Speaker 1: The UK is one of the richest countries in the world,
Speaker 1: but one in five are living in poverty.
Speaker 2: Do you have to survive on what you're given and
Speaker 2: you don't know from one day to the other what
Speaker 2: you're going to be eating?
Speaker 1: The cost of living crisis is one of the most
Speaker 1: pressing issues in Britain. For many, it's becoming a matter
Speaker 1: of survival.
Speaker 3: You're choosing between putting your cooker on to cook a
Speaker 3: meal or putting your heating on.
Speaker 1: One idea to change that has come from an unlikely corner,
Speaker 1: a group of millionaires.
Speaker 4: We actually are people who believe that those of us
Speaker 4: who have be unfortunate should pay more tax because the
Speaker 4: country needs it.
Speaker 1: They're calling for Britain's new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham to
Speaker 1: text the rich much more. Could a wealth tax make
Speaker 1: a real difference to Britain's persistent inequality?
Speaker 5: Right then?
Speaker 2: Who's only going to chop it up some belly pork.
Speaker 1: Julie cooking class on a budget in a community center
Speaker 1: and Hull in northern England. Most here are struggling financially,
Speaker 1: so the ingredients need to be cheap. Julie Ndick has
Speaker 1: relied upon benefits for years today, she's not only a participant,
Speaker 1: but has volunteered to assist jef Andy Reese. They hope
Speaker 1: people will take inspiration from today's meal, though they are
Speaker 1: aware that many here don't cook at all.
Speaker 2: It's a meal that they can afford, and it's balanced
Speaker 2: for them, and it's just something a bit different.
Speaker 4: It makes you feel a bit special, because when you're
Speaker 4: not eating right, you're not feeling right.
Speaker 6: And this is the thing for me, is it?
Speaker 3: You have to.
Speaker 1: You have to eat properly.
Speaker 2: Otherwise well, it's just awful.
Speaker 5: The dumb side of it. People cataphord to cook, the
Speaker 5: catiford to put the ovens on, even if you've gotten
Speaker 5: of them. Because we came against somebody the other week
Speaker 5: who couldn't cookie. It didn't have anything to walk when he.
Speaker 1: A freshly prepared meal pork belly and sweet potatoes a
Speaker 1: rare treat, especially for those who otherwise rely on soup kitchens.
Speaker 1: Not everyone here is comfortable being filmed. Poverty can carry shame.
Speaker 7: I've kind of rescued it as best I can.
Speaker 1: Tony is willing to talk to us, but doesn't want
Speaker 1: to give a surname. The class gives him and the
Speaker 1: others a chance to socialize, to enjoy a shared meal,
Speaker 1: a rare opportunity for many here.
Speaker 2: We've come to a society now where there's plenty of food,
Speaker 2: but it's just not given out adequately to those people
Speaker 2: that really need it.
Speaker 1: Hull once had a flourishing maritime industry, but despite recent
Speaker 1: investment in its port, it's now one of the most
Speaker 1: deprived places in with one in five across the UK
Speaker 1: affected by poverty. The poor have been getting even poorer
Speaker 1: Since the mid nineteen nineties. The percentage of people living
Speaker 1: in deep poverty that's those with incomes far below the
Speaker 1: standard poverty line, has been increasing. They now make up
Speaker 1: almost half of those living in poverty. The governing Labor
Speaker 1: Party has changed the benefit system and is on track
Speaker 1: to lived around half a million children out of poverty,
Speaker 1: but still the cost of living crisis is ongoing and
Speaker 1: the poor are hardest hit. Julie Nandick has been unable
Speaker 1: to work for many years. She's a single mother caring
Speaker 1: for a daughter who lives with disability. She shops together
Speaker 1: with a friend and they've watched as food prices have
Speaker 1: gone through The roof Fresh meat, fruit and vegetables are
Speaker 1: hard to afford.
Speaker 7: She tells us my benefit for the month is five
Speaker 7: hundred pound and that is to feed two adults and
Speaker 7: run a home. At the end of some months, I've
Speaker 7: got nothing left. It's just so scary and it's so
Speaker 7: upset into walking shop.
