Key points from Rachel Reeves's Leeds reforms
The measures include reforming key banking rules, cutting red tape in the City, and getting more people moving cash out of savings and into stocks and shares.
The Chancellor said the ' Leeds reforms', unveiled in the West Yorkshire city, 'represent the widest set of reforms to financial services for more than a decade'.
These are the key points in the package of measures unveiled by the Treasury.
The key measures for individuals:
– A new advertising campaign will highlight the benefits of investing to individual consumers.
Major banks and financial firms including including Barclays, Lloyds, Vanguard and Hargreaves Lansdown have agreed to take part in the campaign to help spread awareness.
– Banks will be able to offer a new type of help called 'targeted support' from April next year.
This means they can alert customers about specific investment opportunities, in hopes it will encourage groups of people with cash sitting in low-return current accounts to move it into stocks and shares.
– Risk warnings on investment products will come under a review to ensure people can make accurate judgements about risk levels – potentially opening the door to some warnings being watered down.
– Long term asset funds will be allowed to be held in stocks and shares Isas next year.
Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets for Hargreaves Lansdown, said the change will 'open up far more investment' because it means cash can go into private assets and infrastructure projects, which currently are not allowed to be in mainstream Isas.
– The Government will continue to consider reforms to Isas and savings to strike the right balance between cash savings and investment.
The key measures for banks and building societies:
– Looser lending rules will allow banks and building societies to offer more mortgages at 4.5 times a buyer's income, which is expected to mean thousands more loans become available for first-time buyers.
– The bank ring-fencing regime, which separates banks' retail banking from their investment and international banking activities, will be reformed.
– The Bank of England has raised the threshold at which smaller and mid-sized banks have to start holding emergency funding.
Easing capital requirements is expected to help smaller banks scale up by freeing up more money for lending and investment.
The key measures for the City: – The UK's Financial Ombudsman Service – which settles complaints between consumers and businesses – will be modernised and simplified and decisions will be more aligned with the financial regulator.
– Plans to ease rules around senior manager appointments will be sped up, reducing the number of roles that are subject to regulatory approval.
The regime was introduced after the 2008 financial crisis to make individuals more accountable for their conduct and any problems that arise under their watch.
– Consumer Duty, a set of rules which set higher standards of consumer protection, will be reviewed by the UK's financial regulator over how it applies to investment banks and asset managers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
12 minutes ago
- BBC News
Children at risk of being recruited by hostile states, police warn
Counter-terror police have warned the activity of hostile states on British soil is posing a growing threat and urged families to watch for signs their children are being along with petty criminals and disillusioned people, may be more vulnerable to recruitment by Russia, Iran and China, they states are increasingly using proxies to carry out acts of sabotage and targeted violence in the UK, counter-terror police said, adding that investigating such activity now accounts for about 20% of their and teachers should "be inquisitive" and "seek help" if they think a child is at risk, police advised. Since the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 – which targeted Russian double agent Sergei Skripal – there has been a five-fold increase in police work to tackle hostile activity, commanders said."The breadth, complexity and volume of these operations has continued to grow at a rate that I'm not sure that us, or our partners internationally, or any intelligence community predicted," Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter-Terrorism Command, told reporters."We are increasingly seeing these three states, but not just these three states, undertaking threat to life operations in the United Kingdom."The youngest person arrested or investigated on suspicion of involvement is aged in their "mid-teens", he Evans, Counter Terrorism Policing's senior national co-ordinator, expressed concern other children may be encouraged online to carry out activities to earn money, without realising the implications of their actions."We really encourage people, parents, teachers, professionals just to be inquisitive," she said."If they're concerned, ask those questions, and if they think there's something they need to be concerned about, seek help and act, because we want to make sure that we're protecting people from inadvertently being drawn into this sort of activity."The Metropolitan Police is now putting additional resources into tackling hostile state activity, with training for officers in "foreign interference" and hundreds taking part in recent exercises in how to respond."We're working with local force chiefs up and down the country to raise awareness and ensure that there really is an increased understanding about this threat," Ms Evans this month, two low-level criminals were among five people convicted of involvement in an arson attack on a warehouse storing communications equipment for said the attack had been ordered by Russia's Wagner group, and that one of the ringleaders, 21-year-old Dylan Earl, had been plotting to kidnap its owner, a Russian dissident. The Met said it was also dealing with a "high volume" of threats from Iran, focused on those considered to be opponents of the Islamic Republic."We know that they are continuing to try and sow violence on the streets of the United Kingdom, they too are to some extent relying on criminal proxies to do that," Mr Murphy use of criminal proxies offers "arms-length deniability," according to Ms Evans, who blames the rising threat on the "continued erosion of the rule-based international order".The warnings came in the first specific briefing for journalists from counter-terrorism police on the threat of hostile state activity."Foreign regimes are more willing than ever to undertake aggressive actions overseas," Ms Evans said.
