Draft Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 General Committees

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Rachel Blake)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. The draft regulations aim to improving the effectiveness of the UK’s anti-money laundering regime. Money laundering is not a victimless crime. It fuels serious organised crime that damages our high streets and ruins the lives of people who fall victim to fraud, human trafficking and the drugs trade. It undermines the UK’s reputation as a safe and secure place to do business and, in doing so, undermines the interests of legitimate businesses.

As new technologies emerge and criminals find new ways to launder illicit funds, the Government are taking action to turn the tide on dirty money. This includes a new high street organised crime unit, which is being set up by the National Crime Agency, backed by £30 million of additional funding over the next three years. It will target cash-intensive businesses, such as barbershops, vape stores, mini-marts and sweetshops, which are exploited by criminal groups to conceal their activities.

The draft regulations represent a significant update to the money laundering regulations, which require financial institutions and other regulated businesses to take measures to avoid being used by criminals to launder the proceeds of crime, and to ensure that any attempts to do so are detected and flagged to law enforcement. They will make a number of changes to ensure that regulatory requirements are proportionate and risk-based, while closing loopholes and making the regime clearer and easier to use. This reflects the Government’s determination to build a more effective anti-money laundering system, sitting alongside the major reforms announced last year to our anti-money laundering supervision regime.

The draft regulations consist of measures on four core themes: making customer due diligence more proportionate and effective; strengthening system co-ordination; closing loopholes in coverage; and reforming registration requirements for the trust registration service. They will also make minor and technical changes to improve consistency and ensure that the UK complies with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force, the global standard-setter on anti-money laundering.

First, the measures on customer due diligence aim to ensure that the checks required on customers are proportionate to the risks. This includes the removal of the requirement for regulated businesses to apply enhanced due diligence checks on countries listed by the FATF as “jurisdictions under increased monitoring”; these are countries found by the FATF to have strategic deficiencies in their regimes. The FATF does not require these checks, and the Government expect that permitting more flexibility here will enable firms to focus their scrutiny on the most serious risks to the UK, as set out in the latest national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing. The Government estimate that this change alone will generate savings of £178 million per year for regulated firms, which can then be reinvested in higher-value compliance activity that identifies genuinely suspicious activity.

Other changes on customer due diligence include important measures to increase the availability of pooled client accounts for businesses with a legitimate need, and to facilitate continued access to banking services for customers in the event of a bank insolvency.

I turn to system co-ordination. The draft regulations will make changes to strengthen co-operation and information-sharing between anti-money laundering supervisors and other public bodies such as Companies House, which plays an increasingly integral role in the UK’s defences against illicit finance.

To close gaps in coverage, the draft regulations will bring the activity of selling off-the-shelf firms within the scope of regulated activities. They will also make changes to ensure that owners of cryptoasset firms do not escape fit and proper checks by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Finally, I turn to the trust registration service. The draft regulations will make a number of changes to close loopholes that would be leveraged to obscure asset ownership; to improve transparency of beneficial ownership of trusts with significant UK connections; and to refine registration requirements for other types of trust.

In summary, the draft regulations contain measures to build a stronger, more risk-based and therefore more effective anti-money laundering regime. I commend them to the Committee.

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[Rachel Blake]

I thank the hon. Member for North West Norfolk for his analysis and for his support for the draft regulations. I am grateful to him for saying that he hopes I will be able to address some of his points, because I wrote down all nine themes. Whether I can address them all as fully as I would like, I am not sure.

I am glad that he raised the Financial Action Task Force list, because I have spent some time over the past few days considering its impact. He is absolutely right to probe on the justification and the approach that will be taken. Some countries on the FATF increased monitoring list are recognised as presenting regional more than international risks, perhaps due to the lack of a specialist in the internationally facing financial sector or due to strict currency controls. The FATF recommends mandatory enhanced due diligence only for countries on the separate “Call for Action” list, which the hon. Member highlighted. That will mean that there is still an opportunity for enhanced due diligence, but the focus will be on those countries that are mandated by the Financial Action Task Force. This is an area for continued scrutiny, and that is something that I will do.

The hon. Member asked about the realisation of savings. Those savings were estimated in terms of the sector, and there is an expectation that it is the sector that will focus on delivering them.

A bank insolvency is obviously a very unusual event, and we are putting in place the appropriate measures to respond to that. The timing of the approach to crypto and vulnerabilities will relate to changes in controlled provisions; I believe that they will come into force for crypto firms on 25 October 2027, which will coincide with the introduction of new financial services regulatory regimes for cryptoassets.

