This is how Labour can fix the finances - without forcing ordinary people to pay the price

Reports suggest the Chancellor is trying to plug a fiscal “black hole” of up to about £50 billion - and whatever fills it will decide who pays and who prospers.

The last thing we should do is squeeze people who are already struggling: people with disabilities, families on low incomes, and communities already hit hardest by cuts.

Instead, we can be bolder and fairer, raising the money by asking those who can most afford it to do a little more.

Here are four practical, popular, and progressive policies Labour could introduce without making ordinary people pay the price.

1. Tax the super-rich

For too long has the tax system worked in favour of the super-rich, letting vast fortunes grow untouched while asking for more from working people. An annual wealth tax of just 1 per cent on assets worth over £10 million and 2 per cent on assets worth over £1 billion would raise billions of pounds a year while only affecting the very richest; it would apply to only a tiny number of people in the UK.

This would tax assets, rather than further taxing income earned from work.

This would ensure that those who benefit from extreme wealth pay their fair share, without disincentivising work.

Introducing this wealth tax is extremely popular with the public; polling finds that 75 per cent of Britons would support it. And in fact, 65 per cent of millionaires themselves also support a 2 per cent tax on assets over £10 million to help fund public services and tackle the cost of living crisis, according to polling conducted by Patriotic Millionaires.

2. Support a fairer global tax system

Currently, global tax rules are decided by the OECD, a club of 38 of the world’s richest countries, predominantly from Europe and North America. This is inherently unfair to those countries not represented who are shut out of crucial decision making.

Instead, the UK should support the UN Tax Convention, which aims to create a fairer global tax system. The UN-based system would tackle corporate tax abuse while giving lower-income countries a genuine seat at the table.

This has advantages domestically as well; by supporting the UN Tax Convention, the UK could recover an amount lost to tax abuse equal to nearly 20 per cent of the NHS budget, while also supporting global tax justice.

3. Make polluters pay

In the last budget, the Chancellor introduced a tax on private jets to little public outcry. In the upcoming budget, the Chancellor should push this further, implementing frequent flyer levies and taxing high-emitting private luxury travel to help fund action against climate breakdown.

This could generate billions of pounds a year by taxing those who contribute the most to the climate crisis, without unfairly costing UK households.

4. End & redirect fossil fuel subsidies

Currently, British taxpayers are footing the bill for oil and gas subsidies in the North Sea, directly contradicting our climate commitments and accelerating climate breakdown at a time when we should be using every available resource to battle it.

The numbers are staggering. Right now, the government is propping up the declining oil and gas industry by giving oil and gas producing companies massive tax breaks - to the tune of £2.7 billion every year. The OBR also estimates that another £25.3 billion will flow to new oil and gas projects between 2022 and 2027.

These billions could transform our response to the global climate crisis by supporting flood-hit communities, or advance the UK's green industrial revolution by investing in green technology that will better the planet and create well-paying jobs at home.

Instead, these subsidies are rewarding companies for doubling down on fossil fuels rather than pivoting to cleaner, climate-just alternatives. Taken together, these measures could raise tens of billions of pounds annually while protecting working people and delivering tangible benefits.

These practical and popular choices won’t place further burdens on those already struggling with the cost of living; instead, they will ask the wealthiest and the biggest polluters to contribute their fair share.

If the Chancellor is serious about plugging the gap in our finances, she must start by tackling our growing inequality, not deepening it.

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Dr Ellie Chowns is the Green Party MP for North Herefordshire.

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