UK’s financial watchdog is ‘incompetent’ and ‘dishonest’, MPs and peers claim

26 Nov 2024 NATION CYMRU

The Financial Conduct Authority’s offices. Photo FCA/PA Wire

The UK’s financial watchdog has been condemned as “incompetent” and “dishonest” by a group of MPs and peers who warn the body needs an urgent overhaul.

A cross-party parliamentary group, comprising 30 MPs and 14 peers, produced the damning report after examining the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for three years.

The report, which will be presented in Parliament on Tuesday, drew from the testimony of 175 individuals including former employees, scam victims and whistleblowers.

“The picture painted is not pretty,” it concludes.

“The FCA is seen as incompetent at best, dishonest at worst. Its actions are slow and inadequate, its leaders opaque and unaccountable.”

‘Not fit for purpose’

The evidence gathered suggests that the watchdog is “not fit for purpose”, with issues “rooted in the way the organisation is being led, conflicts of interest and the culture that the successive leadership teams have created”, the report read.

The job of the FCA is to regulate the conduct of around 42,000 financial businesses in the UK.

Testimony gathered by the parliamentarians includes victims of alleged pension and investment scams who say the regulator failed to protect them or to spot “red flags” at fraudulent financial firms.

Other financial sector whistleblowers said they felt the FCA did not do enough to investigate their allegations or prevent misconduct from continuing.

Some current and former employees alleged the FCA has a “defective” culture, where “errors and inaction” proved common.

“Those who challenge a top-down ‘official line’ on any given issue are bullied and discriminated against, or even managed out,” the report read.

Reforms

The report outlined a number of suggested reforms including the introduction of a supervisory council to assess the authority’s effectiveness, changes to funding, a “no tolerance” policy for lack of integrity and changes to the way senior leadership is appointed.

It concluded that urgent action needs to be taken to address the concerns, or there is a risk that “stakeholders’ patience is exhausted” and discussions will shift from reforming to replacing the organisation entirely.

An FCA spokesperson said: “We sympathise with those who have lost out as a result of wrongdoing in financial services. However, we strongly reject the characterisation of the organisation.

“We have learned from historic issues and transformed as an organisation so we can deliver for consumers, the market and the wider economy.”

OPINION

Growing a greener, fairer Scotland: community energy and social enterprise

26 November 202
by Andy Paterson

Andy Paterson on how initiatives led by local businesses and social enterprises could be the future of energy across Scotland

The stretch to achieve net zero by 2045 is getting shorter, as energy demands in Scotland increase due to the use of new technologies becoming more widespread and record high energy bills.

It does seem like to reach net zero and have affordable energy bills are polar opposites.

However, if we look at what we already have in Scotland, with our social enterprises producing and selling clean energy through wind turbines, the answer to this problem may be right in front of us.

Scotland has always been incredibly lucky, with its landscape and its natural resources being particularly energy rich. In the previous century we had an oil and gas boom and now we are dealing with the consequences of that extraction. However, this is Scotland’s second energy chance and one that should not be squandered. It is a fantastic opportunity to create green energy that is bought sold to fund our communities.

Aquatera produced a report on Point and Sandwick Trust, comparing the benefits received by a community when a local wind farm is owned privately or by the community. These are benefits that are outwith the usually associated bonuses of a business operating in the community, eg job creation.

The report found that “in terms of sheer size, the benefit payments from community owned wind farms far exceed the payments from private wind farms. Even the community owned wind farm with the lowest average donations on a pound per installed MW per annum basis that we studied is still 15 times more beneficial than the most recent standard of £5,000 per installed MW recommended by the [Scottish] Government for their privately owned counterparts”.

At the lowest end of the scale, community owned wind farms were 15 times more beneficial. This is a phenomenal statistic, especially with the increased importance of renewable energy across Scotland. The social enterprise model is perfect for contributing to this uptick in community ownership. Not only are these organisations giving a social benefit, but also clearly an environmental one. It isn’t just our rural communities who are benefiting from community energy.

A new community energy project has been confirmed in East Lothian, across Musselburgh and Portobello. The project aims to deliver community energy via solar and battery systems installed across participating local buildings.

These initiative projects, led by local businesses and social enterprises, could be the future of energy across Scotland. This project in particular was funded by Local Energy Scotland, and these funds are absolutely vital to ensure community operated energy is consistent throughout Scotland. This will take funding from the Scottish Government and the new UK Labour government.

From the UK Government this could come from GB Energy. GB Energy is an investment body and publicly owned energy generation company that Labour revealed in the 2024 manifesto. It will take time to create an energy company without nationalisation of the big six currently operating in the UK. However, as an investment vehicle it could operate as a conduit for funds for local communities who are serious about owning the energy they use and can sell back to the grid.

Not all communities are created equal when it comes to their ability to create energy. To make community energy a benefit to everyone who lives in Scotland there needs to be a system of sharing the funds generated by our renewable energy.