I will come back to the hon. Member on the estimated impact and the evidence base for off-the-shelf companies. He asked for further information about the impact assessment and why more benefits cannot be monetised; I hope that he will accept a written response.

I am confident that the draft regulations will take us further forward in tackling money laundering.

Question put and agreed to.

Banking Hubs

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Rachel Blake)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) for securing this debate and for setting out the concerns of not only of his constituents but, as he made clear, those of the many Members who are in the Chamber this evening who want to talk about this topic. I congratulate him on gathering people from across the country and from across different political persuasions to talk about access to banking services—I know how important it is to people.

Let me start by acknowledging the important work done on this issue by my predecessor, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Lucy Rigby), particularly in relation to the announcement of the independent review on access to banking services and the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which was introduced yesterday. I will return to that later in my speech—in fact, I will probably be referring most hon. Members’ interventions to the access to banking services review.

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned interventions, so I congratulate her and welcome her to her place.

I welcome this Government’s commitment to ensuring that people up and down the country have access to banking services. In my constituency, Mr Jignesh Patel has made an excellent application to open a banking hub in his post office in Anerley, with the support of local Labour councillors for Crystal Palace and Anerley as well as residents. With an experienced team already handling sensitive financial transactions daily and existing infrastructure already in place, his post office is fully equipped to deliver a banking hub with minimal disruption. Does the Minister agree that the application process must ensure that the merits of excellent applications such as that of Mr Jignesh Patel are fully considered, giving him and others the best chance of success?

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[Rachel Blake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful intervention, and I wish local businesses in his constituency all the best. These decisions are made by Link, but the Government keep a very close eye on the assessment criteria.

[Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)]

I want to bring a bit of good news to the House. Last month, I had the honour of cutting the ribbon on a new banking hub on Oxford Street in Ripley. It is an important facility for my constituents, but it is actually the first of its kind. It did not go through the Link procedure; it was identified as a site by Cash Access UK. It is run by and staffed entirely by Cash Access UK, so a continuing team is involved there. Will the Minister recognise the great achievement of Cash Access UK in my town and the importance of similar banking hubs across the country?

[Rachel Blake]

I absolutely recognise the importance of banking hubs, as my hon. Friend has described. I am very grateful to her for highlighting the different models available, and I very much hope that she will submit some of that evidence and the case study to the access to banking services review.

I am particularly struck by the reflections of hon. Members on the importance of banking services for those who are vulnerable, and the importance of banking services in urban and rural communities and how they have been lost.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to her new role.

On the criteria, I have pushed for a banking hub in Budleigh Salterton for a great deal of time, but it was pushed back because there is a post office in the town. The post office was closed for 10 weeks last year, and the surrounding rural villages—places such as East Budleigh, Otterton and Colaton Raleigh—were starved of cash. Will the Minister meet with me to look at the criteria that Link has put in place around the post office’s suitability to see if we can get that overturned?

[Rachel Blake]

I would absolutely be happy to meet with the hon. Member to talk about that issue. I hope to meet with Members from across the House about the access to banking services review.

[Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to her place.

My constituency was one of the lucky ones that was awarded a banking hub two years ago, and I worked with Cash Access UK to secure a temporary place in the council library. Two years on, it has failed to secure an accessible permanent site and is refusing to engage with me. Will the review also look into the delivery of commitments by Cash Access UK?

[Rachel Blake]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution, and I hope that we can discuss it during the review.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I have had the pleasure of opening two banking hubs, in Rossington and in Thorne, and have seen the success that they have brought to the area. However, I also have the Isle of Axholme—a rural area—in my constituency, and access to cash is really important for financial inclusion, local businesses, and the resilience of our rural communities. Will the review take that into account?

[Rachel Blake]

My hon. Friend makes important points about access to banking services across a number of different areas. I am grateful to him, and I hope we can continue to discuss this issue.

We now have very little time left—

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

On that point, will the Minister give way? [Laughter.]

[Rachel Blake]

I will.

[Dave Doogan]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Could she give my constituents some comfort that after the review—I am certain it will find that the current criteria set out for Link by the FCA are deeply flawed and exist in a random, abstract form that bears no resemblance to local people’s circumstances—places such as Pitlochry will be able to revisit Link and the FCA’s flawed decisions?

