Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to help increase the UK’s global competitiveness in green finance.

The Government has taken world-leading action to green the financial system, and we remain fully committed to that work. The action we have taken is part of the reason that London has been consistently ranked as the world’s top financial centre in the Global Green Finance Index.

We were the first major country to publish a Green Finance Strategy in 2019 and in March 2023 we published an updated Green Finance Strategy. It set out our ambitious work on green finance, providing further clarity on key policy areas such as our ambition to become a Net Zero Aligned Financial Centre, and next steps under our Sustainability Disclosure Requirements framework, including transition plan disclosures, and next steps on the UK Green Taxonomy. In addition, as part of the 2024 Spring Budget, the Government has announced that it will proceed with developing a regulatory regime for ESG ratings providers, aiming to improve transparency and promote good conduct.