A National Community Wealth Fund for Scotland would be a way of achieving this. This wealth fund has been proposed by Community Energy Scotland, Community Land Scotland, Scottish Community Alliance, Development Trusts Association Scotland and Scottish Communities Finance. This proposal, I believe, could have the potential to exponentially grow energy ownership amongst communities in Scotland.

A wealth fund that any community in Scotland could access would be incredible. With a dedicated percentage to safeguard long term investment into our communities, it would provide stability and confidence for years to come. If we think of the profit margins that the energy industry giants like Shell or BP make every year, even if a fraction of that was being used by our communities and social enterprises instead of going to shareholders, it would be difficult to imagine the social and environmental good that could be achieved with such investment. Social enterprises could be subsided by this for providing the social and environment good that we champion.

Scotland is moving to become a renewable energy leader and we cannot let the same mistakes of the past haunt us and leave our communities without the benefit they deserve, as happened with our mining sectors and is currently happening with our oil and gas industry.

Renewables give us these new opportunities and we have to make sure we support our communities in making sure that energy is owned by all of us to benefit all of us.


Andy Paterson is a policy officer at Social Enterprise Scotland.

Polish artist Alicja Patanowska creates first installation for London’s Urban Farmer Project

Elise Morton
Tue 26 November 2024 

Polish artist Alicja Patanowska creates first installation for London’s Urban Farmer Project


Last week, Polish artist Alicja Patanowska’s PLANTATION was unveiled at Urban Farmer Project – a pioneering initiative in London’s Fleet Street Quarter that seeks to combat food waste and foster sustainable food production, all from a neglected urban plot amidst the big business of the Square Mile.

Apt for this location, the project’s inaugural artwork reflects Patanowska’s ongoing exploration of waste and luxury, as well as her commitment to raising awareness about plant care and environmental sustainability.

Install image - PLANTATION by Alicja Patanowska at the Urban Farmer Project. - Alka Murat

The installation features a series of handmade porcelain elements designed for growing plants, herbs, and vegetables using hydroponics, alongside repurposed drinking glasses – ranging from pint glasses to champagne flutes, collected both from the streets of London and the artist’s hometown in Poland.


In fact, it was discarded glasses that first inspired Patanowska to create PLANTATION ten years ago, when, as a student at the Royal College of Art, she was struck by the number of glasses left outside London pubs and bars and felt compelled to upcycle these thrown-away materials.

The 200 vessels will form part of an ecosystem – a live artwork, with visitors able to observe growth and change in plants over the course of the installation’s time at the Urban Farmer Project.


Install image - PLANTATION by Alicja Patanowska at the Urban Farmer Project. - Alka Murat

On show in London until 12 December, Patanowska has previously presented iterations of PLANTATION at the Museum of the Future, Dubai (2023), the National Museum in Krakow, Poland (2018 & 2022), and the Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2016).

“I am delighted that PLANTATION will form part of the Urban Farmer Project. Creating amore eco-conscious community, expanding green spaces in the city, and sharing knowledge about the vital role of caring for nature in achieving a balanced life are essential as we face the climate crisis,” Patanowska said.

PLANTATION exemplifies the ambition of the Urban Farmer Project, fusing sustainability, education and creativity and affirming our FSQ vision of creating a climate resilient district for all to enjoy. We are delighted to be developing our cultural connections with Poland,” Lucy French, CEO of Fleet Street Quarter Business Improvement District, added.

Install image - PLANTATION by Alicja Patanowska at the Urban Farmer Project. - Alka Murat

This site-specific installation is co-produced with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, the Polish Cultural Institute in London, Let’s Art Foundation, and On & On Designs as part of preparations for the 2025 UK/Poland Culture and Creative Season organised in collaboration with the British Council.

Set within the former bar of property developer Landsec’s Hill House development, just north of Fleet Street, and delivered in partnership with Landsec and London’s Community Kitchen, the Urban Farmer Project aims to create a marketplace, educational hub, and event space with a mission to tackle food poverty, increase access to sustainable farm produce, and support British agriculture.

Install image - PLANTATION by Alicja Patanowska at the Urban Farmer Project. - Alka Murat

Alicja Patanowska’s PLANTATION is on show at the Urban Farmer Project until 12 December 2024.

Stark photographs capturing harsh reality of UK asylum system on show in North East

Cian Mortimer
Sun 24 November 2024 


One of the images in the exhibition, We All Came Here From Somewhere, at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (Image: ASYLUM MATTERS)

A powerful new exhibition created by refugees offers a harrowing insight into the UK’s ‘inhumane’ asylum system, bringing personal stories and striking visuals to the North East.

Hosted at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, the showcase shines a light on the challenges faced by those seeking refuge and celebrates the region’s efforts to provide a warm welcome.