[Rachel Blake]

I disagree—I think that the hon. Gentleman goes too far in his criticism of the criteria. It is important that the Government continue to monitor how these banking hubs are assessed and the need for them.

I will close by talking about—

[Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Blake]

I am going to make a little bit of progress now, because we do not have much time. Despite the important progress that we have heard this evening about the number of banking hubs that have been set up—a commitment to 275 with 235 already delivered—it would be premature to conclude that all people and communities are receiving support with their banking needs. Decisions to close bank branches are ultimately commercial decisions taken by banks and building societies, and reflect some of the changes in the way people choose to bank.

[Suella Braverman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Blake]

I have to finish now. I welcome the commitments that firms have made to maintain or improve their existing branches, recognising just how important they are to their customers. There are already some rules and obligations for firms that are changing their branch networks, which they must take very seriously. All Members should know that those decisions must be taken with regard to the impact on customers and communities. I underline that banks and building societies are expected to put appropriate alternatives in place ahead of closure, and where they fall short of those expectations, the FCA can and will ask for closures to be paused.

[Suella Braverman]

Will the Minister give way?

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[Rachel Blake]

I am not going to give way. I fully support those powers, and expect the FCA to use them where necessary. However, the Government are concerned that although firms have been reshaping their branch networks in response to customer demand, this may be creating particular challenges, which is why we have brought forward the review.

The Government recognise how important it is that communities such as those represented by the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey and many other Members from all parts of the country have sufficient access to cash and banking services. Banks and building societies are a core part of the everyday economy. It is critical that communities have sufficient access to those important services. I am sure that many Members from across the House agree with that, and I look forward to working with them on the access to banking services review.

Question put and agreed to.

Review of the Ringfencing Regime

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Written Statements

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Rachel Blake)]

At Mansion House 2025, as part of the financial services growth and competitiveness strategy, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed her intention to uphold the ringfencing regime to safeguard financial stability and depositors while taking forward meaningful reform to update the regime and support the Government’s growth agenda. In response, His Majesty’s Treasury has, in close collaboration with the Bank of England, undertaken a review of the regime.

The review has now concluded, and its findings can be found in the review report “Safeguarding Stability, Enabling Growth”, published on gov.uk. The Government will take forward reforms to the regime to enable the ringfenced banks to provide more productive funding to UK business and the real economy, supporting the Government mission to deliver sustainable economic growth.

The ringfencing regime will continue to uphold the financial independence of ringfenced banks and protect retail depositors from volatility in global financial markets.

The Government will take forward reforms in five key areas:

Creating a more agile and proportionate ringfencing framework

As part of the upcoming financial services and markets Bill announced in the King’s Speech, the Government will take forward primary legislation to:

Address unnecessary duplication, by enabling the Prudential Regulation Authority to remove ringfencing rules where the objectives of ringfencing are already met by other prudential requirements or the resolution regime.

Enhance regulatory flexibility, through removing elements of primary legislation that are overly prescriptive.

Deliver better regulatory alignment by ensuring the PRA’s approach to making ringfencing rules reflects developments in the resolution regime for banks.

Enable HM Treasury to move aspects of the regime out of legislation and into PRA rules, so they can be updated in a more agile and proportionate way, and creating greater scope for the PRA to use modifications and waivers.

Allowing ringfenced banks to provide more products and services to support the UK economy

Subject to consultation on the detail this summer, the Government will:

Introduce a new growth allowance, supporting the financing needs of the real economy by permitting ringfenced banks to undertake activities otherwise prohibited by the regime. The Government will consult on an allowance worth up to 10% of their pillar 1 risk-weighted assets for credit risk, which could be used to unlock up to £80 billion of financing for UK businesses.

Allow ringfenced bodies to offer a more comprehensive range of hedging products to businesses, supporting investment by ensuring they can more effectively manage their risks as they grow.

Ensure RFBs can fully support Government priorities through the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund by enabling participation in funding schemes that are guaranteed or offered by UK public financial institutions.

Permit exposures to a wider range of financial institutions where those firms undertake activities that the ringfencing regime would permit the RFB to undertake directly.

Addressing inefficiencies in how ringfencing is applied to banking groups

The PRA and Financial Policy Committee will review how ringfencing interacts with certain capital requirements, including how the Basel 3.1 output floor and the leverage ratio is applied to banks in the regime.

The Bank of England will review its calibration of the internal minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities scalar to ensure the appropriate amount of loss-absorbing capacity is pre-positioned at the RFB.

