HM Treasury

HM Treasury is the UK's finance and economic ministry, responsible for public spending, tax policy, and financial regulation. It works with DSIT on industrial strategy, oversees funding bodies including the British Business Bank, and sets the legislative framework for venture incentives including EIS and VCTs. It coordinates tax administration with HMRC and works with the FCA on the regulatory perimeter for financial services.

John Healey became Chancellor in the cabinet Andy Burnham completed between 20 and 23 July 2026, when Burnham also named Ed Miliband Foreign Secretary, Angela Rayner Housing Secretary and Stephen Kinnock Welsh Secretary; Rachel Reeves, the previous Chancellor, Left the front bench entirely in the same reshuffle rather than moving to another post.

The EMI and VCT changes arrived under Reeves as part of a broader industrial strategy push, alongside the £500m Sovereign AI Unit, the British Business Bank's new direct-investment mandate, and over £8bn of new state instruments announced since autumn 2025. The policy tension is explicit: broader EMI eligibility retains more scaleups within the UK tax-advantaged scheme, but the simultaneous VCT relief reduction shrinks the pool of retail capital that funds the early-stage companies those scaleups grew from.

The Treasury's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation coordinates with the US Treasury's OFAC on secondary-sanctions designations targeting vessels and intermediaries running Iran-linked crude, a role distinct from its domestic tax and spending functions.