Chancellor must take action on rising gender affordability housing gap ahead of Budget, says Women’s Budget Group
OCTOBER 30, 2024
The gender housing affordability gap has widened in the year to April 2024, WBG’s analysis of the Office of National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) data released today shows.
Private renting has become significantly less affordable for both men and women in the past year, with both spending a larger proportion of their incomes on rent. However, the burden has grown higher for women, who now have to spend on average almost half of their earnings on rent for a one bedroom flat.
Ahead of today’s budget, the Women’s Budget Group is urging the Chancellor to tackle the widening gender housing affordability gap by permanently re-linking Local Housing Allowance with actual rents.
Key findings
- Earnings are not keeping up with private rents. In England, the percentage of women’s median earnings absorbed by rent for a one-bedroom property was 47% in the year to April 2024, up from 36% at the same time in 2023.
- For men, this figure stood at 26% in 2023 and has increased to 34% in the year to April 2024.
- This comes to an increase in the gender housing affordability gap from 10 percentage points to 13 percentage points.
- The same is true for two-bedroom properties, where the gap increased from 12 percentage points to 15 percentage points for England.
- The situation in London is especially acute, where a woman renting a two-bedroom property could expect to see 70% of her earnings absorbed by rent as of April 2024. This is up from 62% at the same time last year. For men, this figure is 55%.
- However, the average rent of a one-bedroom property has gone up a further £39 per month between April and September this year.
- The average rental price of a one-bedroom property in England has gone up by £133 from £956 a month to £1089 per month since September 2023. In London the average price of a one-bed has risen by £153.
- WBG analysis released last month showed that women were hardest hit by cuts to public services and changes to tax and social security since 2010, losing 9.4%, equivalent to £3,162 per year, in living standards, compared to men’s loss of 5.8% (£2,395 per year).
WBG calls on the Chancellor to
- Unfreeze and permanently re-link Local Housing Allowance rates to local rents, raising it to the 50th percentile to ensure housing benefit actually covers renting costs and protect women from falling into poverty and/or becoming homeless.
- Review overall benefit rates to make up for losses experienced by benefit claimants, and women in particular, over the past 14 years; and prevent the real value of benefits getting further eroded by the rising cost of living.
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget Group commented: “The Chancellor committed to make this economy work for women. Rachel Reeves needs to address the widening gender housing affordability gap in order to deliver on this promise; an economy in which women can barely afford to rent on their own is clearly not working.
“With September’s inflation rate at 1.7% expected to determine benefit increases from April, and many predicting that inflation will go up again by the end of this year due to a rise in energy prices, we’re looking at a real-term cut in benefits for many people already struggling to make ends meet.
“Our work has shown that the on-and-off freeze in benefits over the past decade has been the main driver of women’s income loss since 2010, and that cuts to social security and public services have disproportionately hit women’s living standards.
“At the same time, the cost of private renting has been increasing, eating up more and more of women’s incomes. It is clear that women’s earnings are not keeping pace with private renting costs, and neither is Local Housing Allowance.
“The realignment of LHA with the 30th percentile of average local rents at the last Autumn Budget brought a flicker of hope to those on the lowest incomes facing spiralling housing costs. But this was a temporary measure and the Chancellor must be bolder than the previous Government. Permanently re-linking Local Housing Allowance rates to rents would give private renters more security and ensure housing benefit actually meets the cost of renting. Unless she acts on this, gender inequalities will deepen, leaving more women and their children vulnerable to homelessness and poverty.”
The UK Women’s Budget Group is the UK’s leading feminist economics think tank, providing evidence and analysis on women’s economic position and proposing policy alternatives for a gender-equal economy. We act as a link between academia, the women’s voluntary sector and progressive economic think tanks.
Image: Rachel Reeves,https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2024/07/08/uks-finance-minister-says-will-make-difficult-decisions-to-drive-growth/ Licence: CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International
Sam White: ‘Budget 2024 leaves Reeves facing nine circles of fiscal hell’
In the ‘Divine Comedy’, Dante tells the story of the hero being led through the Nine Circles of Hell by the spirit of the ancient poet Virgil. This week, it’s our very own Britain that must begin its journey out of the Nine Circles of Fiscal Hell, with the role of guide played by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
‘Yeah yeah, we know this is a grim inheritance’ people tend to respond, but then we are quick to move on. It’s an understandable impulse, but it risks leaving us all surprised or disappointed that there isn’t a quick fix to all this. When the government talks of a Decade of Renewal, they’re not joking.