Sharing resources and services more flexibly across the ringfence to reduce or remove operational burdens

The PRA has today announced that it will consult on allowing firms more flexibility as to how they share operational resources across the ringfence.

The Government will consult on legislation to enable surpluses in closed RFB pension schemes to be shared with other schemes in a wider banking group, subject to certain conditions, enabling flexibility in how surplus funds are used.

Maintaining proportionality

The £35 billion primary threshold will be subject to review every three years, with a view to uprating it in line with changes to the market and deposit base.

The PRA will review ringfencing-specific reporting requirements as part of its regular review of its ringfencing rules, reporting in 2028, to ensure they are proportionate once the revised regime is in place.

The review is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-stability-enabling-growth-the-ring-fencing-review

[HCWS27]

Consumer Credit Act 1974: Reform

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2026 Written Statements

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Rachel Blake)]

2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. The world, the way people interact with their finances, and the consumer credit market are dramatically different today and the transformation in 50 years has been vast—79% of the public now hold at least one regulated credit product, new products such as “buy now, pay later” have come to the market, and digital technology has transformed how people use and take out credit.

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/financial-lives/fls-2024-credit-loans.pdf

It is perhaps not surprising that the legislation has not kept up. While it was well designed for its time, the CCA is increasingly under strain to deliver for the way consumers and firms now use and provide credit. The existing legislation and supporting regulations are poorly adapted to technology that was not envisaged 50 years ago. Successive updates over time have created a complex and prescriptive regime. In 2014 work was commenced to modernise the regime, with many CCA provisions being repealed and recast into Financial Conduct Authority rules in the consumer credit sourcebook, and the Government are continuing this work.

The Government have identified opportunities to deliver a modernised consumer credit regime that aims to ensure that consumers receive clearer information at the right time, utilising technological developments, enabling them to make informed financial decisions throughout the consumer journey, as well as simplified rights and protections that achieve proportionate regulation while achieving robust consumer protection.

Modernising the CCA aims to achieve a more agile, flexible and proportionate regulatory regime that better supports innovation and economic growth alongside robust protection for consumers. This will enable firms to better tailor products and consumer journeys to achieve good consumer outcomes, in line with the broader FCA consumer duty principle. It also brings consumer credit in line with the modern UK model of financial services regulation, whereby the scope of regulation is determined by Parliament, with the detailed conduct rules set by the regulator.

The policy statement published today outlines the Government’s approach to reform of the CCA, which will be delivered via the forthcoming financial services and markets Bill. The FCA is also publishing a statement on its direction regarding CCA reform measures announced today.

The policy statement is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-consumer-credit-act-1974-cca-reform

[HCWS28]

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are backing Grangemouth and have put money into the Acorn carbon capture and storage project. We are taking £150 off people’s energy bills in Scotland. In England and Wales, NHS waiting lists are falling. I wonder why they are still increasing in Scotland.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

Short-term lets—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Dave Doogan, what is it about you always wanting to shout at the wrong time? Please be quiet.

[Rachel Blake]

Short-term lets account for up to 20% of homes in parts of my constituency. Not only are they eroding communities, but I am concerned that their owners are not fully paying their tax. What steps will the Chancellor take to address the fact that data from Airbnb suggests that as many as 6,000 homes are being let on short-term lets, but vanishingly few are registered to pay business rates? Will she meet me to discuss this issue, and how we can recover the tax, which could be up to hundreds of millions of pounds—

[Mr Speaker]

Minister, “Yes” will do.

OBR: Resignation of Chair

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

The Chancellor has delivered a Budget that takes the challenges of this country head on, cuts the cost of living, continues to cut NHS waiting lists, cuts Government borrowing, and meets the priorities of the British people.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

The OBR’s investigation has two particularly striking findings: the first was the number of attempts to access the documents in question; and the second was the lack of security for those documents. What specific actions does the Minister believe the OBR should take to overcome those things at future fiscal events? Does he agree it is possible to have confidence in the principle of an independent OBR alongside undertaking meaningful and significant scrutiny of some of the organisation’s actions?

[James Murray]

I very much agree with the sentiment of my hon. Friend’s question. The OBR is a vital part of our fiscal framework—indeed, as I mentioned earlier, one of the first acts we took on entering government was to strengthen its role to ensure that it could never be sidelined. It is precisely because we see the OBR as holding such an important place in our fiscal framework that it is important that we maintain its integrity and trust.