The Independent
12 minutes ago
- The Independent
Google partners with Youngkin and offers AI training courses to Virginia job seekers
Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced on Tuesday that Google will partner with his administration to provide free and low-cost artificial intelligence certification courses to Virginians as part of his office's ongoing effort to connect citizens to new jobs amid changes to the state's economy. The partnership, which he has described as an AI career launchpad, will provide Google-sponsored AI training courses for up to 10,000 Virginians at any given time, officials said at Google's office in the northern part of the state. The training opportunities will be listed on a job website that Youngkin launched earlier this year, in response to significant layoffs among federal workers by the Trump administration, including many workers from Virginia. 'All fields, all career movements somewhere along the way, are going to incorporate this next generation of technology,' Youngkin said at the news conference. The initiative comes with unemployment rising in Virginia, which has roughly 20,400 continued unemployment claims, state Secretary of Labor George' Bryan' Slater said after the news conference. Roughly 2,800 people initially filed unemployment claims during the first week of July, which is about 6.1 percent higher than the previous week. The AI webpage will feature the free courses as well as some low-cost learning opportunities, ranging 'from beginner friendly courses on AI fundamentals and practical workplace applications of artificial intelligence to bootcamps and degree programs offered by Virginia's leading-edge community colleges and universities,' according to the governor's office. Nicole Overley, commissioner of Virginia Works, said businesses have told her office that AI proficiency has become increasingly necessary in their industries. She said the training would help Virginians become competitive in the job markets where these very businesses are hiring. Overly confirmed that the training courses won't cost taxpayers anything and are being donated by Google. Bronagh Friel, head of partnerships at Google, said she was proud of the collaboration with the state. 'Google is committed to championing economic growth and opportunity in Virginia,' she said. ___ Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Telegraph
14 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Finally, the ineptitude I saw first-hand has been exposed
Now the public can see for the first time the true scale of the ineptitude of the British state, through two successive governments, concerning Afghanistan. Even after the loss of 457 British personnel, and the billions of pounds it cost to prosecute, the war in Afghanistan reveals yet another cataclysmic skeleton in the cupboard when it comes to how we have treated our Afghan allies. It is mind-boggling that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could email a spreadsheet of all those with ties to the British state to an Afghan national, over the internet, to post on Facebook for the Taliban to see. But not for me. Whilst there will no doubt be a rush to blame the individual who sent it (I know who he is), it would be entirely unfair and wrong to do so. Because I can honestly say this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government, of which this poor individual was just the end of the line. I was subject to the injunction. I created and ran an Afghan task force to work rehome eligible Afghans under Rishi Sunak, the then prime minister. The Home Office, MoD, Department for Levelling Up and the Foreign Office just could not seem to work together; the prime minister asked me to try and unblock it from my neutral position in the Cabinet Office. I had also made no secret of my desire to relocate Afghan special forces personnel from that country to this, in the wake of August 2021. I stand by that wholeheartedly. These brave souls fought alongside us cheek by jowl; they carried stretchers of dead UK soldiers; they fought hard and battled bravely. But there were only ever about 1,000-1,200 badged members of CF 333 and CF444. I couldn't understand where all these Afghans were coming from. Everyone seemed to know about it I had no idea why the injunction existed in the first place; the list had appeared on Facebook and everyone, including the media, seemed to know about it. Officials seemed to get a bit of a kick out of something being 'Top Secret'. I thought it was weird, and it wasn't a secret. It was a direct result of the chaos that engulfed the MoD at the end of the Afghanistan war. Those on the ground during Op Pitting saw awful things, were incredibly brave and saved thousands of lives. I also saw how hard Ben Wallace worked to do the right thing. But since then it has been awful. The MoD has tried at every turn to cut off those from Afghan special forces units from coming to the UK, for reasons I cannot fathom. They also lied to themselves about doing it. The UK's director of Special Forces told me personally that he was offended and angry by my suggestion that his organisation was blocking the Triples. Certain MoD ministers had a criminal lack of professional curiosity as to why the Triples were being rejected when there were so many subject matter experts who said they clearly should be eligible. They even tried for a long time to say that Afghan special forces were not eligible. When I contradicted them, one 'friend' made an official complaint to the Cabinet Office permanent secretary about me not being 'collegiate', or going along with government policy. I had to inform them that they were directly lying to Parliament, and any statement I made publicly would repeat that. I think the whips told him to piss off too after he went moaning to them about me. And the net result of this spectacular cluster is that we've let into this country thousands with little or tenuous links to the UK, and still some Afghan special forces we set up the bloody schemes for, remain trapped in Afghanistan, Pakistan or worse, Iran. I feel furious, sad and bitter about the whole thing, and do as much as I can to get through each day not thinking about Afghanistan. But some don't have that luxury. Naveed, a sergeant from Commando Force 333, a partnering unit of Task Force 42, a British SBS Task Force who I was with in Afghanistan in 2008-09, thinks about it every day. Every day his comrades still reach out to him, thinking I can do something about it. His parents and immediate family, despite being under significant threat, remain in Afghanistan, three times rejected from resettlement pathways. I am ashamed of the MoD and how they have acted on these schemes for three years now. I don't think it is a conspiracy surrounding the Afghan inquiry – that sort of thing requires a level of competence I have never seen in either UK Special Forces or the MoD. Even now, there are brave folk in Afghanistan who soldiered alongside elite troops from this country prosecuting the highest level of UK objectives in Afghanistan, who are still hiding from the Taliban. I secured a review of all Afghan special forces applications after I pointed out that they were all being rejected in February 2024. It was supposed to take 12 weeks. Seventy-nine weeks later that review is yet to report. I've promised Naveed I will get his family too. Short of hiring a Land Rover and going for it, I'm running out of ideas.
