HM Treasury has announced the £1.1bn sale of part of the government’s shareholding in NatWest Group plc (formerly the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc). The chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, authorised the sale of 580m shares in NatWest at 190p per share. This is the government’s fourth sale of its NatWest shareholding, and its second in two months, bringing its level of ownership down from 59.8% to 54.8%.

A typical project is underpinned by a complex web of contractual relationships between the parties involved in the project, eg the project company, equity investors, contractors, sub-contractors, off-takers and suppliers (see Practice Note: Project finance—key project parties). The documents governing these relationships are generally referred to as the 'project documents'. For more information on project documents generally, see: Project documents: issues for lenders—overview. In many projects, a concession contract is one of the principal project documents. A concession contract governs the relationship between the host government (or governmental authority) and the project company. What are 'concessions' in the context of project finance transactions? Many projects involve some sort of collaboration between the private sector and the public sector. Depending on the structure of the project, the private sector may take responsibility for scoping, designing, financing, constructing and/or operating a project. Often, though, the government in the country where the project is located (the 'host government') will also have to, or want to, be involved in the project to some extent. Typically,

Corporate Crime analysis: His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) concluded its consultation into reform of the supervision of anti-money laundering and counter terrorist-financing (AML/CTF) compliance among professional services businesses in December 2025 and has now published its response. In doing so, the response confirms how far the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) supervisory remit will reach following the decision to make the FCA the AML/CTF supervisor for legal and accountancy service providers and trust and company service providers. The response sets out the government’s position on the proposed powers that would make the FCA an effective AML/CTF supervisor across the full supervisory framework. Fatima Jama, barrister at Mountford Chambers, provides an expert analysis of the government’s response and its implications for the future AML/CTF supervisory framework.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has published a partial response to its October 2025 consultation on the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), addressing the policy area relating to access for elected members (which include all mayors and deputy mayors in England, all councillors at principal authorities in England, and all London Assembly members). The partial response to one of the four policy areas consulted on, confirms that the government will proceed with its proposals to grant mayors and councillors in England access to the LGPS following significant support to the measure from respondents. The MHCLG intends to lay a statutory instrument in March 2026, with a coming into force date of 11 May 2026 (the first Monday after the local elections), enabling elected members to join the scheme for the 2026–27 LGPS year. A second government response, covering the remaining consultation policy proposals, including those on the normal minimum pension age, academies in the LGPS and new Fair Deal proposals, is expected later in 2026.

In a written statement to Parliament on 22 October 2024, the Minister for Pensions, Emma Reynolds MP, emphasised the government's commitment to the pensions dashboard, which will enable the public to access all their pension information in one secure online location. The Minister for Pensions outlined that the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) (which is part of the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS)) has made good progress since the formal reset process which outlined a revised dashboard delivery plan. As a result of PDPs progress, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has increased its confidence in the PDP’s ability to deliver against their revised plan. PDP has also begun testing the connection journey of the MoneyHelper dashboard service (provided by MaPS) with a small number of external organisations which will help facilitate wider industry connections, including the connection of commercial dashboard services. While the Minister for Pensions stated that it was too early as yet to confirm a launch date for actual use by the public, she explained that there will be a period of time during which only the MoneyHelper dashboard service will be operational. This is because this period will be used as an opportunity to obtain better insights into customer behaviour and ensure greater confidence in operational delivery, security, and consumer protection before the formal launch of the commercial dashboards. The timetable for connection to the digital architecture remains as set out in the government’s guidance published in March of 2024 with the first schemes having to connect by 30 April 2025, with an ultimate connection deadline of 31 October 2026 for all schemes.

Law360: The UK government has confirmed that it plans to stick to the deadline of March 2026 for all assets in the highly fragmented Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) to be pooled into larger, regulated funds.

On 16 July 2026, MPs debated the impact of changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), raising concerns about flood risk, housing targets, green belt development, infrastructure and the effect of national policy on local decision-making. The government confirmed that it had not been possible to publish the final revised NPPF before the summer recess and that it would do so ‘in due course’.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, David Lammy, has confirmed that the government will not attempt to reintroduce fees in the employment tribunal. Speculation arose last week over the reintroduction after the Ministry of Justice stated it was not ruling out the reintroduction as a method of tackling the 'huge tribunal backlogs'. However, in a post on X (previously known as Twitter) and then a subsequent statement on Wednesday 8 October 2025, David Lammy announced that the right to bring a case in the employment tribunal will remain free under the Labour government.

In a press release, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed plans to allow defined benefit (DB) pension schemes to release part of their surpluses under the upcoming Pension Schemes Bill. The press release highlights that DB pension schemes in the UK have now reached their highest recorded funding levels, with more than 75% of schemes currently operating in surplus leading to a reduction in annual employer contributions to cover funding deficits, which have fallen from £16bn in 2010 to under £5bn in 2024. In response, the government intends to introduce the Pension Schemes Bill, which will permit trustees and sponsoring employers to access a portion of surplus funds, subject to regulatory safeguards. The released funds may be used to support business investment or enhance benefits for scheme members, while maintaining protections for beneficiaries. The exact details of the surplus policy will be set out in the government’s response to the ‘Options for Defined Benefit Schemes consultation’, which the DWP said is expected to be published in the ‘coming weeks’.

Law360: On 28 January 2025 the Labour government mapped out plans to relax defined benefit (DB) pension fund rules, to allow schemes to invest billions of pounds tied up in retirement plan surpluses in their own business or wider economy.

The government has published its response to the consultation, which ran between 18 March and 10 June 2025, seeking views on proposals to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. The government confirms that it intends to proceed with mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers (250+ employees), broadly aligning the regime with existing gender pay gap reporting. Additional reporting requirements for public bodies will not be implemented.

The government has announced the creation of a dedicated Class Unit within the Office for Equality and Opportunity to tackle class and socio-economic disadvantage. Its remit will include low-income families and disadvantaged communities, as well as working-class people's experiences of public services, health disparities and access to employment. One of the Unit's early priorities will be to bring into force the socio-economic duty in section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010), under which specified public authorities must, when taking strategic decisions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising their functions in a way designed to reduce inequalities of outcome resulting from socio-economic disadvantage.