The exhibition, We All Came Here From Somewhere, runs from Saturday, November 23 to February 9. Central to the display is Asylum: A Long and Painful Process, a project led by award-winning photographer and refugee Sadia Sikandar.

Sadia collaborated with asylum seekers involved in the North Tyneside-based Walking With group, supported by campaigners at Asylum Matters.

Her photographs and those of Walking With members illustrate the pain, resilience, and humanity behind these experiences.

Sadia, who fled persecution in Pakistan, has endured a gruelling six-year journey through the UK asylum system. During this time, she was made homeless and, like all asylum seekers, was banned from working.

Sadia said: “In my home country I had a job, a car and a home, but I lacked freedom and peace of mind. My life was in danger, which is something people need to understand. Asylum seekers are often viewed as though we come from impoverished or jobless backgrounds, but in reality, I had a very good status in Pakistan. I came here because my life was at risk.

“For those of us who seek asylum, it often means going from having everything to having nothing. This experience strips away our dignity, honour and self-respect. I submitted a new asylum application, which was also initially rejected, but was eventually granted on appeal.

“The entire process took six long years.”

Sadia is now based in Glasgow and teaching at the Gallery of Modern Art. She worked with Walking With members on this project, using photography to express their shared struggles.

The photographs, taken at Seaton Sluice Beach in Northumberland and Walking With’s Wallsend headquarters, capture themes of survival and despair.

She said: “The beach represents the endless waiting period they endure in hotels, temporary accommodation and camps. The smoke represents the destruction that forces asylum seekers to flee their homes, the aftermath of war, persecution, or disaster.

“Smoke also symbolises survival and resilience; where there is smoke, there is often fire – a core symbol of human survival. Together, the beach and smoke create a powerful contrast between hope and despair, freedom and entrapment.”



Award-winning photographer and refugee Sadia Sikandar (Image: ASYLUM MATTERS)

One striking image incorporates a calendar, a reminder of the endless waiting endured by asylum seekers as they count the days for a Home Office decision.

Clare Campbell, operations manager at Walking With, said: “The idea for this work was borne of the frustration, helplessness and despair felt by so many of our asylum seekers. They feel forced to leave their homes, jobs and sometimes families to escape torture, persecution and war.

“They arrive here hoping for a safer, better life. In the event, many then find themselves crushed by our asylum process. They become trapped in a world of poverty with no dignity and no chance to use their many skills as they wait – often for many years – for a Home Office decision on their asylum claim.

“All too often their mental health gives way before that decision is made. Stress, fear and uncertainty are part and parcel of our system of asylum. The experiences of so many seeking sanctuary here can leave us in no doubt – our asylum system is inhumane and must be changed.”

The exhibition also highlights the role of North East communities in offering support to those seeking sanctuary. The Baltic, recognised as a Gallery of Sanctuary since 2022, works alongside organisations like Walking With to embed a culture of welcome and celebrate the contributions of refugees to the region.

The North East has a long tradition of standing in solidarity with those in need, from the efforts of local councils to grassroots groups supporting asylum seekers.

We All Came Here From Somewhere runs until February 9 and is part of a wider movement to amplify refugee voices and challenge misconceptions. By pairing art with advocacy, the exhibition offers visitors a powerful perspective on the realities of seeking asylum, and the strength of those navigating this often-brutal system.

For North East audiences, this exhibition is not just an opportunity to engage with striking photography but a chance to reflect on how the region can continue to provide sanctuary and support for those seeking refuge.



Refugee artist’s stark photographs reveal what it’s really like to navigate the UK asylum system

New exhibition entitled Asylum: A Long and Painful Process 

by North East Bylines
22-11-2024 17:19


Sadia exhibition Photo by Gabriel Pazmino


Refugees and asylum seekers involved in the North Tyneside campaign and community group Walking With, supported by campaign group Asylum Matters, are set to unveil a series of images and personal narratives at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

Artist Sadia Sikandar – an award-winning photographer, teacher, campaigner, and herself a refugee – worked with the group to create the series, entitled Asylum: A Long and Painful Process.

The photographs, and the heartrending stories that accompany them, will be displayed at Baltic as part of a new exhibition We All Came Here From Somewhere, open from 23 November to 9 February, which explores how the North East can welcome people seeking sanctuary in the region.
About the photographer

Born and raised in Pakistan, Sadia Sikandar studied Fine Arts at Punjab University and exhibited her work throughout the world, before she was forced to seek asylum in the UK in 2018, where she faced a difficult and damaging six-year battle to get Refugee Status, during which time she was made homeless and, like all people seeking asylum, was banned from doing the work she loves.

Sadia said: “In my home country I had a job, a car and a home, but I lacked freedom and peace of mind. My life was in danger, which is something people need to understand. Asylum seekers are often viewed as though we come from impoverished or jobless backgrounds, but in reality, I had a very good status in Pakistan. I came here because my life was at risk.

