UK bank shares have jumped as investors grow increasingly confident that the industry will be shielded from tax rises in Rachel Reeves’s budget this week.

Shares in some of the UK’s largest high street lenders rose more than 2% at the start of trading on Tuesday, after reports that the Treasury had asked the sector to issue supportive statements about the following day’s budget, raising expectations they would be spared a further levy.

“Reports that UK banks might get a reprieve in this week’s budget from previously floated new tax measures helped give the likes of Lloyds, Barclays and NatWest a lift and underpinned the FTSE 100’s rise on Tuesday,” said Dan Coatsworth, the head of markets at AJ Bell. UK bank shares jump after ‘avoiding budget tax raid’; German economy stagnating – busi

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