Chancellor Weighs Tax Raid to Fill £35bn Treasury Gap

A £35bn hole in the Treasury's accounts is driving preparations for a tax package that would hit family businesses and High Street banks, according to a report on Chancellor John Healey's Autumn Budget planning.

The figure sets the scale of the problem. Healey needs to find £35bn, and the report says his options include levies aimed squarely at two targets: family-owned firms and the retail banking sector.

The timing matters as much as the number. The measures under consideration would land in the Autumn Budget, giving businesses and banks only a narrow window to see what's coming — and to push back before any announcement becomes law.

Who pays under the plan?

Two groups sit in the crosshairs, per the report:

• Family businesses — enterprises structured around family ownership, a segment that accounts for a large share of UK private firms
• High Street banks — the retail lenders with branches and consumer operations across the country

The report frames the package as a "devastating tax raid," language that signals how sharply critics view the potential measures. For family firms, any new levy would compound pressure on succession planning and investment. For retail banks, it would add a fresh cost on top of an already heavily taxed sector.

Why £35bn is the number that shapes everything

Every decision in this budget reportedly traces back to that single figure. A £35bn shortfall doesn't get closed with trimming. It requires structural revenue measures — and that means identifying sectors with the balance sheets to absorb them.

Family businesses and High Street banks fit that description in different ways. Family firms hold accumulated assets that can be taxed at the point of transfer or revaluation. Banks generate large, visible profits that make them a politically straightforward target when a chancellor needs money at scale.

The report attributes the plan to Healey's own preparations, not to outside speculation. That distinction matters: this is a package being eyed from inside the Treasury as the Budget approaches, not a wishlist circulating among backbenchers.

What happens between now and the Autumn Budget?

Nothing is law yet. The report describes measures under consideration, which means each element — the scale, the targets, even whether the package survives intact — can still shift before the Chancellor stands at the dispatch box.

That creates a familiar pre-Budget dynamic. Lobbyists for family enterprises and the banking sector will now work the Treasury and Number 11 in an effort to soften or deflect the measures. Business groups tend to fight hardest when a tax change threatens ownership structures rather than just margins, and the framing here suggests exactly that kind of threat for family firms.

For the banks, the calculation is different. They've absorbed sector-specific levies before, and the question for them is scale: whether the £35bn target produces a measure they can price in or one that forces a strategic response.

The Chancellor's credibility rides on the arithmetic. If the £35bn gap is real and the measures land as reported, family businesses and retail banks will carry a disproportionate share of the fiscal repair. If the gap narrows — through better growth figures or revised forecasts — the pressure on both groups eases before a single line is written into legislation.

Watch the Autumn Budget statement: the treatment of these two sectors will tell you how hard Healey decided he had to swing.