Speaker 1: I'm just going that that not being able to afford
Speaker 1: the food they like something Stephen Kinsella and his family
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about. They live in a large
Speaker 1: house in the southwest of England. Their lunch has come
Speaker 1: fresh from the local market. The former corporate lawyer made
Speaker 1: millions as a partner in an international law firm. He's
Speaker 1: a member of Patriotic Millionaires. The group want wealthy people
Speaker 1: like themselves to pay more tax if they have over
Speaker 1: ten million pounds in assets.
Speaker 4: I think there's that consciousness that, having been fortunate, we
Speaker 4: could easily pay more tax. And to be honest, we're
Speaker 4: not talking about something that would affect our standard of
Speaker 4: living at all. I mean the wealth tax we're proposing.
Speaker 4: You know, people really wouldn't miss it, and we're talking
Speaker 4: about two percent on your net wealth over ten million
Speaker 4: pounds to.
Speaker 1: Stephen can tell us. Group estimates that a wealth text
Speaker 1: could bring in about twenty four billion pounds a year,
Speaker 1: that's roughly twenty eight billion euros.
Speaker 4: We depend on each other and obviously if you have
Speaker 4: a lot of people who are really struggling, really unhappy,
Speaker 4: that's not good for any of us, you know. It's
Speaker 4: really just not good to live in a society where
Speaker 4: you can see other people that having a seriously hard time,
Speaker 4: and yet a bunch of us seem to be completely
Speaker 4: insulated from that.
Speaker 1: Well, the number of people in deep poverty has been rising,
Speaker 1: so has the number of rich people. According to the
Speaker 1: Equality Trust thing Tank, by twenty twenty three, the richest
Speaker 1: fifty families in the UK held more wealth than half
Speaker 1: of the UK population. In the mid nineteen nineties, the
Speaker 1: UK had just eleven billionaires. Now it's over one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty. Nowhere in Britain is wealth more conspicuous than
Speaker 1: in Mayfair, central London. Stephen Kinsella comes here regularly for
Speaker 1: business and to meet with friends. Not all of them
Speaker 1: share his enthusiasm for higher taxes.
Speaker 4: I meet with a little bit of surprise for friends.
Speaker 4: But then when you explain it, if someone has to
Speaker 4: pay to present wealth tax, bear in mind during the
Speaker 4: year they can probably make five six seven percent return
Speaker 4: on their capital. They're still going to be richer at
Speaker 4: the end of the year than they were at the
Speaker 4: start of the year. It's not going to make anybody poorer.
Speaker 1: With more money, the millionaires say the state could improve
Speaker 1: public services, for example, with better housing. Just a few
Speaker 1: kilometers east of Mayfair's wealth. Lys Haggerston, twenty year old
Speaker 1: Nisso Sharif, is a newly elected counselor for the local
Speaker 1: Green Party. Today, together with her colleague, they're checking in
Speaker 1: on residents of these tower blocks, home to many on
Speaker 1: lower incomes. For months in winter, residents they've had to
Speaker 1: shower outside. In London in particular, the cost of housing
Speaker 1: is a driving force behind poverty.
Speaker 8: I don't think anyone should deserve to be showering outside
Speaker 8: simply because you know, their waterworks aren't being looked after.
Speaker 8: I don't think that this building is barely liveable. I
Speaker 8: think the residents that live inside are just like holding
Speaker 8: on because of how affordable it is, and you know,
Speaker 8: if they can't, if they were to move out from her,
Speaker 8: they have no other option but to move out of London.
Speaker 1: And I'm nice to meet Nissa knows the residence problems well.
Speaker 1: She grew up in social housing herself, so like the ground.
Speaker 6: Floor, it's always flooding most of the rooms. Neighbors complain
Speaker 6: that it's this flood in their rooms, stuff like that.
Speaker 6: We call a council. They'll come and take a look
Speaker 6: and will take them months years before they come in
Speaker 6: and fix it. So sometimes we just give up and
Speaker 6: just get over life.
Speaker 1: The Greens are the only UK party who support to
Speaker 1: wealth checks. Nissa would like to see more money invested
Speaker 1: into social health, causing to build more and for maintenance, being.
Speaker 8: Able to take care of problems like this and you know,
Speaker 8: not putting things to the side because we can't afford it,
Speaker 8: rather than you know, if there's more money to go
Speaker 8: into these places, we won't have all these cases constantly
Speaker 8: building up and building up, and rather we'd be more functioning.
