Missed opportunity to tackle poverty, combat climate change and bolster public services

A modest 2 per cent wealth tax on the very richest could have generated £24bn, writes Jamie Livingstone of Oxfam Scotland

The UK Government’s Spring Statement should have been a chance to invest more in tackling poverty, combating climate change and in bolstering public services. Instead, it reinforced a damaging trajectory of cuts that will hurt people struggling to make ends meet in the UK and around the world while letting the wealthiest off the hook.

And for what? To side-step overdue fair tax reforms and to meet arbitrary “non-negotiable” fiscal rules.

The Chancellor must know that those with the least shouldn’t be made to pay the price for a more volatile world. The people of Scotland certainly do.

Oxfam’s latest poll shows more than three-quarters of people would rather see the very richest pay more than face public spending cuts. Even a growing number of millionaires are saying, ‘tax us more’: many want to help build a fairer country.

A young boy play football in the street in the Govan area of Glasgow | Getty Images

But right now, that vision feels out of reach. Food banks are overwhelmed. Many carers are broke and burnt out. Households are falling into debt just to afford the basics. And Scotland’s legal child poverty targets are hanging by a thread.

The Chancellor talks of prioritising ‘working people’, but not everyone can do paid work – including some disabled people and those battling long-term illness. Cutting their access to vital support isn’t just abhorrent, it’s a failure of fairness.

And as the world’s sixth-largest economy, this isn’t about economic necessity - it’s a political choice. In the last 12 months alone, billionaires here saw their wealth soar by £11 billion. Yet the UK Government claims there isn’t enough money to ensure disabled, ill and other people in poverty can live in dignity. The truth: there is enough money, just a shortage of political courage to tax it.

The Chancellor’s crackdown on tax evasion is welcome. But we need a fairer tax system to make public finances genuinely resilient to the winds of change.

A modest 2 per cent wealth tax on the richest millionaires and billionaires alone could generate £24 billion. The 0.04 per cent of the population who are rich enough, and lucky enough, to pay it would barely notice. But that money could fund poverty-busting public services, support struggling families, and invest in greener, healthier communities.

Jamie Livingstone, head of Oxfam Scotland | contributed

The Chancellor says UK public spending will grow, but Scotland’s budget fate won’t be clear until June’s UK spending review as reduced spending on services in England could also carve a chasm in the Scottish Government’s coffers.

Meanwhile, people in Scotland brace for more pain, with experts warning that cuts will shorten lives, deepen poverty, and make life even harder for those already struggling.

Criticising UK political choices isn’t enough. Scottish Ministers must decide how far will they go to shield Scots from UK social security cuts while protecting devolved public services.

As Tax Justice Scotland has shown, devolved tax powers offer ways to better tax wealth and raise crucial extra funds for Scotland’s budget. An obvious place to start is replacing the Council Tax with a fairer tax on property wealth. Another is a fair tax on the pollution-spewing private jets using Scottish airports, generating up to £30 million more a year.

People in Scotland are fed up with cuts, excuses, and a system stacked in favour of the wealthiest. If the world has really changed, as the Chancellor claims, then the tax system must change with it.

Jamie Livingstone is head of Oxfam Scotland