“For those of us who seek asylum, it often means going from having everything to having nothing. This experience strips away our dignity, honour and self-respect. I submitted a new asylum application, which was also initially rejected, but was eventually granted on appeal.

“The entire process took six long years.”

Finally granted Leave To Remain in the UK, Sadia now lives in Glasgow, where she is currently teaching at GoMA, the Gallery of Modern Art.

She added: “Although I have received refugee status, my struggle and determination to improve the asylum system will continue.”

Behind the images

Members of the Walking With group worked with Sadia, taking photographs and sharing their stories, as part of their bid to cut through misinformation and show the British public how truly devastating life in the asylum system can be. Images show members of the group at Seaton Sluice Beach in Northumberland, and at the Wallsend headquarters of Walking With.

Describing the message behind the photographs and their campaign, Walking With operations manager Clare Campbell said: “The idea for this work was borne of the frustration, helplessness and despair felt by so many of our asylum seekers. They feel forced to leave their homes, jobs and sometimes families to escape torture, persecution and war.

“They arrive here hoping for a safer, better life. In the event, many then find themselves crushed by our asylum process. They become trapped in a world of poverty with no dignity and no chance to use their many skills as they wait – often for many years – for a Home Office decision on their asylum claim.

“All too often their mental health gives way before that decision is made. Stress, fear and uncertainty are part and parcel of our system of asylum. The experiences of so many seeking sanctuary here can leave us in no doubt – our asylum system is inhumane and must be changed.”

Symbolism within the pictures

Sadia added: “We chose a beach to symbolise the transitional state many asylum seekers experience. It is a space between the safety of land and the dangers of the open sea, much like the limbo they face in the asylum process.

“They find themselves in a place of uncertainty – like being stranded on a shore, waiting to move and fearing being pulled back.

“The beach represents the endless waiting period they endure in hotels, temporary accommodation and camps. The smoke represents the destruction that forces asylum seekers to flee their homes, the aftermath of war, persecution, or disaster.

“Smoke also symbolises survival and resilience; where there is smoke, there is often fire – a core symbol of human survival. Together, the beach and smoke create a powerful contrast between hope and despair, freedom and entrapment.”

The other photographs in this collection use a calendar, with its grid of numbered days and months, to represent the systematic tracking of time that is so often a central part of immigration and asylum procedures.

Sadia said: “This visual pairing reminds us that behind the policies and protocols are real people with stories, hopes and struggles. The layering of the calendar and the portrait challenges us to consider the intersection of the systemic and the personal, the institutional and the individual, in the lives of those seeking refuge.”

Where to see the exhibition?

The photographs will be displayed in We All Came Here From Somewhere, a thoughtful showcase of artwork, objects and stories at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art from 23 November to 9 February 2025. The exhibition spotlights the warm welcome that is offered by Baltic and by organisations across the North East region. It shines a light on the people, practice and rituals that create a culture of welcome. Officially recognised as a Gallery of Sanctuary since 2022, Baltic embeds a culture of welcome and seeks to promote understanding and celebration of the ways which those people seeking sanctuary enrich our society.

Finding Communism in Katy Perry?

A new book by Toby Manning argues that the best music of the past 60 years has often reflected, foreshadowed or even embraced the turmoil and radicalism of its time.

Toby Manning mounts arguably the landmark first attempt to present an accessible and characterful Marxist overview of popular music. 

(Wiki commons)

ByAlex Niven
26.11.2024

TRIBUNE

Since at least as far back as Theodor Adorno famously denounced the ‘mechanical soullessness’ of interwar jazz, the relationship between Marxism and pop music has been rather vexed. While plenty of card-carrying Marxists have dabbled in music writing over the last few decades (see especially Perry Anderson’s exquisitely over-written Sixties critiques of the Beatles and Stones under his ‘Richard Merton’ alias), fully crossing the Rubicon into the ambiguous world of ‘cultural studies’ has often been seen as something Really Serious Marxists shouldn’t do.

Toby Manning’s Mixing Pop and Politics: A Marxist History of Popular Music is a nice corrective to this strain of leftist elitism-purism. An accessible, characterful popular history rather than a dry definitional textbook, Manning’s study is surely the first really cogent attempt to present a birdseye-view Marxist chronology of pop music from the time of Lonnie Donegan to our present tense of Olivia Rodrigo, Jason Aldean and Oliver Anthony. In Manning’s telling, pop music’s ‘dialectic of repression and refusal charts and channels the political struggles of the last three-quarters of a century’ — and it is this fundamental binary his book seeks to explore and elucidate.

What emerges from this premise is an epic story of musical innovation set against a backdrop of political turbulence. Central to the narrative is the familiar but enduringly ambiguous notion of counterculture, a term popularised by Theodor Roszak’s seminal 1969 study The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. For Manning, counterculture is the means by which pop music pulled away from its origins in the consumeristic, Fordist 1950s to become — from the Sixties on — a radical, utopian, often downright revolutionary mode that was at bottom ‘expressive of Fordism’s discontents’.

