to ask how you would stop companies and investors leaving the UK?

It is really (in context) cheap to build a mid- high-rise building. Where - the same land which is given to builders like Barratt. They hoard land and sell at astonishing profits. State would still own this. It's not about renters repaying. It's about making sure that a person in employment is self sufficient and doesn't require UC. Then turn the tap.

At the moment 25p out of every £1 of our taxes goes on welfare EXCLUDING state pensions. I shared stats on this thread earlier. Yes, I'd pay high state support for the first few months AFTER a person lost their job to allow retraining if needed and give time to find another job. But then the tap is turned. By doing this people who are looking for jobs aren't pushed in destitution, aren't forced to take lower level jobs immediately, but this payment depends on previous employment taxes paid. This system is very similar to Scandi.

Our main problem is way too many people are state dependant with no incentive to do better. This is what needs to be tackled to break never ending cycle of raising taxes, reducing public services to fund this group.

@Alexandra2001 free childcare does cost billions but it allows women to work and pay taxes. State subsidises it for most anyway (apart from those high earners who pay most taxes to fund this for other people, oh irony), but it's owners of childcare businesses who take most of the profit. If this was arranged, not just funded, by state on not for profit basis it would be considerably cheaper.

It seems that the only alternative you suggest is raising taxes. The results aren't reassuring so far

One thing we seem to spend so much time and money on is inquiries and reviews into every thing that goes wrong - Covid, hs2, anything at the bbc, they take forever and little seems to be done. Sack a few people, acknowledge the mistakes and move on

Borrowing for the billions needed to fix public services, the compensation scandals, pay review body rises.. and now £6 billion needed for Afghan relocations...

Borrow that amount and the UK will have another gilts crisis.

Housing requires materials and land and skills, all of which cost a fortune... on the scale required?

Free childcare.... costs billions....

On UC... people don't get 80% of their previous salary, it might be 20%.... or less, its £93pw for a single person.

Lets hope no one tries your plan.

Where would you build these flats -buying land in London would cost millions - building them would cost millions, infrastructure like schools would cost millions - 500£ a month would take forever to repay the loans ,then thers the interest on the loans
not that it’s not a good idea but it can’t be that easy

I wouldn't raise taxes at all.

I'd borrow and establish state building company to build masses of mid- rise IKEA style flats. