The Government needs a complete plan to tackle financial exclusion

The Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy is a welcome first step, but it is not a complete plan to tackle financial exclusion according to a new Treasury Committee report.

The strategy fails to show: Who is excluded, Where exclusion is concentrated, Which services and products are people excluded from and Why are they excluded.

Without this information, the Treasury can’t know if it is making the right interventions or whether it is reaching those who need the most help.

In 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reported that 900,000 adults were ‘unbanked’ with no current account, while 13.1 million, or 24% of all UK adults, had low financial resilience. This was particularly concentrated among lone parents, the unemployed, those with household incomes below £15,000 a year and renters.

In November 2025, the government published its Financial Inclusion Strategy, which aims to help people participate in the economy, manage their money well and plan for the future. As part of that announcement, it confirmed that a review into the progress of the strategy will take place in 2027.

The Committee outlines its scepticism about the government’s plans, concluding that tracking when working groups have met, pilots have started, and consultations have taken place does not demonstrate whether the strategy is working. The Treasury must clearly set out its assessment of the current levels of financial exclusion and publish the milestones it is attempting to reach. If it does not, it will not be possible to determine whether the strategy has been a success.

MPs also express concern that industry voices may have carried greater influence in the production of the strategy and warn the government that it must be able to clearly demonstrate that it is listening to consumer and lived-experience voices.

The Treasury plans to implement several voluntary, industry-led pilots and working groups. These include an identity pilot for bank accounts, a contents insurance pilot for social renters and a working group on travel insurance and mental health.

The Committee expresses reservations about whether these voluntary initiatives can meaningfully tackle financial exclusion without clear routes to scale or effective evaluation. It therefore calls for clarity from the Treasury on whether it would intervene if sufficient progress wasn’t being made, and what the consequences would be.

Chair of the Treasury Committee, Dame Meg Hillier, said “Governments often talk about wanting to raise living standards for those struggling. Tackling financial exclusion across all postcodes in the United Kingdom is a brilliant way to do that.

“The publication of the government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy is a welcome first step, but that is all it is.

“Our report sets out why the strategy is far from the finished product. The Treasury must not think that publishing this document and holding the occasional meeting with stakeholders will suffice. There is more that must be done and I look forward to seeing how this progresses.”