A useful counterblast to the revisionist ‘hippyphobic’ tendency which views the Sixties paroxysm as an ineffectual boomer decadence, Manning’s history rightly asserts that the counterculture was in fact a nexus for almost the most politically vital developments of the period (and indeed the ensuing decades). As he skillfully shows, counterculture was the glue which held together tendencies as disparate as Black Power, second-wave feminism, the burgeoning gay rights movement and anti-Vietnam protestors. For all that it has been bowdlerised and packaged as nostalgia in recent years, Manning suggests, the Sixties counterculture is ultimately the point of origin for much of the anti-capitalist radicalism of the last half-century (if not necessarily Marxist thinking and activism proper), up to and including the recent activities of what has been termed Generation Left.

The million-dollar question in all of this — and one Manning keeps returning to — is how pop music relates to the overtly political side of the so-called New Left and its offshoots. Rather than an aloof theoretical analysis of post-Fifties pop, much of Mixing Pop and Politics is an impassioned defence of the idea that the best music of the last half-century has both foreshadowed and embodied the culture (in the broadest sense) of political radicalism it developed in tandem with. Thus, psychedelia is ‘the musical manifestation of what Marcuse heralded as “a world that could be free”’, glam rock ‘the cultural logic of the era’s industrial militancy’ and Billy Bragg’s 1985 hit ‘Between the Wars’ ‘a secular hymn to the social contract between citizen and state which was concurrently being crushed in the coalfields.’

If such statements seem to see a world in a grain of sand, they do so in the best possible sense. A salient problem for anyone trying to read pop music politically is how to derive sustained analysis from the relatively fleeting glimpses of historical content we find in the radically sensuous, often consciously ephemeral form that is the three- or four-minute pop song. But throughout Mixing Pop and Politics Manning is always subtle in the claims he makes for the interplay between music and history.

Rather than falling back on the overused, mostly rather specious notion of the ‘protest song’ (as certain clumsy centrist commentators have done this century), his approach is more nuanced in showing how wider historical movements have shaped the cultural life of pop songwriters and performers — and, occasionally and momentously, found expression in their sighing lyric asides and more pointed political declarations.

Whether he is detecting the ‘utopian’ assertions of the arrangement of ELO’s ‘Livin Thing’ or finding echoes of disaster capitalism in Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’, Manning is unfailingly meticulous and imaginative in showing how pop and politics have — and have not — interacted over the last 70 years. But over and above such finer points, he is also very good on how we should and should not look back on the ‘Fordist’ period of pop from a twenty-first-century present which often struggles to free itself from apolitical nostalgia for this apparent musical golden age.

As he puts it at one point, ‘we can immerse ourselves in the past as a site of escape — as a comforter or pacifier — or we can return to the past as a resource of hope, grounded in its vision of the future. In choosing between an enervated or an energised hauntology, therefore, we can either embrace the imposition of politicised limits, or we can reject them.’ Leftists following in the trail set by this powerful, pioneering text would do well to heed this vital message.

About the Author
Alex Niven is a writer, editor, and lecturer in English at Newcastle University. His books include Folk Opposition, Definitely Maybe 33 1/3, and New Model Island.

Making the Super-Rich Pay


Under the leadership of Brazil’s socialist president, the G20 has made a historic agreement to tax the world’s super-rich — now it’s time to make that deal a reality.

G20 leaders reached a landmark deal on taxing the super-rich

(Credit: Thomas Mendel/350Europe


By Emma Seery
23.11.2024

TRIBUNE

Since the early days of his G20 leadership, Brazil’s President Lula put fighting inequality centre stage, and at the Heads of State Summit this week, delivered a groundbreaking agreement that could begin to tackle the extreme and destructive chasm between the super-rich and the rest. Leaders meeting in Rio signed and sealed a historic deal to work together to tax the world’s wealthiest people — a deal that the world sorely needs and that the richest can easily afford.

We live in a world that delivers extreme wealth for the few while leaving hundreds of millions of people hungry — another top item on the agenda of leaders in Rio, where they launched the Global Alliance Against Poverty and Hunger. The richest people amass billions of dollars, and a small wealthy elite has more money than they could spend in several lifetimes. Today, the world’s 16 richest individuals would still be billionaires even if 99 percent of their wealth vanished overnight.

Despite this wealth explosion at the top, taxation on the world’s wealthiest has plummeted in recent decades. The richest 1 percent in the G20 have seen their tax rates fall by roughly a third since 1980, a period where their income share increased by 45 percent. The reality is that most of us are contributing a far higher share of our income and wealth through taxation than even billionaires do. For example, Elon Musk — one of the richest men in history — has been shown to pay a ‘true tax rate’ of just 3.2 percent. The likelihood is that you pay significantly more than this. For the world’s poorest people, the injustice is even greater: Aber Christine, a market trader working with Oxfam Uganda, pays 40 percent of her profits in tax. Given this obscene inequality, it is small wonder people around the world are rising up and demanding action to tax the super-rich.

