Labour’s first budget under Andy Burnham looks set to avoid the issue of taxing the super-rich, even though polling suggests the public strongly backs such measures. Faiza Shaheen, executive director of Tax Justice UK, argues in a Guardian column that the budget, due to be delivered by John Healey, falls short of the government’s stated ambition to end neoliberalism. The question, in her framing, is whether the government’s economic policies will match the pledge Burnham has made.
According to Shaheen, several measures that would target the wealthiest are already ruled out before the budget is delivered. Equalising capital gains tax with income tax has been dismissed, and a genuine wealth tax on those holding more than £10 million is off the table. The only measure described as briefed is an increase in the banking surcharge, which would only take the rate back to where it stood until the Conservatives cut it in 2023. Shaheen says that, beyond this, the government can only hope for trailed policies on supporting high streets, financial devolution and longer-term investment, and she argues that these still carry more than a whiff of trickle-down economics.
Shaheen points to polling that shows broad public support for wealth taxes on the super-rich, including among three in five Reform-leaning voters. The gap between that support and the likely shape of the budget is central to her argument. She cites a stark measure of inequality to underline the stakes: the richest 50 families in the UK hold more wealth than half of the country’s population. In her view, this concentration of wealth is weakening the economy, eroding the social fabric and undermining democracy.
Shaheen also recalls that Burnham, when he was mayor of Greater Manchester only last year, explicitly acknowledged that Britain has « overtaxed labour and undertaxed wealth ». Her column contrasts that diagnosis with the fiscal choices now expected from his government, and asks directly what explains the reluctance to act on it. Her piece is built around putting that question to MPs themselves, and she says their answers gave her grounds for hope, even as the budget itself appears poised to stop short of the measures she advocates.