London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

City donations worth £15m raise concerns over influence on UK politics

City donations worth £15m raise concerns over influence on UK politics

Total donated to parties by financial firms and individuals tied to the sector over two years, report says
Concerns have been raised over the City’s influence on Westminster, after a report found financial firms and individuals tied to the sector donated £15m to political parties and gave £2m to MPs during the pandemic.

The campaign group Positive Money tallied the gifts, expenses and donations handed to MPs, peers and their parties, as well as the value of income from politicians’ second jobs, saying it contributed to finance’s “oversized influence” on policymaking.

It found banks, insurers and lobby groups held a “disproportionate” amount of meetings with the Treasury, accounting for a third of minister meetings in 2020 and 2021, and argued that led to favourable policies such as deregulation, and an economy that was “structurally reliant” on the City of London.

The Conservative party was the largest recipient of City donations to political parties, accounting for more than £11m or 76% of donated cash over the two-year period.

“Once the scale of big finance’s influence over government is laid bare, it becomes obvious how banks get bailouts and tax cuts while the rest of us get austerity and tax rises,” said David Barmes, a senior economist at Positive Money.

The report, titled The Power of Big Finance: How to Reclaim Our Democracy From the Banking Lobby, found 47 MPs received £2.3m between them – an average of £48,936 each – from the financial sector between January 2020 and December 2021. While 26 did no work in return for the payments, those who did were paid an average of £2,738 an hour, 180 times the average UK wage of £15.15.

About £1.2m of that total was collected by just five Conservative politicians, including former prime minister Theresa May, who was paid more than £200,000 for speeches at events run by JP Morgan and Amundi Asset Management, and the health secretary, Sajid Javid, who was paid a total of £175,000 for his former role as a senior adviser for JP Morgan, as well as speeches for firms including HSBC.

JP Morgan was the biggest spender among City firms in Westminster as a result, having paid £300,000 on salaries and speaker fees during the period.

The Eurosceptic Conservative MP John Redwood was the highest City earner among his peers, receiving nearly £471,000 for roles including his position as chief global strategist at investment manager Charles Stanley, and an advisory role to private equity firm EPIC.

In the House of Lords, the report found a fifth of peers registered paid positions at financial firms, including more than half of the peers on a committee responsible for investigating matters related to economics and finance.

Positive Money also raised concerns about the revolving door between Westminster and the City. That issue of possible conflicts of interest became prominent during the recent Greensill scandal, after former prime minister David Cameron and ex-civil servants were found to have lobbied ex-colleagues on behalf of the now-collapsed lender Greensill Capital.

“Access to public institutions isn’t just the exceptional case of a few bad apples bending the rules – such as David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of … Greensill Capital – but represents a far wider systemic problem,” Positive Money said.

It is now recommending a ban on second jobs for MPs – aside from public service roles – and introducing longer cooling-off periods and bans on lobbying by ex-ministers, civil servants and regulators. It is also calling for a cap on political party donations and the amount that politicians can be paid for speeches, as well as requiring all party parliamentary groups to disclose sources of funding.

TheCityUK and UK Finance declined to comment on the report, saying the issue was a matter for individual donors.

The Treasury said that as the department responsible for the financial services sector, it was “entirely right that ministers and officials meet regularly with representatives from the sector, as is standard with policy engagement.

“There is a clear policy in place on declaration and management of interests for those working in government, with steps being taken to avoid any conflict of interest.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
×