Campaigners from Positive Money demonstrate outside the Bank of England in London, against the rises in interest rates amid the cost of living crisis. They are demanding the government introduce a windfall tax on bank profits.Interview with Hannah Dewhirst, a striking member.
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00:00 Rate rises? No banks! It's time to! Tax the banks!
00:04 Rate rises? No banks! It's time to! Tax the banks!
00:08 Yeah, so we're here outside the Bank of England today to protest the bank's endless hiking of interest rates,
00:14 which have caused big banks' profits to balloon, while millions of us around the country are suffering from the cost of living crisis.
00:20 So we're calling on the banks to stop these rate hikes, and we're calling on the government to step in and introduce a win for tax on ballooning bank profits.
00:27 The big four banks in the UK have earned almost £30bn in profit in the first half of 2023 alone.
00:34 That's up almost 80% from the same time last year.
00:37 Those profits are unearned. They've come about without the banks having to lift a finger.
00:41 They are the direct result of these interest rate hikes that we've seen the Bank of England introduce 14 times in a row.
00:47 Up to a 15-year high, likely today to hit 5.25%.
00:52 So these rate hikes are hurting millions of us, whether you have a mortgage, whether you just have credit cards.
00:57 That's hitting all of us in the pocket, while big banks rake in billions.
01:02 So we just want to reach as many people as possible. Hopefully Andrew Bailey in there is listening.
01:06 And pretty soon I can Jeremy Hunt down the road as well.
01:09 We want to call attention to how rate hikes are causing millions of us around the country to suffer.
01:15 But there is something we can do. We can introduce a win for tax on big bank profits.
01:19 And those funds could be used for more social housing, free school meals, public sector pay rises.
01:24 All these things the government says we currently can't afford, we could if we introduce a win for tax on banks today.
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