But this is no counsel of despair. As the historian Max Hastings observes in The Times this week: “No voter, whatever our allegiance, has much current cause for rejoicing. Our task as citizens — indeed, our duty — is to avoid succumbing to mere vacuous despair. Instead, we should keep trying to help things turn out a little better than we fear, on both sides of the House.”
We all need this to work. The alternative is a collapse into populism and a further cycle of decline. By recognising the nine distinct problems we face, we can gain greater insight into the challenges this government must navigate.
The circles of fiscal hell
Let me divide the nine circles into three groups. The first group are the Fiscal Horrors.
We begin on the first circle where we find the Pre-Election Traps. Here the previous government set a trap with real cuts to unprotected departments all the way to 2028 and a further cut to public investment. How did Labour avoid the trap? By pretending they hadn’t noticed it and proceeding on their merry way. This is the trap that makes Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies really cross. This specific problem was predictable, he fumes (not unreasonably).
The second circle is the Hidden Horrors. This is the further £22 billion blackhole in the public finances that were hidden before the Election.
Paul Johnson agrees. In his recent ‘Expert Factor’ podcast he says: “It is the case, I think, that the current government will face pressures in the order of £20bn more than was completely evident this year pre-election… more than was completely evident in the numbers they inherited” – although he adds they should have anticipated some public pay pressures.
The third circle contains the Double Headed Fiscal Hell Hound. One head spews forth the highest tax levels for 70 years, while the second taunts us with debt approaching 100% of GDP. These are both far higher than incoming governments faced in 1997 or 2010. You have to reach back most of the way to WWII to find Britain’s public finances so comprehensively wrecked.
The next group comprise the Broke and the Broken.
We begin in the fourth circle with the Walking Wounded: the public services. The highest waiting lists in the NHS ever. Schools literally crumbling. Full prisons. You know this one.
The fifth circle contains the Living Dead. Are they still alive or just shambling forward in the appearance of life? Or to put it in financial terms – are they bankrupt already? Here we find tortured universities, local authorities and the like. Central government cut grants to local authorities for years. Local government cut everything they weren’t obliged by statute to deliver. Now there’s nothing left to cut. 12 councils declared bankruptcy since 2018, with more at death’s door today.
The sixth circle contains the Spectres of Past Sins. Here we find sins of past administrations for which this government may now need to provide compensation: Contaminated blood. Horizon Post Office scandal. Grenfell. WASPI women. £10bn here, £10bn there. Sooner or later you’re talking about serious money.
Now we arrive at the final group: the layers of Structural Misery.
READ MORE: Budget 2024: ‘We can avoid taxing workers by hiking capital gains tax’
On the seventh circle reside the Long-term Pressures we’ve known about for some time. The Ageing population means for each person of working age, there are more retired people to provide for. For the NHS just to stand still, it needs a real increase in its budget of 4% every year. Meanwhile, Climate Change has moved from a ‘future risk’ to real costs today as we grapple with the increase in extreme weather events. The OBR estimate the cost of illness, age, climate will triple our debt levels over the next 50 years.
The eighth circle are New Challenges. Front and centre is geopolitical risk. Since the end of the Cold War, we have enjoyed a ‘peace dividend’ where we could cut spending on Defence to fund schools and hospitals without raising taxes. That has now gone sharply into reverse with the wide recognition we need to raise Defence spending to 2.5% or more. No small beer.
Finally, there are The Endless Flats. Imagine it, standing in a featureless wasteland with nothing in any direction. These are the Flats of Productivity (flat for a decade), the Flats of Investment (flat since Brexit) and the Flat Real Incomes (no higher than 15 years ago). We need the courage to build something productive on these plains or Britain will remain shackled to a flat economy.
Fixing the future
It may sound like I’m feeling pessimistic, but in truth it’s quite the opposite. On his entry to hell, Dante famously saw the sign: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’.
But we’re in the opposite place. For the first time in a decade, there is hope.
Why? The move to address Britain’s long-term failure through investment is THE most important thing to fix growth, productivity and living standards. And it looks to be core to Reeves’ budget this week.
So I say: ‘Abandon pessimism, ye who enter’. The turnaround has begun.