My hon. Friend asks what further steps the OBR will take. We will work with the National Cyber Security Centre and the OBR to take forward the recommendation that a forensic examination of potential premature access at previous fiscal events is carried out. Let me add that there is no evidence of hostile cyber-activity, but the OBR report’s findings indicated access at previous fiscal events. That is a very serious matter that we will investigate.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kit Malthouse]

I will in a minute. The third point I want to make, which I guess is the one that might appeal most to Government Members, is that this tax is generationally unfair. Younger people move house more often, so they are more exposed to this tax. The younger someone is, the more likely they are to be building a family, to require more space, and to be moving up the ladder. Older people tend to sit still. They sit pretty on their capital, which is often in unmortgaged houses. Because of the lack of a market, they generally under-occupy the houses they own. When looking at stamp duty, we have to look at generational fairness, too.

In my constituency, hundreds and hundreds of aspirational families need more space. They would like to move up the ladder. They have worked hard and accumulated a deposit and the money that would allow them to move, but they want to spend that money on curtains, carpets, decoration and all the rest of it. They are deterred from moving by this tax. If we are to be fair to the next generation, we have to not only build the houses that they want to buy, but make it cheap for them to buy them, and that means cancelling stamp duty.

For all those reasons—to ensure fluidity and liquidity in a market that is skewed to produce artificially high prices; to ensure a market in which developers take a risk and build more houses, and landowners put land forward; but fundamentally for a generation who are being denied access to housing—we need to take seriously the idea that stamp duty is at the heart of the problem, and we need to abolish it entirely. The Liberal Democrats say that abolishing it will raise prices. It of course raises prices if we tell people that there is a window. That would result in frantic activity from those who are desperate to buy. If the abolition becomes permanent, we get a liquid market that achieves a real price, notwithstanding the initial bump.

As for those who say that the savings cannot be found, we should be able to find this amount of money, given the size of the Government’s budget, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said. I had a look this morning, and I could find 50% of the amount in the Department for Transport’s budget, no problem. The other half could come from the welfare reforms on which the Labour party bottled it. We could easily find the money and do the whole country and the economy an enormous favour.

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[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to speak in the debate. In a spirit of cross-party unity, I congratulate His Majesty’s Opposition on their valiant and brave attempts to dress up a political tax cut as a meaningful intervention in the housing market. I have been looking at every single Conservative Member who has spoken and thinking about whether they really believe that such a tax cut would actually make a difference.

[Bradley Thomas]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Rachel Blake]

I would like to develop my argument a little bit further, and then I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member. I read the Opposition’s proposals with interest, and have been looking to see exactly how they intend to fund their proposed tax cut. I am struck by the fact that the Conservatives want to bring forward even more unfunded proposals. They are not satisfied with their devastation of public services after their attempts at austerity; with crashing the economy, driving up mortgage costs and rents, and driving down the supply of new homes and overall rates of home ownership; or with their botched Brexit deal, which, through its impact on the economy, has wrecked many people’s chance to buy a home. No, they propose yet more ill-thought-through tax cuts.

In the likely event that the Opposition’s ill-thought-through proposals for funding this tax cut are undeliverable, I wonder whether they would cut £14 billion from Labour’s £39 billion investment in genuinely affordable homes. Would they cut £14 billion from the £23 billion that the Government invested in the National Wealth Fund to get our economy going? Would they take money out of our £3.8 billion homelessness fund? The truth is that the Conservative Government’s interventions in the housing market resulted in temporary accommodation use, rough sleeping, mortgage rates and rents going up, and home ownership going down. The Tories pretend to be the party of home ownership, but it is Labour that is absolutely determined to get homes built. It is Labour that is coming forward with proposals to get homes built, and Labour, I believe, that will deliver on that.

[Bradley Thomas]

Does the hon. Member accept that over the last 30 years, the four years with the highest levels of new housing delivery occurred since 2018, under Conservative Governments? She is trying to make the point that stamp duty abolition is a tax cut dressed up as an intervention in the housing market. What on earth is wrong with giving a tax cut to aspirational people who work hard and want to move up the housing ladder?

[Rachel Blake]

For the last two hours, the proposal has been presented by Opposition Members as a meaningful housing market intervention because of their supposed commitment to aspiration. The Labour party has always been the party of aspiration, and it has been the driving force behind social mobility throughout the last century. [Interruption.] Conservative Members know that, and that is why they are chuntering so much.

