A Robin Hood Tax on the financial transactions of banks could raise hundreds of billions of pounds to protect public services, fight poverty and tackle climate change.
That’s the message from a new campaign group which includes the North West TUC, charities, aid agencies, trade unions, faith organisations and green groups.
The campaign is calling on the leaders of the UK’s political parties to support a global tax on the banks to help repair the human damage caused by the global economic crisis, protect public services at home, fight poverty abroad and help foot the bill for climate change.
The tax is already more popular with the public than cuts in public services, according to an opinion poll by YouGov.
The campaign, supported by almost 50 organisations including the North West TUC, Oxfam, Barnardo’s, The Salvation Army, ActionAid and Save the Children, is being launched in a film starring Bill Nighy, and written and directed by Richard Curtis (‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, ‘Love Actually’, Comic Relief) and by hundreds of economists.
Tim Moore, North West TUC Regional Policy Officer, said: “Billions of pounds whizz round the global financial system every day. A tiny tax on each transaction will hardly be noticed by the bankers and financial institutions which have to pay it. But it would raise billions to help safeguard public services here in the North West – and to make the world a better place.”
The Robin Hood Tax would not be levied on banks’ transactions with their High Street customers, but only apply to transactions between financial institutions. The Robin Hood tax would start at just five pence for every thousand pounds traded – an average of 0.05 per cent.
Experts say it could raise as much as £250 billion every year.
The campaign say the British Government can lead the world by extending the existing 0.5 per cent stamp duty on shares.
Before the financial crisis, banking was the most profitable industry in the world, with profits five times that of the pharmaceutical industry, and three times bigger than the privatised utilities, according to consultants McKinsey & Company.
At the same time the financial sector is not taxed as much as other sectors.
The campaign is calling for countries which levy the tax to keep half the proceeds domestically and for the rest to be split 50-50 between poverty reduction and tackling climate change.
Money raised by a Robin Hood Tax could be used to avoid cuts to vital public services and for a range of good causes including:
* Protecting schools, hospitals, care services and the range of public services threatened by cuts
* Ending the benefit trap that makes it too expensive for people to leave welfare and return to work (£2.7bn)
* Meeting the Government’s target to halve child poverty (£4bn)
* Meeting the Millennium Development Goals to cut child deaths by two-thirds, maternal mortality by two-thirds and tackle malaria and HIV/AIDS, and
* Providing resources to enable a deal to be done on tackling climate change.
The UK campaign is part of an international movement with similar calls being made in the USA, Europe and across the developing world. Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Nancy Pelosi, Jose Manuel Barroso and Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) have all spoken out in recent months in support of some form of transaction tax.
Financial figures who have backed transaction taxes include Lord Turner (Financial Services Authority), George Soros, Warren Buffet, Avinash Persaud (chairman of Intelligence Capital), Sir Philip Hampton (RBS chairman) and Terry Smith (chief executive of money brokers, Tullett Prebon).
Polling carried out by YouGov for Oxfam shows there is already significant public support for a Robin Hood Tax, with almost twice as many people in favour as oppose it. It is also the public’s favoured option for reducing the UK’s deficit – well ahead of reducing public spending or raising income tax, VAT or corporation tax.
Faced with a 12 per cent deficit, the next government will be facing a stark choice – raising other taxes such as income tax or VAT, cutting services, or taxing the banks. The campaign believes that the Robin Hood Tax is the right idea at the right time.
In a letter to the leaders of the UK’s political parties, the campaign says: ‘You could ignore the big problems facing the world, and accept that climate change will stay unchecked, and that the poorest people at home and abroad will have a very hard time of it over the next decade. Or you can find all the money needed by directly taxing the British public themselves.
‘Or you can work to find an innovative, modern, regular way of accumulating a fund of money to deal with big issues boldly. We would ask you seriously to consider the Robin Hood Tax as that radical new option – a small tax on bankers that would make a huge difference to the UK, to the poorest countries and to our planet. Let’s turn the crisis for the banks into an opportunity for Britain and the world.’
Barbara Stocking Oxfam Chief Executive said: ‘We have a once in a generation opportunity to make global finance work in the interests of ordinary people at home and abroad. A tiny tax on banks would make a massive difference to the millions of ordinary people around the globe forced into extreme poverty by the economic crisis.’
Alan Manning, North West TUC Regional Secretary said: ‘The crash was made in the finance sector – finance should now make a proper contribution to putting right the damage the crash caused and preventing huge cuts in vital public services.’
- You can follow the Robin Hood Tax campaign at www.robinhoodtax.org.uk or on Twitter @robinhood
- The YouGov poll for Oxfam was undertaken last November – before the prospect of massive public spending cuts had loomed large. It found that almost twice as many people would support (53 per cent) than oppose (28 per cent) a financial transaction tax. More than a third (36 per cent) said a tax on banks was their preferred option for cutting the UK’s deficit, compared to 26 per cent who opted for cutting public spending.
Apart from the North West TUC, the 48 organisations supporting the Robin Hood Tax Campaign are:
ActionAid
Action for Global Health (UK)
ACTSA (Action on Southern Africa)
Africa Europe Faith Justice Network – UK
Article 12 in Scotland
ATD Fourth World
Barnardo’s
Cafod
Centre for Alternative Technology
Chigwell Justice and Peace Centre
Christian Aid
Christian Medical Fellowship
Christian Socialist Movement
Church Action on Poverty
Church of Scotland Church and Society Council
Commonwealth HIV & AIDS Action Group
Forum for Stable Currencies
General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches
Health Unlimited
Housing Justice
Interact Worldwide
International HIV/AIDS Alliance
National Justice and Peace Network
National Union of Teachers
NCVO
nef (the new economics foundation)
Oxfam GB
ONE
People and Planet
Plan UK
Results UK
The Salvation Army
Save the Children UK
Stamp Out Poverty
Stop AIDS Campaign
Student Partnerships Worldwide
TB Alert
Tearfund
UNA-UK
Unicef UK
Unite University and College Union
Urban Forum
War on Want
World Development Movement
World Wide Robin Hood Society
Zacchaeus 2000 Trust.
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