Read more of our Budget 2024 coverage:
- Labour’s Budget 2024: What policies could Rachel Reeves announce?
- ‘No fiscal rule is perfect. But this one means welcome investment’
- Fiscal rules: What is Reeves changing – and why does it matter?
- ‘We can avoid taxing workers by hiking capital gains tax’
- ‘A case against cuts, from the winter fuel allowance to the £2 bus fare cap’
- Minister says ‘normal’ for cabinet to seek good deal for departments amid unrest over cuts
- ‘How Labour can fix the worst economic inheritance since 1945′
Chancellors come and go but the crisis has deepened because they have all become slaves to neoliberal dogmas
Despite being the world’s sixth largest economy, a large proportion of the population is overwhelmed by poverty and a sense of helplessness. Adjustments to tax base and rates need to be used to reduce income and wealth inequalities and improve people’s spending power, a key requirement for building a sustainable economy.
Chancellors come and go but the crisis has deepened because they have all become slaves to neoliberal dogmas. People’s living standards have been eroded through never-ending austerity and corporate profits have been guaranteed through privatisations, outsourcing of public services and Private Finance Initiative’s (PFI). It all needs to change.
Profiteering by the energy sector is responsible for creating poverty and killing off the steel and shipping industry. Returns extracted by water company shareholders are the cause of high prices, pollution of rivers and seas, and low investment in infrastructure.
In the 1970s, the UK was lucky enough to win the nature’s lottery in the form of oil and gas deposits in the North Sea. The government squandered the break by handing it all to private corporations and subjecting the industry to comparatively lower rates of tax. The UK handed everything to the private sector, collected $1.72 per barrel in taxes and squandered it on tax cuts for the rich. Norway also found oil and gas deposits in the North Sea but didn’t privatise. It collected $21.35 per barrel in taxes and ring-fenced the revenue for future use. It now has a sovereign fund of $1.4 trillion whilst the UK public finances are a mess. The UK state is still enamoured with privatisation and despite failures won’t bring water into public ownership.
The neoliberal dogma portrays workers as the problem. With the state-sponsored onslaught on trade unions, workers’ share of gross domestic product (GDP) in the form of wage and salaries declined from 65.1% in 1976 to barely 50% now. 12m people, including 4.3m children, live in poverty. 9.3m people, including 3m children are facing hunger and hardship. The pre-tax annual median wage of £28,764 is lower in real terms than in 2008, and is inadequate for people to access good food, housing, healthcare and pensions. Last year some 3.12m people relied upon food banks to survive. Some 17.8m adults have annual income of less than £12,570. The average state pension of between £9,000 and £9,500 is a major source of income for pensioners, and is less than 50% of the minimum wage. Last year, some 5,000 pensioners died from cold as they struggled to afford eating and heating. Unsurprisingly, the UK has labour shortages. 2.8m people are chronically ill and unable to work and 6.33m people are waiting for 7.64m hospital appointments in England alone.
The tax system has been used to impoverish the poor. The richest fifth pay 31% of gross household income in direct taxes; poorest fifth 14%. The Richest fifth pay 9% of disposable income in indirect taxes; poorest fifth 28%. Altogether, the poorest pay higher proportion of income in tax.
Even getting higher education and skills does not necessarily offer a way out of poverty. Student debt has reached £240bn and expected to hit £500bn by 2050. Not so long ago, this was part of the public debt but successive governments have dumped it onto households. The cash which once fuelled spending in the local economy now boosts profits of the finance industry. Unsurprisingly, too many town centres resemble economic deserts.
Due to government policies the top 1% has more wealth than 70% of the population combined. The bottom 50% of the population owns less than 5% of wealth, and the top 10% has 57%. The systematic creation of poverty means that fewer have the capacity to spend and stimulate the economy.
Neoliberal policies have not boosted investment in productive assets. The UK’s investment performance is worse than every other G7 country. Successive governments have offered tax reliefs, subsidies and grants to stimulate investment but why would companies invest when people lack the power to purchase the resulting goods and services.
Against the above background, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves needs to boost people’s incomes, a necessary condition for securing economic growth and building a sustainable economy. She needs to increase the living wage and at the very least impose a triple-lock on all social security benefits. By ending the two-child benefit cap, government can lift thousands of children out of poverty. By restoring the winter fuel payment to all; it can prevent thousands of pensioner deaths.