[Rachel Gilmour]

I wanted to speak earlier on social mobility, which the hon. Lady mentioned. If anybody wants to see what happens to social mobility under the Conservatives, all they need do is come to Minehead in my constituency, which is ranked 324th out of 324 for social mobility in the entire country, having had a Conservative Member of Parliament for 23 years who did nothing.

[Rachel Blake]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, which speaks for itself.

There is a stark contrast with what the Labour Government are doing, and their meaningful interventions in the housing market. The Renters Rights Act 2025, which has received Royal Assent, is stabilising life for renters, making sure that they no longer live in fear of no-fault evictions. We have also defeated a judicial review against vested interests and freeholders, so that we can move forward with our leasehold proposals. Those are both significant interventions that the Opposition failed to deliver after 14 years, five of which they spent trying to deliver reform for renters and leaseholders that would have meaningfully stabilised the housing market. We have not heard anything about all the people stuck in their homes because of the last Government’s complete failure to tackle the cladding crisis or leasehold. We have just had political dressing-up of an unfunded proposed tax cut.

The other thing that the Labour Government have done is made sure that we are stabilising the economy. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) told us, people who want to save up to join the housing market need a stable economy. We have seen interest rates come down five times, which we think is saving mortgage payers about £100 a month. They are better off because of the stability that our Chancellor and this Labour Government are beginning to deliver.

[Gregory Stafford]

The hon. Lady is being generous with interventions; I thank her for that. To bring her back to stamp duty land tax, the average house price in her constituency is over £1 million. [Interruption.] I have not quite finished. Her constituents are the precise people who would benefit from this saving. Does she not think that they would welcome the abolition of this tax?

[Rachel Blake]

I am interested in how much the hon. Member knows about my constituency. He may know that nearly half of my constituents are private renters, and only about 15% can afford to own their own home in my constituency because of the record failures of the previous Government to do something about the cladding crisis, the supply of new genuinely affordable homes and the delivery of low-cost home ownership, which would have really made a difference. Rather than the Conservatives’ ill-thought-through proposals, Westminster city council under its Labour leadership is able to deliver more genuinely affordable homes, and this Labour Government are taking the challenge seriously.

We have seen His Majesty’s Opposition make a valiant attempt to dress up a politically motivated tax cut as a meaningful housing intervention. Serious thinking, this is not. I am pleased that the House will vote against their ill-thought-through proposal and that we will carry on with delivering meaningful intervention in the housing market and making sure that our publicly funded services are stable into the future.

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[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

I thank my colleagues for their enthusiasm. It is a great pleasure to contribute to this really important debate. So many people—particularly young people—are desperate to get their foot on the housing ladder, but they feel—

[Rachel Blake]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Rebecca Paul]

I gently say to the hon. Member that I have not really got into the flow of my speech yet, either. I will finish the first sentence before I take any interventions. People feel that that vital first rung is utterly out of their reach.

I remember when I bought my first property. It was the most amazing feeling in the world when I first walked through that door, with those keys. It was really hard to earn enough to secure the mortgage that I needed and to save up the money for the stamp duty and the deposit. I managed to do it, but I would have been able to do it sooner without that stamp duty cost. That is why I am delighted that the Conservatives have come forward with a clear, coherent and aspirational plan to abolish stamp duty land tax on the purchase of primary residences and to open up the dream of home ownership to the next generation.

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[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

This debate captures the key difference between Conservatives and the Labour party, because we on the Conservative Benches believe in people. We believe in their talent, their drive, their hopes and their aspirations. By contrast, the Labour party likes to box people in, to restrict, to regulate and to let the state determine every aspect of their lives. We on this side of the House believe in setting people free to work hard, to achieve and to build their own future. Let us unleash the power of individual freedom. Let us unleash the energy of the maker and of enterprise. Above all, let us unleash the unstoppable force of aspiration across every part of the UK. The word “aspiration” runs through the very DNA of the Conservative party. It is who we are, from delivering educational reforms and promoting social mobility to delivering a property-owning democracy.

[Rachel Blake]

I would be grateful if the hon. Member would expand on how that driving value of aspiration came into the Conservative Government when they were completely failing to address the urgent need for leasehold reform over the past five years, when so many people have been suffering and unable to sell their leasehold homes because of the cladding on those homes. Where was the aspiration then?