Increasing taxes on the global economic elite has the potential to raise the trillions of dollars that governments everywhere need for public spending on everything from teachers to green technology, providing the investment necessary to end extreme poverty and address the imminent climate catastrophe.

This G20 agreement comes as the debate rages at COP29 in Baku about how much governments, particularly from the highest-emitting countries, are willing to spend on tackling the climate crisis and making amends to the poorest people and countries who bear the brunt of the impact. Activists and civil society groups are demanding rich nations pay at least $5 trillion in climate finance to the Global South, yet as COP nears completion, the draft text indicates that as little as $350 billion could be on the table — a woefully inadequate amount, and one that seems indefensible just days after the 20 richest countries on the planet committed to action to tax the ultra-wealthy that could raise trillions.

The very existence of a super-rich elite which splurges on polluting superyachts and private jets is turbocharging global warming and putting the future of humanity at risk. Oxfam analysis released this year revealed that if everyone emitted carbon at the same rate as just the luxury transport emissions of 50 of the richest billionaires, our remaining carbon budget would be gone in just two days. The lifestyle of people with billions of dollars to spare is quite simply incompatible with a sustainable future for people and planet.

Under President Lula’s G20 leadership the world has seen growing political momentum on taxation of the richest individuals. Back in July, Finance Ministers committed to ‘engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed’ on the basis that ‘wealth and income inequalities are undermining growth and social cohesion.’ Despite this pre-existing shared commitment, there was some jeopardy in Rio. It was reported that negotiators from Argentina ‘vehemently opposed’ language on taxing ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the Rio G20 Declaration.

It’s a testament to the resolve of other G20 countries that the commitment remained in the face of this opposition. It offers hope that there is the requisite political will to make it a reality. So, too, does the subsequent IBSA communique where India, Brazil and South Africa applaud success on the issue and call for an early protocol on the effective taxation of high-net-worth individuals under the UN Tax Convention. Separately, South African President Ramaphosa underlined that ‘taxation of the ultra and super-rich’ was an ‘important aspect of what Brazil has just achieved’, giving rise to further hope that he will progress this agenda under his G20 Presidency, which officially commences on 1 December.

As ever, though, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. And that proof won’t come until this G20 agreement becomes a global deal to tax the super-rich at rates high enough to reduce inequality, alongside measures to curb illicit financial flows that allow the super-rich to evade their tax responsibility. The world can’t afford to wait much longer.
About the Author

Emma Seery is Head of Development Finance at Oxfam.

Analysis

Is it time for the UK to introduce a wealth tax?

DATE
26 Nov 2024
AUTHORS
Stephen Hunsaker


With the gap between the UK’s wealthiest citizens and the rest of the country increasing, Stephen Hunsaker discusses whether it is time for the UK to introduce a wealth tax.

The Covid-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the growing divide between the wealthiest and the rest of society, intensifying discussions on how governments can address this inequality. Globally, wealth taxes have emerged as a potential solution. France’s left-wing New Popular Front campaigned to reinstate a wealth tax abolished in 2017, progressives in the US floated similar proposals, while Argentina introduced a one-off wealth tax to ease fiscal pressures during the pandemic. The UK government has expressed its intent to tackle wealth inequality but has firmly ruled out introducing a wealth tax. But should it have?

To answer whether a wealth tax is the right move for the UK, we need to consider two key questions: have wealth taxes worked in the past, and is it better than alternative solutions for addressing inequality and raising revenue?

Wealth, defined as an individual’s net worth – assets such as property and savings minus liabilities like loans and mortgages, has become increasingly concentrated at the top. Both globally and in the UK, the richest 10% of people now hold more than half of all private wealth, while the poorest 60% hold around just 10%. Addressing this disparity requires targeted policy interventions, and wealth taxes are often proposed as one option.

While wealth taxes have existed since the 19th century, only a handful of countries have implemented them widely. In the 1990s, 12 OECD countries had wealth taxes, but today only three have retained them: Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. In the UK, the idea of a wealth tax has been considered sporadically, including in 1974 and more recently in 2020 by the independent Wealth Tax Commission.

Evidence from countries that have implemented wealth taxes shows that while they have had modest success in reducing inequality, the results are mixed. The average country that introduced such taxes experienced small declines in wealth inequality, while those that repealed them saw inequality increase. These results suggest that while wealth taxes can have an impact, they tend to be marginal. This raises questions about their overall efficacy, especially as many repeals occurred right before the 2008 financial crisis which saw wealth inequality rise in response almost across the board.



