No surprise millionaire Anas Sarwar is against a wealth tax

The National

22-04-2025

MILLIONAIRE nepo baby Anas Sarwar has said that a wealth tax is the "wrong solution" to problems of widening societal and economic inequality.
Speaking during an interview on the Glasgow local radio station Glad Radio, the branch manager ruled out supporting a proposal to levy a wealth tax of just 2% annually on assets worth more than £10 million, a proposal which has been backed by some Labour MPs who still understand what the Labour party was supposed to be about before Keir Starmer took it further to the right than the Conservative party under John Major.
The anti-poverty campaign organisation put forward a plan for a 2% annual tax on assets above £10m, which they said would affect a tiny 0.04% of the UK population and could raise £24 billion a year, obviating the need for the savage cuts to disability benefits which were announced last month by Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.
In March, Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside since 2019, tweeted: "A wealth tax of 2% on assets over £10 million would raise £24 billion per year. When the government talks about 'tough choices' – why is this choice never on the table?"
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Richard Burgon, MP for Leeds East, who was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party for six months for rebelling on the Government's refusal to abolish the two-child cap on benefits, organised an online petition calling for the UK Government to implement a wealth tax. The petition attracted over 50,000 signatories. Burgon hit out at the decision to 'slash disability benefits instead of taxing extreme wealth' and claimed that a two percent wealth tax on assets over £10m would raise up to £24bn per year.
Around a dozen Labour MPs, as well as union leaders and a number of Labour peers, have called for a tax on extreme wealth. The calls have been rebuffed by Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Ever the obedient branch manager who does not dare contradict his bosses, Sarwar has rejected the calls for a tax on extreme wealth, insisting that it was the "wrong solution" to increasing inequality, but he declined to detail what the right solution might be. It's definitely not impoverishing the disabled and refusing to introduce the single measure which would do more than any other to tackle child poverty - abolishing the two-child benefit cap - but Sarwar is just fine with all that.
The Guardian has reported that UK Government ministers have privately ruled out abolishing the two-child benefit cap despite warnings that a failure to do so could result in the highest levels of child poverty since records began.
Anas Sarwar had previously defended the decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Questioned about child poverty earlier this year, he said: "The SNP wants to pretend that one single benefit or payment has the answer.
(Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire)
"The uncomfortable fact is that we can't end poverty with welfare alone.
"To end poverty, we need to get our economy moving, our public services working and create more decent, well-paid jobs.
"The harsh reality is that there is a multidisciplinary approach required if we are to end child poverty."
That's a classic example of a straw man argument from a straw man. Absolutely no one is claiming that child poverty can be ended with the Scottish Child Payment or abolishing the two-child benefit cap alone. This is the kind of deliberately obtuse intelligence insulting nonsense we've come to expect from Sarwar as he contorts himself in defence of the indefensible. The argument is that these two measures are important weapons in the arsenal if child poverty is to be tackled. Sarwar's argument is rather like telling a cancer patient who needs chemotherapy, surgery, and a regimen of other drug treatments that there's no need to bother with the chemotherapy as it alone will not cure the cancer.
Charities have warned that the Labour Government will oversee the highest child poverty rates on record if they fail to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Barnardo's, Save the Children UK, and Citizens Advice were among the organisations to issue the warning in a joint letter to the Prime Minister. Anti-poverty charities have long pointed out that abolishing the two-child cap on benefits is the single most cost-effective measure that the UK Government could introduce to reduce child poverty.
Labour had opposed the cap while in opposition, and the Labour party in Scotland still opposes the cap - at least in theory - in practice the branch office does what it's told by the Westminster government, but since taking office in July last year, Labour has U-turned with Starmer insisting that economic growth must come first.
The charities warn that failing to scrap the limit could put child poverty at its highest level since records began by the end of this parliament.
The letter says: 'Scrapping the two-child limit is by far the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty.
'It would lift 350,000 children out of poverty overnight and result in 700,000 children living in less deep poverty.
"If it is not scrapped, the stark reality is that child poverty will be significantly higher at the end of this parliament than when the government took office, making this the first time a Labour government would leave such a legacy, and the number of children living in poverty will be at its highest since records began."
The Child Poverty Action Group, which signed the letter, estimates that the number of children in poverty across the UK will jump from 4.5 million currently to 4.8 million by 2029 unless urgent action is taken.
Thanks to the Scottish Child payment, Scotland is the only part of the UK where child poverty is falling, a success which is, of course, being trumpeted from the rooftops by BBC Scotland.
Figures released by the Scottish Government in March show that, compared with the previous year's statistics, relative child poverty in 2023-24 reduced from 26% to 22% in Scotland, while absolute child poverty fell from 23% to 17%.
UK Poverty statistics, published the same day, showed levels of relative child poverty at 31% and absolute child poverty at 26%, both nine percentage points higher than in Scotland.
However, the figures showed that interim targets to reduce child poverty in Scotland were missed. The Scottish Government had aimed to have relative child poverty at 18% and absolute child poverty at 14% by 2024. Naturally, this is the aspect of the figures that BBC Scotland chose to focus on.