[Mr Bedford]

I will give the hon. Member an example of Conservative aspiration. My family never owned their own homes—my grandparents did not own their own home—but Margaret Thatcher gave them the opportunity to do so. She gave many people like my grandparents the opportunity to aspire, to achieve and to own their own homes. That is the aspiration we need to get back to as a country. Every generation of Conservatives has understood this ambition. It is not our background that shapes our future. This is equality of opportunity in action, not the equality of outcome that the Labour party desire so much.

We cannot talk about aspiration without celebrating the Prime Minister who understood it best. Mrs Thatcher gave people the freedom to own their own future. She rewarded hard work through lower taxes, turned millions of people into shareholders through privatisation and made dreams of home ownership a reality for many across the country with her right-to-buy scheme. Mrs Thatcher just got it; she understood human nature. She understood that people are ambitious and she knew that when we trust individuals and not the state, Britain succeeds.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

As was set out in the 10-year infrastructure strategy, £24 billion of capital funding between 2026-27 and 2029-30 has been allocated to National Highways, which is the organisation responsible for maintaining the M48 Severn bridge. The funding includes £1 billion to enhance local road networks and create a new structures fund, which will be used to repair a range of key local structures, such as bridges, flyovers and tunnels.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

Constituents in Marylebone want to see improvements to the railway engines that go into Marylebone station. Does the Treasury agree that more work can be done to ensure that the overall investment in those trains is supported by the benefits that accrue across the whole line, all the way down to Aylesbury, as investment in those trains will make a big difference to growth along the whole track?

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the critical importance of investment in our railway infrastructure. We know that under the previous Government, we had chronic under-investment in the infrastructure across our country, and the railways bore the brunt of much of that neglect. We are determined to turn that around to ensure that we are investing in railway infrastructure to improve the quality of life for people and drive economic growth right across this country.

Taxes

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell]

The hon. Member would do well to listen to what I have to say, and I will come to wealth taxation shortly, but I would appreciate it if she did not take that very condescending tone with me—I spent more than a decade working in the financial services industry myself.

These measures have been taken because it is simply the right thing to do. When a nurse in Bolton hospital is paying a higher effective tax rate than someone making millions on property or shares, the system is not just broken; it is unfair.

Thirdly, the Government have cracked down on tax-dodging, with more funding for HMRC to go after tax evaders and bring down the stubbornly high tax gap. That gap—the difference between what the Government are owed and what they actually collect—currently stands at almost £50 billion. That figure—50,000 times £1 million—is almost the size of the entire defence budget in 2023-24. Unlike the dearth of policy proposals from the Conservative party, I constructively implore the Government to continue tackling the enablers of dodgy tax schemes. Firms that promote aggressive tax avoidance schemes will now be held to account with fines of up to £1 million. I welcome that measure in particular.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for HMRC to work with local authorities to take action on tax evasion by high street stores that do not act fairly, like the awful Harry Potter stores in my constituency? I am worried about the impact that they have on the high street and on our tax revenues.

[Phil Brickell]

My hon. Friend, who has been a fantastic champion on tackling that issue, makes a valid point.

The Opposition would have us believe that taxes writ large are a drag on growth, but the truth is more nuanced. What stifles growth is instability. What repels investment is unpredictability. What corrodes trust is a tax system that rewards avoidance while underfunding our schools, hospitals and police. Labour is putting more money in people’s pockets by boosting the minimum wage for 3 million workers. Wages are growing more in our first 10 months than in an entire 10 years under the Tories.

I would urge the Chief Secretary to the Treasury not to rest on his laurels, however, because there is more to do. I propose three policy priorities that I hope the Treasury will give serious consideration. First, we should review and reform current tax reliefs. Some £204 billion—a quarter of all tax revenue—was spent on tax reliefs in 2022-23, yet many of those reliefs are uncosted, unscrutinised and susceptible to abuse. The Treasury Committee was right to call for a rationalisation of those reliefs. We must audit them for efficacy, eliminate those that serve no public interest and crack down on those that have become vehicles for avoidance.

Secondly, I draw the Minister’s attention to the issue of tax-dodging in our own backyard. At the end of last month, a number of British overseas territories, including the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, missed yet another deadline to introduce public registers of beneficial ownership. The Minister will know that this is a long-running issue. The BVI in particular has missed deadlines in 2020, 2023 and 2025, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) knows well, he having campaigned strongly on this issue over many years.

In January this year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, working alongside the BBC and The Guardian, revealed that Roman Abramovich, the former owner of Chelsea football club, may owe the Treasury up to £1 billion in unpaid corporation tax, penalties and interest. That is from corporate structures with a value of $6 billion, set up through an offshore web of hedge fund vehicles primarily registered in the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus, in what looks like an ultimately botched attempt to reduce tax liabilities.

