LONDON (Reuters) – Shares in Britain’s banks rose on Wednesday as hopes grew that lenders would escape a levy on their profits to help plug the gap in public finances as part of UK finance minister Rachel Reeves’s first government budget.
By 1328 GMT, Reeves had made no mention of any tax increase, although she was still speaking to parliament and documents relating to the budget had not been released, meaning a tax might yet still appear.
Financial equality campaigners had advocated for an increase in the surcharge that banks pay on their liabilities, known as the bank levy, or a so-called “windfall” tax on their profits.
The FTSE index of UK banks rose 0.42% having been in negative territory immediately before the speech, as Reeves spoke about taxes in other parts of the finance industry without mentioning a fresh bank levy.
(Reporting by David Milliken and Sachin Ravikumar; Writing by Lawrence White; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes)