Coventry MP Zarah Sultana joins cross-party calls for ‘extreme wealth’ tax

Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South, has joined a group of MPs calling on the Chancellor to introduce an ‘extreme wealth’ tax for the highest earners.

The group of MPs advocated for the tax prior to last week’s Budget, the first to be delivered by a Labour government in fourteen years.

The 30 MPs and peers, including Sultana, are calling for a 2% asset tax on assets worth over £10 million. The advocators argue that taxes of that extent could free up £24 billion at a time when the Government is facing what they have termed a financial “black hole” left by the previous Conservative government.

The cross-party group highlighted the contrast between the £150 billion increase in billionaire wealth, and the freezing of wealth taxes at 3.4%

While Chancellor Rachel Reeves did not introduce any tax rises for workers in the Budget, changes were made to National Insurance contributions made by employers. Some controversy has, however, arisen in recent weeks over what defines a ‘working person’, after government ministers refused to confirm whether small business owners were classed as ‘working people’.

In a letter to Reeves, the cross-party group highlighted the contrast between the £150 billion increase in billionaire wealth between 2020 and 2022, and the freezing of wealth taxes at 3.4% in the same period. A recent Oxfam study also suggests that the richest 1% of Brits control more wealth than the bottom 70% combined.

MP Zarah Sultana, who represents the Coventry South constituency which contains most of the University, has added to calls for an ‘extreme wealth’ tax, saying that new wealth taxes would “rebalance power, fund essential public services, and build a society where the needs of the many take precedent over the greed of a few.”

Austerity is, and always has been, a political choice

Zarah Sultana, Coventry South MP

Ms Sultana also added that “austerity is, and always has been, a political choice”, in response to Reeves’ pledge at the Labour Party conference that there would be “no return to austerity”, as the Chancellor sought to distance herself from the policies enforced by David Cameron’s Conservative government.

The words of Sultana and her fellow Parliamentarians heighten questions surrounding Labour’s commitment to pursuing party visions, regardless of internal or external criticism. This follows the Government’s decision to suspend winter fuel payments for ten million pensioners, a move that was seen as ‘controversial’ and led to a rebellion by ten Labour MPs.

Sultana is currently sitting as an independent MP after she was suspended from the Labour Party earlier this year for voting against the two-child benefit cap. Speculation has arisen that she could, along with other suspended MPs, join Jeremy Corbyn’s alliance with four fellow pro-Gaza Independent MPs, amid continued evidence from Starmer of a necessary pursuit for intraparty unity over core government values.