When a Russian oligarch allegedly manipulates British secrecy jurisdictions in order to obscure profits made from UK-based centres of control, it undermines the credibility and fairness of our tax system. We need every British overseas territory to adopt full public beneficial ownership registers, so that sham structures such as Abramovich’s can be traced, challenged and taxed. Dirty money—the kind that flows beneath the waves of secrecy—corrodes the entire tax system, so I call on the Minister never to shy away from the globe-spanning challenge of tax abuse hidden in the nooks and crannies of our own backyard.

Let me turn to my third and final recommendation for the Government, which relates to the often overlooked distortion in our system of pension tax relief. This long-standing relief disproportionately benefits higher earners, and it has been my settled view for a number of years that we must look again at how it operates. Currently, higher rate taxpayers enjoy 40% relief on pension contributions, while the highest earners enjoy 45% relief. Basic rate taxpayers nevertheless enjoy a rate of just 20%. Total pension tax reliefs cost circa £40 billion per year to the Treasury, according to HMRC. Of that total, two thirds is relief for those on incomes in the 40% and 45% income tax bracket, which represented 12% of the adult population in 2023-24, according to the IFS.

That highlights the inequity here: a system of relief that is tilted to those who need it least, not to incentivise moderate earners putting into pensions but to support those on the highest incomes. I urge the Minister to consider moving to a flat rate model of, say, 30%, independent of income bracket, so that every saver gets equal recognition for securing their own retirement.

Finally, with my industry expertise in addressing tax evasion before I came to this place, I would like to address the siren calls of a broader wealth tax being made by a number of colleagues on the Government Benches and elsewhere in the House. Increases in capital gains tax to align them closer to income tax are welcome. Wealth and work should be taxed at similar rates—it is as simple as that—but I have a few words of caution for proponents of wealth taxes.

The Wealth Tax Commission itself acknowledges that wealth taxes could incentivise the wealthy to hide assets behind legal vehicles using expensive lawyers and secrecy jurisdictions. HMRC is already chronically short-staffed, under-resourced and hamstrung by complexity. Without dismantling the complex web of ultimate beneficial owners, offshore trusts, nominee directors and secrecy jurisdictions, we are at grave risk of opening up a game of whack-a-mole that we would likely see the Government lose to deep-pocketed and well-lawyered high net worth individuals who can run circles around HMRC and law enforcement and secrete their assets elsewhere.

My firm view is that the Government should instead crack down on tax evasion, simplify the tax code, streamline existing reliefs and bring capital gains tax levels closer to income tax. The Centre for the Analysis of Taxation estimates that closer alignment of capital gains and income taxes alone could raise some £14 billion for the Exchequer.

As a country, we face enormous challenges: an ageing population, creaking infrastructure, rising global instability and the urgency of the net zero transition. We know that public services are under strain. We need to raise funds in a way that is both fair and that promotes the growth we need to get our country back on its feet after 14 years of Tory decline. Let us be clear: taxation is not merely a tool for revenue but the lifeblood of our social contract, which is why we desperately need a responsible and workable tax system, to ensure that education is a right, not a privilege, that healthcare is free at the point of use and that the most vulnerable in our society are protected.

Government Performance against Fiscal Rules

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Lady encourages me to act above my pay grade. The Chancellor will set out the date for the autumn Budget in due course. The hon. Lady invited me to explain to the House what our strategy was at the Budget—it was about investing in the renewal of Britain. That is why the Chancellor’s decision to update the fiscal rules to allow billions of pounds of investment in our capital infrastructure across the country, including into schools and hospitals, was the reason that the Budget was set out as it was. She also asked me about trade deals. I politely point to the three trade deals that the Government have already agreed with the European Union, India and the United States of America, saving thousands of jobs across the UK and generating growth in the years ahead.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree that it is because of these fiscal rules that this Government have been able to establish firm foundations for future growth? Will he explain to the House how the Budget stability rule supports the Government with confidence of investors and businesses?

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend knows from her work on the Treasury Committee that the fiscal rules are important because they prove that the Government are in control of the public finances. We saw what happened when the last Government lost control: the cost of Government borrowing went through the roof, and that takes money out of budgets before they even get to public services like the national health service. That is why this Government are committed to our fiscal rules and will ensure that they are being implemented.