Boost for owner occupation is key demand of UK Finance manifesto

UK Finance has released its financial services manifesto, outlining key priorities the next government should focus on.

David Postings, Chief Executive of UK Finance, says:  “The UK’s financial services sector is a global success story and one any future government should seek to partner with and support.

“Our sector delivers real benefits to society by helping people buy their homes, helping companies scale up, providing financial education, fighting fraud, and much more.

“I hope that by outlining the policy agenda the sector would like to see taken forward post-election, and through working in partnership with government, we can help build a better society for all.”

UK Finance says the next government should:

Support people and businesses
•    Improve the environment for savers by reviewing personal savings allowances.  
•    Deliver financial education through the school curriculum, including across all devolved nations.
•    Establish a new cross-government taskforce to help tackle financial abuse.  
•    Maintain the currently increased thresholds at which movers and first-time buyers pay Stamp Duty on a home purchase and increase Stamp Duty bands annually in line with the UK House Price Index.
•    Create an independent Retrofit Advisory Service - a ‘one stop shop’ for free retrofitting advice, modelled on similar services in Scotland and Ireland.
•    Extend the new Growth Guarantee Scheme for the full term of the next Parliament.

Support communities and society
•    Introduce a new Fraud and Scams Bill which draws on the Online Fraud Charter.
•    Make technology, social media and telecoms companies contribute to the cost of tackling economic crime and fraud reimbursement.
•    Legislate to ensure information held on Companies House can be properly verified and relied upon.
•    Publish detailed net zero investment roadmaps for key sectors of the economy.  
•    Give the UK Infrastructure Bank a greater mandate to invest in net zero projects to unlock private investment.  

Support growth
•    Champion the National Payments Vision and Strategy to ensure a world-leading payments ecosystem.
•    Issue a digital gilt backed by HM Treasury to encourage the development of securities tokenisation.  
•    Create a Government Champion for Competitiveness with a remit to produce an annual report to Parliament on the burden of regulation for financial services, including the impacts on different types of financial services firms.  
•    Publish a tax roadmap for financial services.
•    Use the Berne Financial Services Agreement as a blueprint for agreements with other overseas financial centres.  

UK Finance’s full manifesto, including further detail on the recommendations, can be seen here.