Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report Designing Out Economic Abuse in the UK Banking Industry: A Call To Action, published by Northumbria University in November 2025.

The Government recognises the devasting impacts economic abuse can have on people’s financial independence. Tackling economic abuse is a priority for the Government as part of its mission to halve Violence Against Women and Girls within a decade.

Reflecting this, economic abuse was considered as a theme across the Government’s recently published Financial Inclusion Strategy, in recognition of the challenges victim-survivors can face in accessing financial products and services. The strategy sets out an ambitious programme of measures for Government and the financial services sector to improve financial inclusion. This includes supporting victim-survivors to regain financial independence through interventions to increase access to banking services and improving the impact of economic abuse on victim-survivors’ credit files.

The Government is committed to continuing to work closely with industry, civil society, and across government to deliver the strategy successfully and ensure interventions are informed by a range of expertise and perspectives. This includes engaging regularly with the banking sector on their continued response to economic abuse.