FS policy: 20 people to meet at Labour’s conference

Looking to influence financial services policy but unsure who to meet at Labour’s inaugural party conference in Liverpool this weekend?

Politicians, advisers or policy wonks: We’ve got the ultimate list of who holds the power in and around the first Labour Party conference in 14 years — and who to have a chinwag with on the sidelines of the event.

The MPs

Meg Hillier

Labour MP Meg Hillier was recently appointed chair of the influential Treasury Committee after running unopposed. A veteran lawmaker, she chaired the Public Accounts Committee for nine years and has been an MP since 2005. As Treasury Committee chair, Hillier will put the financial regulators’, and her own party’s, feet to the fire, including policies in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ looming first budget.

Alistair Strathern

Strathern is one of two parliamentary private secretaries to Rachel Reeves. He has been an MP since October 2023 and, prior to entering politics, worked at the Bank of England, OakNorth Bank, and was a councillor in the north-east London borough of Waltham Forest.

Imogen Walker

Walker works alongside Strathern as a parliamentary private secretary to Rachel Reeves. Walker is a new MP, with a background in strategic communications, local government and animal welfare. She was the vice president of the RSPCA and worked for Lambeth Council in South London for 12 years, where she was an elected councillor and, from 2016 to 2018, deputy leader of the council for finance.

Callum Anderson 

The Labour member for Buckingham and Bletchley used to work on government relations and as a regulatory strategy manager at the London Stock Exchange Group. He’s now a PPS in DSIT. POLITICO spoke with him following the election and he was critical of the previous government’s decision to openly criticize the regulators. “You don’t want to inadvertently undermine the autonomy and the intent of a regulator. I think such comments are probably best saved for private meetings,” he said. 

David Pinto-Duschinsky

David Pinto-Duschinsky was an adviser to Alistair Darling under the last Labour government and is now the party’s MP for Hendon. He won his seat by the smallest majority of all MPs: Only 15 points more than his Conservative rival Ameet Jogia. He’s an experienced City representative, too, working as a partner at EY-Parthenon.

Lauren Edwards

Now the MP for Rochester and Strood, Edwards spent six years at the Bank of England, where she worked at the central bank’s prudential regulator on insurance supervision. She also spent a couple of years supervising two of the U.K.’s three clearinghouses — technical knowledge that will no doubt come in handy as the entities’ post-Brexit access to the bloc expires in June 2025. Edwards also had a stint at Medway Council before being elected as an MP.

Noah Law

Noah Law is an ex-City analyst with experience working as an investment manager at Finland’s development fund, Finnfund, which aims to invest and lend to companies in sustainable industries like clean energy in developing countries. A background in economic development and growth might just come in handy under this government. He now represents St Austell & Newquay in Cornwall.

Joe Powell 

Joe Powell is the Labour member for Kensington and Chelsea. He’s chair of the cross-party group on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax, a position previously held by Labour grandee Margaret Hodge. Before parliament, he was the deputy CEO of the Open Government Partnership, an NGO focused on anti-corruption. Powell took journalists — including POLITICO — on a dirty money tour of his constituency, which included properties owned by Azerbaijan’s dictator Ilham Aliyev.  

Phil Brickell 

The Labour member for Bolton West, Phil Brickell has had a long career in the anti-corruption side of finance. He was head of anti-bribery and corruption controls at Natwest between 2022 and 2024, and before that held similar roles at Barclays.

Yuan Yang 

The newly elected MP For Earley and Wooley, Yuan Yang is the U.K.’s first Chinese-born MP. Yang, who moved to Britain at an early age, is an economist and former Financial Times journalist. Expect her to bring that economic sensibility to her work in parliament, including a focus on the cost of living. 

Jeevun Sandher

Another economist turned MP, Jeevun Sandher previously headed the economics team at the New Economics Foundation. He’s also worked in the Treasury and the Department for Work & Pensions. Sandher has been on the airwaves this summer defending Labour’s economic credentials and aims to join the Treasury Committee, which could make him even more visible. 

Torsten Bell

The new MP for Swansea West and PPS in the cabinet office has plenty of history with Labour and policy, and will no doubt be chased around Liverpool for his thoughts as the budget approaches. Bell worked as a Treasury civil servant in the last Labour government before becoming special advisor to Ed Milliband, and then went off to run influential thinktank the Resolution Foundation. While there he authored various reports on U.K. policy, and then wrote a book about it, too. He has plenty of ideas, it’s just whether the Treasury is listening. 

The advisers

Spencer Thompson

A member of Labour’s elusive Council of Economic Advisors, alongside Amin-Smith, Valero and Van Reenen (see more information on them below), Thompson previously worked as an economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank. He was also an economic adviser to the Labour Party for four years between 2020 and 2024, including advising Rachel Reeves on Labour’s preparations for government.

Neil Amin-Smith

He’s a former popstar who’s now the main adviser on financial services policy for Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Neil Amin-Smith, the ex-violinist of chart-topping band Clean Bandit, is the key political person in the Treasury for City policy and for the party’s investment ambitions. He also sits on Reeves’ economic council. 

Ian Corfield

A Labour donor who was parachuted into a top Treasury job. Former banker Ian Corfield’s appointment kickstarted a furor over cronyism in top jobs under the new Labour government this summer. Corfield has since moved into an unpaid role, where he’s spearheading the upcoming investment summit in October.

Anna Valero

Valero, a prominent economist and policy expert, was tapped by the chancellor to continue to be a member of the Treasury’s council of economic advisers in July. Valero knows her stuff as up until the election she was a senior policy fellow at the London School of Economics. She wrote an essay about Labour’s economic agenda in April, too. Valero is providing Reeves with expert advice on economic policy.

John Van Reenan

Van Reenan worked with Valero at the LSE for years and joined her again as a member of Reeves’ council of economic advisers after the election. He started his career at the Institute of Fiscal Studies in the early ’90s, before becoming a senior adviser to then-Secretary of State for Health Alan Milburn, and later at Number 10 Downing Street. Van Reenan is big on economic growth, so he is a key cog in the chancellor’s ambition to boost it.

Katie Martin

A former director of public affairs for Citizens Advice, she was appointed Rachel Reeves’ chief of staff in 2021 while Labour was in opposition, and kept the role in government. During the Gordon Brown Labour government, Martin was chief press officer in Downing Street and held other civil service roles in the Home Office, too. 

Sophia (née Morrell) Kewell 

Kewell rejoined Jonathan Reynolds’ office at the Shadow Department for Business and Trade before the election, after almost three years as the policy boss at UK Finance. After Labour’s election win, she was promoted to special adviser. Kewell has dipped her toes in at either end of the lobbying world, and now she’s back and has the business secretary’s ear. 

The unofficial advisers

Charles Randell 

Charles Randell is the former chair of the Financial Conduct Authority and Payment Systems Regulator and now vocal Labour supporter. In an usual move, he stepped down from his position early — and was publicly critical of Tory decisions on financial services policies. Randell put his name to Labour’s plan for financial services, and told POLITICO in June that “Labour will bring stability after a period of steadily increasing chaos in the Conservative Party. We need that stable platform to support investment in the sustainable and inclusive growth of our economy.”