Why a wealth tax won't fix Reeves's Budget black hole

Dan Neidle ought to be a hero to Labour MPs.

- JOHN RENTOUL

It was his well-informed persistence in the face of bluster that finally established that Nadhim Zahawi, who was briefly chancellor of the Exchequer in the turbulent later stages of the last Conservative government, had been forced to agree a settlement with HM Revenue and Customs and pay a penalty. Zahawi was sacked for a “serious breach of the ministerial code”. Neidle, a former tax lawyer, was accused by the Tories of being a Labour stooge and indeed he did sit on one of the party’s national committees. But he has always been scrupulous about evidence and pragmatic about policy.

So when he and his advisory group say a wealth tax is a bad idea, you might expect Labour MPs to listen. But Richard Burgon, a leading light of the Socialist Campaign Group, continues to press the idea in the final days before Rachel Reeves’s second Budget.

What does Neidle say about a wealth tax?

When Burgon welcomed Reeves’s retreat from a rise in income tax, saying that a wealth tax was a “fairer alternative”, Neidle responded on X, saying: “The idea a wealth tax is any answer to this year’s fiscal gap is just bonkers. Utter claptrap.”