Speaker 1: The Patriotic millionaires want to convince the governing Labor Party
Speaker 1: to take on their idea. Stephen meets regularly with Simon Over,
Speaker 1: member of Parliament for his hometown. The Labour Party remains cautious.
Speaker 1: Some economists warn that wealth texts are difficult to implement
Speaker 1: without harming the economy.
Speaker 9: We've got to find a balance if we taxed everyone massively,
Speaker 9: then that would reduce economic growth and that's not good
Speaker 9: for anyone. So we have to do it in a
Speaker 9: more sort of clever way, in a structured way. And
Speaker 9: I do think that actually a wealth tax does fulfill that.
Speaker 9: Would it make people less entrepreneurial because they think they
Speaker 9: might lose bit of their money. I don't think it's
Speaker 9: any evidence of that at all.
Speaker 4: We don't have a wealth tax because they say, well, look,
Speaker 4: it's clearly.
Speaker 1: Still the government does not want the rids to just
Speaker 1: leave the country, as it has happened in Sweden for instance.
Speaker 1: But according to a Patriotic Millionaire's research, the majority of
Speaker 1: UK millionaires actually support an additional tax for the very
Speaker 1: richest in society.
Speaker 4: Most people who live here there are many reasons why
Speaker 4: they're here. You know, their children are going to school here,
Speaker 4: they have parents here, they have family and friends.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 4: The research we've done shows very few are actually going
Speaker 4: to leave just in order to avoid a two percent
Speaker 4: tax on their wealth and of course where they go.
Speaker 4: You know, lots of other countries have other taxes. We're
Speaker 4: not very we're not that highly taxed as a country.
Speaker 1: In fact, back in Hull, Julie Ndick is helping out
Speaker 1: at a local food bank. She wants to be of service.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of pride for her. She knows the
Speaker 1: donations are a lifeline for many regulars here.
Speaker 3: Everybody's a paycheck away from a disaster, so if something
Speaker 3: goes wrong, like if you're washing machine brakes, it's a
Speaker 3: hard struggle to try and get another one.
Speaker 1: Tony from the cooking class has agreed to show us
Speaker 1: where he currently lives. He used to work as a
Speaker 1: manager and a youth center, he tells us. Faced with
Speaker 1: mental health problems, he's been unable to live alone for
Speaker 1: several years now. He's staying with a friend in a
Speaker 1: small house at night, has so far becomes a cramped
Speaker 1: bad for him. Tony can't understand why people would be
Speaker 1: resistant to paying more if they could afford it.
Speaker 2: Why are people so greedy? Why do they need all
Speaker 2: this money? They're never going to spend it, you know,
Speaker 2: Why can't they do something that give back? And the
Speaker 2: taxes will be an ideal thing. If people have adequate
Speaker 2: to live a fantastic knife but yet still being able
Speaker 2: to pay something better in taxes, that will improve the
Speaker 2: quality of life for those people that are on the
Speaker 2: scrap heap.
Speaker 1: Stephen and the patriotic millionaires argue it would be important
Speaker 1: for everyone who's eligible to pay the wealth tax, ensuring
Speaker 1: it becomes more than just a donation to the state
Speaker 1: from a handful of well wish and rich people.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I could ask them for a bank account
Speaker 4: that could voluntarily make a transfer, and that would make
Speaker 4: me feel a little bit better, but it wouldn't answer
Speaker 4: the problem that we have. Whereas the wealth tax proposal,
Speaker 4: you know, the research we've had done shows it would
Speaker 4: raise about twenty four billion pounds a year, and that's
Speaker 4: a serious amount of money that this country could use
Speaker 4: to go into a whole range of essential services.
Speaker 1: According to surveys, the public supports a wealth text, but
Speaker 1: Stephen knows how hard it will be to get the
Speaker 1: government on board.
Speaker 4: I think that politicians generally do lack courage, and I
Speaker 4: think they're frightened about the backlash from the media. I
Speaker 4: think the politicians need to stand up to that, need
Speaker 4: to start delivering on what you know and what the
Speaker 4: population want, not what a very small number of influential
Speaker 4: people want.
Speaker 1: How the government tackles an equality will determine the future
Speaker 1: not just for the new Prime Minister, but for all
Speaker 1: those who are struggling every day m h
Speaker 4: M m