Personal allowances have been frozen since 2021 and dragged millions of poor people into income tax brackets. The government needs to end the freeze. Each £1,000 increase in personal allowance costs around £10bn. The benefit to the rich can be clawed back with adjustments at the top end of the scale. This can boost disposable incomes and local economies.
The Employment Rights Bill currently going through parliament offers an opportunity to reset worker rights and end insecure employment. The Bill must be revised to end zero-hour contracts and obnoxious practice of firing and rehiring workers on lower wages. It must give workers a say in corporate affairs by ensuring that worker-elected directors have seats on the boards of all large companies. This can help to secure equitable distribution of income. Only strong trade unions can negotiate with belligerent employers to secure a fair deal for workers.
Taxation policy must be used to reduce inequalities and redistribute wealth. Taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rates as wages is a necessary step. Recipients of capital gains and dividends use the NHS and social care but do not pay any national insurance. That is unfair and must end, and can raise £25bn or more a year for redistribution and or investment in infrastructure.
Indeed, the government has vast policy choices for redistribution and reduction in inequalities. These include wealth taxes on the ultra rich, financial transaction tax, taxes on private planes and yachts. Since 2010, HMRC admits that it failed to collect over £500bn in taxes though others say it is closer to around £1,400bn. This does not include taxes lost due to profit shifting by large corporations. Some £570bn is stashed away in tax havens by UK residents and HMRC has made no estimate of the taxes consequently lost. Altogether, there is a huge potential to raise tax revenues to alleviate inequalities and poverty, and rebuild the economy.
Rather than reviving the discredited Private Finance Initiative (PFI) under which the government paid corporations £6 for every £1 of investment, the government needs to directly invest in the social infrastructure. Neoliberals always wheel out the argument about public debt whenever any public investment is mentioned. They need to be reminded that post-war construction of the UK was facilitated by government debt of 270% of GDP. This built the welfare state, infrastructure, new industries, revived the private sector, boosted employment and generated tax revenues. By 1976, the debt was reduced to 49% of GDP. Such policies are necessary again. The current government debt is around 100% of GDP, and includes the effects of quantitative easing. When excluded it comes down to about 65% of GDP. So there is room to borrow, and the Chancellor is thought to be considering loosening the self-imposed debt straitjacket.
The hikes in water and energy price have increased household poverty and business costs, and shown that governments obsessed with privatisation have fewer economic levers to manage the crisis. It can acquire more by bringing essential services into public ownership and thus eliminate profiteering and provide economic stability. Neoliberals sing praises of markets and competition, and surely would welcome break-up of banks and internet companies, as that can enhance competition and lower prices.
The Chancellor must abandon neoliberal policies which have held the UK back for so long. They have neither produced prosperity nor happiness for the people. Often emancipatory change is imposed in the teeth of opposition and the same is necessary now. The government must prioritise people’s welfare over the short-term selfish motives of giant corporations and the finance industry.
'We need to recognise that the cuts and austerity that got us into this mess will not get us out of it'
The first Labour budget in 15 years comes at a time of deep crisis for people all across the country.
The Tories left behind a toxic legacy of plummeting living standards, stagnant wages and public services stretched beyond breaking point.
No one can deny the scale of the mess left by consecutive Tory administrations. But we also need to recognise that the cuts and austerity that got us into this mess will not get us out of it.
Labour was elected to solve the crises our communities face and that means breaking the austerity doom loop.
One crucial question for our new government is who should pay for cleaning up the Tory mess: those who have thrived in the past decade, or those who have borne the brunt of Tory policies?
While millions have struggled to make ends meet in recent years, the wealthiest have flourished.
The total wealth of UK billionaires has skyrocketed from £246 billion in 2013 to an astonishing £684 billion just a decade later. That equates to an increase of £120 million every single day for 10 years.
Yet in Government the Tories implemented a series of regressive tax increases that tried to pay for the economic crisis on the backs of the majority of people. Labour must stand for the exact opposite.
So instead of further austerity that will hit the poorest hardest, the wealthiest in our society should be made to pay to fix the damage caused by the Tories and to fund the investment our public services so desperately need.
That’s why this week I have brought a public petition to the Government ahead of the Autumn Budget on October 30th, calling for Wealth Taxes and not more cuts. So far, 50,000 people have backed this call.
The package of three progressive taxes that I’m proposing will specifically target the wealthiest, the tax advantages enjoyed by those who live off their wealth and the greedy corporations that have profited from the energy crisis.