The limited success of wealth taxes is likely due to several factors. In many cases, these taxes were not well-integrated into broader tax systems. Some relied on outdated administrative systems or self-assessment methods, making enforcement weak and unreliable. Others were introduced during crises, such as wars or economic downturns, and were not adapted to reflect evolving economic conditions. As a result, the revenue generated by wealth taxes has often been trivial. In most cases, they have accounted for less than 1% of total tax revenue or GDP. For instance, Finland’s wealth tax brought in just 0.15% of its total tax revenue in 2002 before being repealed in 2006.

Given these challenges, many economists argue that governments would be better served by improving existing tax systems rather than introducing new wealth taxes. In the UK, addressing loopholes in property taxation, inheritance taxes, and capital gains taxes could be a more effective and administratively feasible way to tackle inequality and raise revenue. Reforming how wealth is valued for tax purposes or closing mechanisms that allow assets to be transferred abroad untaxed could yield significant gains. These measures would also strengthen the current system’s capacity to target wealth more effectively.

That said, wealth taxes should not be ruled out entirely. Reports, including one from the OECD, have suggested that such taxes can be made more effective if introduced as part of a broader package of reforms. For instance, pairing wealth taxes with reductions in regressive taxes – those that disproportionately burden lower-income households, could enhance their redistributive impact. In the UK, a phased approach might make sense: first, strengthen and modernise the existing tax system, then revisit the idea of a wealth tax as a longer-term solution to reducing wealth inequality.

Ultimately, addressing wealth inequality in the UK does not require reinventing the wheel. By closing loopholes and ensuring the current tax system is fair and efficient, the government can take meaningful steps toward reducing disparities and raising revenue. Once these reforms are in place, wealth taxes could be revisited as part of a comprehensive approach to wealth redistribution. Wealth taxes, while not a panacea, could eventually form part of a broader strategy to create a more equitable society. By prioritising practical reforms today, the UK can lay the groundwork for more ambitious solutions in the future.

By Stephen Hunsaker, researcher, UK in a Changing Europe

UK

Private Equity Is Coming for Your Pets

Private equity is taking over vet services to raise prices and close down clinics where workers demand better wages — showing that nothing is safe from their profiteering, even our pets.

Private equity takeovers are threatening veterinary services. (Getty images)

By Alice Teller

25.11.2024

TRIBUNE

In October, a historic industrial dispute by veterinary workers in South Wales suffered a devastating setback, with the employer VetPartners announcing the sudden closure of four clinics where staff had been agitating for measures to address low pay and poor working conditions.

Traditionally a poorly unionised sector, the veterinary industry has seen a recent surge in union membership with Unite’s British Veterinary Union, a national branch representing workers in hundreds of workplaces, seeing a rapid rise in membership.

Veterinary workers include veterinarians and qualified nurses, but also administrative and supportive staff, many of whom are increasingly squeezed by low wages and poor terms and conditions. Unite the Union reported some of these workers using foodbanks in the midst of a cost of living crisis, with wages failing to keep up with inflation despite a boom in pet ownership and a spike in the cost of veterinary treatment.

This is not just a straightforward dispute for pay and conditions, however. The plight of these workers is inextricably linked to the recent widespread purchase of veterinary practices by private equity firms, with large companies now owning nearly 60 percent of UK practices. It seems there is almost no physical asset, firm, or piece of infrastructure from which the rapacious private equity sector won’t attempt to extract income.

From children’s homes to football clubs, private equity now holds a significant stake in the services and entities we use and relate to on a daily basis. As economist Brett Christophers has contended, ‘[asset managers] own, and extract income from, things — schools, bridges, wind farms and homes — that are nothing less than foundational to our daily being… asset managers increasingly own and control our most essential physical frameworks, providing the most basic means of social functioning and reproduction.’ For many, seeking veterinary treatment for their dog now falls within this realm.

‘Private equity’ refers to an investment model where large funds, managed by professional investors, purchase non-stock market listed assets with a view to quickly increasing their headline value in order to make a profit selling them on — much like flipping houses, but with businesses. It is important to note that for private equity, the social purpose of an asset — or even its long-term ability to deliver a quality product or service — is entirely secondary to the change in its market price between purchase and resale.

This shift in the veterinary sector from a small business to an asset management model has worsened pay and conditions in an industry already struggling to recruit and retain staff. Arguments in favour of private equity takeovers include the idea that failing businesses can be turned around and management streamlined. More often, they are associated with slashed terms and conditions and wide-scale asset stripping. Infrastructure, including utilities like water, can be an attractive investment for private equity and other asset management funds because of their ability to generate a constant state-backed cashflow.

However, private equity is especially known for its brutal targeting of small, medium, and even large commercial businesses. Wages, terms, and conditions are slashed, prices are raised, and business practices outside of core profit drivers are axed, regardless of their benefit to the community. Even more concerning is the short-termism of this shadowy speculation, the ultimate aim often being to consolidate debts and resell the business at a profit within months.

