, calling on her to introduce a windfall tax on big bank profits at the Autumn Budget on Wednesday.  

A big thank you to MPs Richard Burgon and Simon Opher, and campaigners from 38 Degrees, who joined us, and an even bigger thank you to the more than 68,000 people who signed. Together, we made our message loud and clear – the government must #TaxTheBanks. 

Bank profits have skyrocketed the last few years without bankers having to lift a finger, thanks to higher interest rates, while energy and food bills have soared for the rest of us. The big four banks - Lloyds, Barclays, NatWest, and HSBC - made a record £45.9 billion in 2024, and are on track to beat that this year. A windfall tax on these profits - in line with the 38% levy on energy companies who have also benefitted from the cost of living crisis - could bring in over £14 billion, enough to scrap the two child benefit cap lifting three-quarters of a million children out of poverty, and help fill the black hole in local council budgets to keep libraries running and stop care homes from closing. 

These windfall profits have come from higher interest rates on mortgage and debt repayments, as well as the wider UK public indirectly, due to the billions of pounds of interest our central bank, the Bank of England, has to pay on the risk-free reserves private banks have to hold with it. At the same time, banks have failed to pass higher rates onto their savings customers and shut more than 6,000 local branches around the country since 2015. 

Banks have (unsurprisingly) come out against this. In the summer the CEOs of Lloyds and HSBC publicly begged Rachel Reeves not to and in September, Barclays CEO, C. S. Venkatakrishnan, called on the government to cut pay rises for public sector workers, like teachers and nurses, rather than hit the banks with tax increases. But it’s crystal clear the rest of us do not agree. 2 in 3 people support a tax on banks, and new polling this week found 64% would support tax rises if the burden fell on the wealthiest. Rachel Reeves herself has said “those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share" - there’s no better place to start than Britain’s biggest banks.

After months of speculation and weeks of rumours, Wednesday’s Budget is a chance for Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer to clearly signal the kind of change they promised to deliver when they entered government last year, and prove whose side they’re really on; big donors and corporate lobbyists from the City - or the rest of us. Let’s hope they make the right choice. 

And many thanks to Nigel Howard for the photographs.

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