The first is the introduction of a 2% Wealth Tax that would apply to any assets over £10 million, raising up to £24 billion annually. That would affect just 20,000 people, less than 0.1% of the population.
The next calls for the equalisation of Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax rates, so that those who live off their investments pay the same tax rates as ordinary workers who go out to work day-in day-out. That would generate an additional £17 billion.
The third measure would end the state subsidies that go to fossil fuel giants and to close the loopholes in the oil and gas windfall tax, raising another £4 billion.
These three measures alone would bring in an additional £45 billion per year, providing vital funds to rebuild our crumbling public services, invest in a higher-wage economy and boost people’s incomes.
The funds raised through wealth taxes could also tackle the deep inequality that plagues our society. It would be a very popular measure to make the richest pay and then to use the funds to combat child poverty and support pensioners for example by lifting the two-child benefit cap and reversing cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance.
After so many years of austerity, cronyism, and corporate profiteering under Tory misrule, the new Labour Government has the opportunity to directly improve the lives of millions at the Autumn budget. Wealth taxes can help it secure the resources to do so.
'We must celebrate the wins when they come, but the case for bold ambition on areas such as fair taxation and the green transition must be made and remade throughout the course of this parliament.'
Pranesh Narayanan, research fellow at IPPR
The first Labour budget in 14 years is shaping up to be a significant event. In the run-up we’ve heard a lot about ‘fiscal black holes’ and bleak inheritances. Many have been complaining about a narrative defined by gloom rather than hope. However, it is important to acknowledge the scale of the challenge facing Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves at this point in time.
Ordinary people have seen a decade and a half of stagnant wages and rising living costs. Many regions outside of London and the South have seen a decline in meaningful and prosperous work. There is a palpable sense that things are just not working – whether that’s the courts, the NHS or community services. Britain is no longer at the technological frontier and lags many advanced economies on productivity and investment.
There are two pieces of good news – firstly, after being battered by the pandemic and an energy crisis, economic conditions are returning to some sense of normality. Inflation is back at normal levels, interest rates are expected to fall, and the risk of recession has faded away. In fact, the International Monetary Fund has revised the UK’s growth forecast up.
The second piece of good news is that a way forward is emerging. We’ve seen that the low-tax, small-state policies of successive conservative governments have failed to deliver prosperity. There is consensus that we need to improve, not cut, public services and investment to build a better economy.
This change in mindset was at the heart of Rachel Reeves’ recent announcement that the government will tweak its fiscal rules to allow more borrowing for public investment. For many people, this might sound like a simple edit of numbers on a spreadsheet, but it removes a key barrier to public investment that has effectively been in place since the Coalition government of 2010. This is the Treasury finally admitting that being responsible with the public finances is about spending wisely not just cutting costs.
This can release up to an additional £50bn a year for public investment in infrastructure, buildings, equipment and industrial development. It’s unlikely that Reeves will use up the entirety of this ‘new money’ – investment projects take time to set up and deliver. A careful approach is needed so that we don’t see the mistakes of previous governments in creating instability in the funding pipeline.
Whilst there is undoubtedly good news for public investment, this government’s rules on day-to-day spending state that they will have to be funded by tax revenues. However, we know that spending cuts would be a mistake.
This time last year, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered a budget that cut taxes whilst complaining about poor public sector productivity. The idea was that public services would get less money and would magically improve their productivity through better discipline or some vague turn to ‘responsibility’. This was a ludicrous proposition – when services are already on their knees and dealing with huge and immediate pressures, it’s simply not possible to do root and branch reform or introduce new systems and technologies. They need funding for the present and investment for the future.
Both Starmer and Reeves have committed to not repeating austerity. It’s easy to be sceptical when the rhetoric of ‘tough choices’ has been deployed ad-nauseum. Still, it’s possible to make a different set of touch choices – most people link this idea to spending cuts thanks to George Osbourne’s brutal austerity measures but today, it’s more likely to mean tax rises. Most of the speculation in the run up to the budget has been about which taxes to hike, not about whether taxes should increase.
Capital gains tax reform could bring an extra £14bn, with almost all that revenue coming from the wealthiest in society. Closing inheritance tax reliefs could also raise some of this revenue. However, if it is not possible to fully close the funding gap through these measures, adding national insurance to employer pension contributions could also be a reasonable option – this would raise up to £14bn, of which £6bn would come out of contributions into the pension pots of the top 10% of earners.
