Frank Field

ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR CONTRACTS FOR THE SUPER-RICH

Today Frank Field, MP for Birkenhead, gives the annual Allen Lane Foundation Lecture. The lecture summary is here and the full lecture is attached.

On one occasion, Mrs T expressed her surprise to me that a giving culture had not been re-established in the wake of her Government’s radical tax cutting strategy which saw the top rate of tax cut from 98p to 60p and then to 40p in the 1979 and 1988 budgets. Mrs T anticipated the advent of an American model of philanthropic donation that would significantly change British public culture. While there have been some notable exceptions, Mrs T’s hopes lie still born. Here I suggest that a more radical approach to tax changes could be used to breathe life into this noble aspiration; a ten per cent surcharge on earnings above £150k which can be totally offset by charitable giving. This could encourage richer taxpayers to embrace the responsibilities of wealth that were, for example, such a characteristic of an equally flamboyant and rich Edwardian age. As John Wesley was fond of commending, while we should make as much money as we can we should, likewise, give money away in equal proportion.