Finance (No. 2) Bill Committee: New Clause 9

What happened: On 13 January 2026, MPs voted on New Clause 9 to the Finance (No. 2) Bill during its Committee stage. The clause, proposed by opposition parties, would have amended the government's Finance Bill. The motion was defeated by 335 votes to 181, with the government successfully blocking the addition.

Why it matters: The Finance (No. 2) Bill gives legal effect to the October 2024 Budget, covering a wide range of tax measures including changes to inheritance tax on pension assets, increases to remote gambling duties, and adjustments to employer national insurance contributions. New Clause 9 represented an attempt by opposition parties to modify the government's tax plans. Its defeat means the government's original proposals remain intact, including the application of inheritance tax to unspent pension pots from April 2027, and the near-doubling of remote gaming duty from 21% to 40%, with revenues earmarked in part for lifting the two-child benefit cap.

The politics: The vote divided sharply along government versus opposition lines. All 327 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted did so against the new clause. Supporting it were 89 Conservatives, 61 Liberal Democrats, 7 SNP MPs, 5 Democratic Unionist Party members, 4 Plaid Cymru members, 4 Greens, 3 Reform UK members, and 6 independents. No Conservative or opposition party member voted against the clause. The breadth of the opposition coalition, spanning parties from the SNP to Reform UK, reflects the scale of cross-party resistance to the government's fiscal package, though that coalition was not sufficient to overcome Labour's commanding Commons majority.