What does this mean for local people simply trying to access affordable veterinary care for their animals? Four practices have now been shut down, depriving Welsh communities of basic access to a vet. VetPartners, owned by private equity fund BC Partners, claim that the closures were due to recruitment shortfalls, but there are rumours of pressure by other investors to stamp out industrial militancy early and avoid trade unionism rippling out across the sector. For companies seeking rapid extraction of income, collective bargaining could seriously undermine the efficiency of this model, which would explain the ruthless treatment of attempts at union action by many private equity owners.

A case in point is the GMB union’s campaign against the private equity owner of supermarket chain Asda. TDR Capital bought the chain in 2021, along with another buyer, in one of the biggest debt-leveraged takeovers in history. But after loading on more debt to the tune of over £6 billion, whilst overseeing what the GMB described as a ‘steep decline’ in health, safety, and food hygiene standards, the company are now grappling with a massively reduced market share and looming mass redundancies. This kind of reckless profiteering has been traumatic for the 145,000 people employed by the supermarket. But it also shows an irresponsible disregard for the chain’s future, with its shares in the grocery market plunging to a 13-year nadir of 11.8 percent. The effect is a vicious circle of debt, low wages and poor market performance.

In these conditions, efforts of Unite members at VetPartners to unionise and challenge ruthless employer practices are to be commended. But the closures speak to the deep and troubling impact of private equity on the veterinary industry, local high streets and the services that ordinary people hold dear. Any meaningful attempt to prevent private equity wreaking havoc on long-term and indispensable local infrastructure will require concerted trade union power. Trade unions have a much greater vested interest in the long-term viability of the industries they organise than any asset manager out for a quick buck.

However, reigning in the worst excesses of private equity will also involve serious efforts to scrutinise and regulate these companies by central government. This seems unlikely from a chancellor who fraternises with BlackRock executives and continually reassures investors that the sole purpose of government activity is to ‘crowd in’ private finance to our already over-privatised economy. Perhaps our chancellor should spend less time with CEOs and more time on the picket line in South Wales.

About the Author
Alice Teller is a writer and researcher,

UK 

Gerbil given oxygen after being rescued from fire


Many fire crews now carry specialist equipment for pets such as gerbils

A gerbil has been rescued from a house fire and given oxygen using a specially designed mask for pets.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service attended the blaze in Tollgate Lane, Bury St Edmunds, at about 03:15 GMT.

The fire had started in an upstairs bedroom. The occupants were all accounted for and no injuries were reported.

The fire service said it used an oxygen mask from non-profit organisation Smokey Paws, which provides equipment to crews around the country.

UK

Rise in neglected animals being abandoned - RSPCA

George King
BBC News, Essex

11/26/2024

RSPCA
Roxy was taken to a rescue centre and has since been rehomed

The “shocking” number of animals being dumped in a “neglectful state” in the East of England during the winter months has been revealed by the RSPCA.

In the past three years, the amount of animals abandoned in England and Wales increased by 51%, according to the animal welfare charity.

The new figures, released as part of its Join The Christmas Rescue campaign, show Essex had 582 cases in 2023 compared to 414 in 2021 - up 41%.

There was also an increase of 44% in Bedfordshire, with incidents rising from 142 to 205. RSPCA bosses said: “Too many animals are suffering behind closed doors.”
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RSPCA
Dogue de Bordeaux Roxy, who was found “painfully skinny”

Reports of animals being abandoned also increased elsewhere in the East of England, with Northamptonshire recording a 22% rise and Buckinghamshire 14%.

Hertfordshire saw cases go up by 12%, Cambridgeshire 7% and Suffolk 15%, while Norfolk experienced a 1% rise in animal abandonments.

Across England and Wales, a total of 20,999 reports were made to the RSPCA’s emergency line in 2023, while 19,067 have already been reported this year.

One of these animals was Dogue de Bordeaux Roxy, who was found “painfully skinny” huddled under a hedge in a garden in Boxted, having been abandoned in April.

The three-year-old was rescued by residents who took her to a vet before they contacted the RSPCA due to her neglectful state.

She weighed just 29kg (64lb), while a healthy female dog of the same breed should weigh up to 54kg (120lb) more than that. She has since been rehomed.

'Heartbreaking'

RSPCA inspector Nicky Thorne, who launched an investigation, said: “You could see all of her bones and every single rib. She was just skin and bone.”

The RSPCA also feel fears the crisis could worsen during the winter months as more people struggle with the increase in expenditure around Christmas time.

RSPCA chief inspector Ian Briggs said: “We are seeing a shocking rise in the number of calls reporting pet abandonment to our emergency line during winter.

“Sadly, we expect the trend will continue as more pet owners face financial hardship at this time of year more than any other."