Reeves to slash red tape for City firms

Rachel Reeves will claim that cutting red tape for City firms will have trickle-down benefits for UK households as she tries to drum up support for a new financial services strategy.

- Kalyeena Makortoff Heather Stewart

A range of regulatory changes are due to be revealed by the chancellor today, in what the Treasury says will be the "biggest financial regulation reforms in a decade". The announcement will come before her Mansion House address to City bosses at the Guildhall in London this evening.

Under what are being called the "Leeds reforms" - which Reeves will announce during a "summit" with top City executives in West Yorkshire - the chancellor will declare that paring down regulation is key to unleashing growth and ultimately ensuring households are better off.

But economists and campaigners have warned Reeves that deregulating the City comes with risks, pointing to the deep recession that followed the 2008 financial crash, when the last Labour government was forced to bail out major banks.

Reeves will say: "I have placed financial services at the heart of the government's growth mission - recognising that Britain cannot succeed and meet its growth ambitions without a financial services sector that is fighting fit and thriving."