How the non-dom exodus hit London's shopkeepers

Since Rachel Reeves's crackdown, Helen Kirwan-Taylor has seen her wealthy friends ditch Belgravia and Knightsbridge for overseas - with harsh consequences for local businesses

- Helen Kirwan-Taylor

The round robin emails come in weekly. “Dear friends,” it begins. “Our devoted housekeeper of 15 years is looking for new opportunities, as sadly, we cannot take her with us to Dubai. Thank you, Rachel Reeves, sad emoji.”

Where the residents of Notting Hill and Holland Park once stole each other’s staff, now the same crew of cleaners, gardeners, tutors and chefs drop handwritten notes under my door offering their services at half the previous rates. According to recent payroll figures, the number of people employed in hospitality - and this includes our favourite local Italian trattoria on Holland Park - fell by 58,000 between January 2024 and January 2025. Some of this is because of the hikes in national insurance, but having called three local restaurants, it’s also about the absence of regular European customers.

Cadogan Tate moving trucks are a daily feature on my street, as are goodbye parties. Here’s just one of many examples from my WhatsApp. “Hallo, as life moves on and taxes increase, we are celebrating ___’s birthday at home and our departure. Are you free?” At a recent dinner, I reckoned around three-quarters of the guests - all of them European - were leaving the UK against their will (practically at gunpoint is how they described it) because their (to be honest, very cushy) deal of the past 200 years was coming to an end.

George Osborne laid the foundations. Rachel Reeves poured the quick cement, particularly when she announced that non-doms would now be subject to the same inheritance tax as the British, which currently stands at 40 per cent, and that this would now apply to the global assets of wealthy foreigners who have lived in the UK for more than 10 years.

This, more than anything else, is what’s driving the rich out. Britain lost more billionaires than any country in the world over the past two years, raising fears that more will flee abroad if the government introduces a wealth tax.