A crisis is gripping our country’s schools. More than 100 have been told to fully or partially
close . There are concerns that school buildings are unsafe because of a construction material that can degrade over time – especially when not maintained properly.The government was warned several times about the existence in schools of this material; and they scrapped a plan to refurbish all secondary schools when they came into office.
Coming home to roost
The crisis is a part of an endemic problem in the UK. Years of government underinvestment in public services has left us with crumbling schools and record NHS waiting lists , to name just two of the problems we face.
Insufficient government funding is pushing our society to the brink – and crises caused by underinvestment will only increase in the coming years.
Two weeks ago, the IFS put it bluntly : the UK faces a stark choice, either raise taxes, or face the decline of public services and the end of the welfare state as we know it.
At Tax Justice UK we campaign for the first option. We want to see new wealth taxes levied on the super rich (those with net assets over £10m) – and existing taxes like Capital Gains updated so the super rich pay the same tax rate as working people.
Wealth taxes gaining support
We’re making big strides towards these goals.
This week over 300 millionaires , business people and celebrities demanded G20 countries intervene to stop the ballooning wealth of the super rich.
A full list of the signatories – including businessman Ian Gregg, film producer Richard Curtis and musician Brian Eno – can be found here .
And in a series about the future of government and state spending this week, the Financial Times said higher taxes on wealth look to be increasingly likely .
Not only do we need wealth taxes to support long-term investment in public services, we also need them to help struggling households through the immediate cost of living crisis.
New research we helped produce shows the public think neither the Conservatives or Labour are promising enough to tackle the cost of living crisis. And the next election will be swung by whichever party can propose the best solutions to it.