Financial Services Reform

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We are intent on building the 1.5 million homes that we promised at the election. I remind the chuntering hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench that even before the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the OBR scored the first stage of the planning reforms as the largest increase in GDP by the end of the scorecard of any non-fiscal lever in its history.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The Economic Secretary may want to have a look at Hansard and make sure she got the right soundbite on the record about the 10 months of wage growth and the comparison. My understanding is that wage growth was indeed slow after the financial crash. We tried to compensate for that by increasing personal allowances, but wage growth has bounced back since the pandemic. She may want to correct the record if that is the case.

On the reforms, which have migrated from Edinburgh down to Leeds, the Treasury Committee will scrutinise the implementation. Is it her vision that they should be implemented over the next year, before the next Mansion House speech, rather than on the 10-year basis of the strategy as she outlined?

[Emma Reynolds]

I refer the hon. Lady to page 63 of the strategy, which is very useful. It sets out an ambitious timeline for implementing the reforms that the Chancellor set out at the Mansion House last night and in Leeds yesterday morning, and shows her that we have already taken action to implement some of the decisions we took in November last year, such as introducing the private intermittent securities and capital exchange system. PISCES is a new private intermittent securities market that is open for business, and for which we legislated in May. That demonstrates how we are working at pace. Other things will take a little longer, and her extensive experience in this place and in government means that she will understand that some of those things require primary legislation. However, she will see through the two-page summary at the back of the strategy how we plan to implement the reforms at pace to unleash the potential of the financial services sector.