Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled Government completes exit from NatWest, published on 30 May 2025, what estimate her Department has made of the potential income from the retail model of sale.

On 30 May 2025, the government sold its remaining shares in NatWest Group, bringing to an end the public ownership of banks resulting from the 2007-2009 global financial crisis.

The government focused on ensuring sales of NatWest shares were delivered in a way that achieved value for money for taxpayers. This included undertaking sales via Directed Buybacks and the Trading Plan, whereby any sales were undertaken at market price.

UK Government Investments regularly conducted fair value assessments of the bank, with support from advisors, to determine a price per share above which it represented value for money for the government to sell at that point in time.

Further details of the sales, including amounts raised, were included in the Economic Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement of 3 June 2025.

As the Chancellor set out in the July 2024 Spending Audit, the government does not believe that a retail offer represented value for money for taxpayers, given the likely incentives needed, which precedent suggests could have cost the public hundreds of millions more than selling via established disposal methods.