It’s unclear how far Starmer’s Labour will go on many issues that are important to progressives – rumours around capital gains tax, for example, suggest that reforms will fall short of what is technically possible. That being said, there does seem to be a more constructive approach to economic policy. We must celebrate the wins when they come, but the case for bold ambition on areas such as fair taxation and the green transition must be made and remade throughout the course of this parliament.
Adrian Ramsay is co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and the MP for Waveney Valley
Listen to Labour ministers answering questions about next week’s Budget and there’s one consistent soundbite – “the £40 billion black hole left by the Conservatives”. It leaves the impression that the only objective of the Budget is to fill that black hole.
But the Budget needs to do so much more. We need to start to re-build our broken economy, rescue our public services from years of under-funding and accelerate the transition to a greener, more sustainable future.
A Budget with zero ambition wouldn’t only be disastrous for our country, it would mean Labour turning its back on its key election promise that it would be the party of change. The caution coming out of the Treasury suggests this Budget will be austerity by another name.
Yet it is clear to anyone who’s tried to get a GP appointment, been on an NHS waiting list for years, struggled with social care or SEND provision or tried to find a home to live in that we cannot afford another 15 years of austerity. Investment is desperately needed across all our public services, from the NHS to prisons, schools to transport. And if we are to successfully build a carbon-free future and a more sustainable economy, investment in the green transition also needs to happen now.
It is deeply alarming that rather than speculating which areas might be favoured for investment, the talk instead is of ministers fighting the cuts being proposed for their departments by the Chancellor. The only area being “spared” is the NHS but even then the money coming down the track would allow it merely to stand still and do almost nothing to plug the £37 billion shortfall in capital spending identified by Lord Darzi.
This lack of ambition, even lack of vision, risks not only leaving people facing more years of poor health, poor housing and poor public services. It will drag us further away from the resilient and nature-rich future we could be creating. The roll-out of financial support for nature-friendly farming schemes has had a rocky ride since we left the EU and the Common Agricultural Policy. But reducing its budget, as has been rumoured, would be an act of economic and environmental vandalism and would undermine what little progress has been made towards improving the UK’s biodiversity and food security.
If the past 15 years have taught us anything, it should be that austerity and slashing spending on public services leads to static or even lower living standards, an unhealthier population and a weak economy. We won’t get out of the hole we’re in by following the same path.
The Government needs to drop its slavish commitment to the existing fiscal rules so it can borrow to invest, especially in the green transition, thereby creating jobs and reviving the economy.
If, as reported, the Chancellor borrows to invest, this will win the Green Party’s support because it is only by closing the yawning investment gap that we can build a flourishing economy. The list is a long one: crumbling hospital and schools, poorly-insulated homes, inadequate public transport not to mention decarbonising our economy.
So how to pay for this? There are options alongside borrowing to invest. We should close the unfairness gap in the tax system by equalising tax rates on income from wealth with those on income from work. It makes no sense that people who are paying 40 or 45 percent tax on their salaries are taxed at only 20 percent on capital gains.
We should go further by introducing a tax on the very wealthiest in society – a policy supported by Patriotic Millionaires who argue that the best way to delivering investment is through taxing the richest in our society. The wealthiest 10 percent of the population own around half of all wealth, much of which is taxed at a much lower rate than the income of ordinary working people. Yet all the talk is how to stop them leaving the country, rather than looking to them to pay their fair share of tax so everyone can benefit from improved public services.
A 2 percent tax on those with more than £10 million could raise £22 billion a year, going a long way to plugging that “black hole” identified by Rachel Reeves and start the process of turning around our ailing economy.
It is only right that those with the broadest shoulders should pay a bit more to fund the public services that our economy relies on: a better education system to teach people the skills they’ll need in the future; a strong health service so people can get the treatment they need so they can return to work; decent housing stock so people are less likely to fall ill in the first place; and decent social care for those who can’t look after themselves. That is the pathway to creating a thriving, resilient economy and a compassionate society.
There is more at stake next week than a thriving economy and healthy society. Voters need to believe that politicians can make a difference in their lives. They voted for change in July. If trust in democratic politics is to be restored, this Government needs to deliver it.
Image credit: Keir Starmer – Creative Commons
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