Select committee: Treasury Committee
Conclusion 1
2nd Report – Financial Inclusion Strategy
Published 14 Jul 2026
Addressed to HM Treasury
Treasury Committee Financial Inclusion Strategy All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The publication of the Financial Inclusion Strategy is welcome. It identifies many of the areas in which people experience financial exclusion. Informed witnesses broadly supported those areas of focus. Unlike HM Treasury’s 2004 publication, however, the Strategy does not yet bring together the evidence needed to show who is excluded, where exclusion is concentrated, which products and services people are excluded from, and why. Without that, the government cannot know whether its interventions are the right ones and whether they are targeted at the people who need them most. (Conclusion, Paragraph 16)
From: Treasury Committee, 2nd Report – Financial Inclusion Strategy (HC 13), 14 July 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 September 2026 (deadline 14 September 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government shares the Committee's aims on evidence, accountability and delivery, but does not take forward several specific recommendations, relying instead on the planned two-year review of the Strategy.
- On the proposed fuller quantitative analysis of financial exclusion, the Government considers it "would duplicate work already undertaken in developing the Strategy".
- On firm-level metrics, the Government will "continue to use and invest in established population-level data sources". It is mindful that a broad set of new reporting requirements "could risk diverting resources" from effective action.
- On pilots, the two-year review will include "a forward-looking assessment of the next steps for each pilot, working group and exploratory programme", rather than a separate pilot-to-scale plan within six months.
- On governance, the Government considers that formally recording disagreements between consumer and industry representatives "could discourage candid discussion". It commits to the Financial Inclusion Committee continuing to publish summaries of its meetings on GOV.UK.