PRIME MINISTER Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were urged to get out of bed with banking lobbyists as campaign groups gathered outside the Bank of England today calling for a windfall tax on bank profits.

Demonstrators presented a giant "cheque" for £11.3 billion to people wearing masks of the Prime Minister and Chancellor, who were shown tucked up in a bed made of money alongside others dressed as lobbyists from Britain’s biggest banks. 

The stunt by Positive Money, Tax Justice UK, Equality Trust and Green New Deal Rising, followed a major think tank report warning that Ms Reeves would have to raise taxes to fill a £51 billion financial blackhole in her Autumn Budget.

It came hours before the central bank cut base interest rates to 4 from 4.25 per cent.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said that the interest rate cut will reduce financial pressures on families and businesses and “mean that more money gets spent in local communities, instead of boosting the profits of banks.”

Positive Money estimated a windfall tax would generate £11.3bn this year from Britain's four biggest banks after they paid a record £33.9 billion to shareholders in 2024.

The group's head of campaigns Hannah Dewhirst said: "The British public are well aware that gains for the financial sector categorically do not ‘trickle down’ to the rest of us."

Tax Justice UK campaigns manager Jake Atkinson argued that the biggest four banks "should not get a free pass to profiteer" while they are on track to make £48 billion in profits this year alone — 10 times what the government was looking to cut from disability social security.

Dario Goodwin from the Equality Trust said: "The obscene profits that banks have enjoyed have been at our expense – that's our higher bills, mortgages and rents that become payouts for the richest bankers."

Green New Deal Rising's Ellen Lees said: "Right now our country and its potential is being held hostage by these corporations and the super-rich, who profit from high interest rates, tax loopholes, and loose regulations.

"If Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer want to deliver change and have any chance at the next election, they must finally make the richest pay up to fund the investment our communities need." 

A Treasury spokesperson said that "changes to tax and spend policy are not the only ways" of strengthening public finances and that doing so by growing the economy "is our focus."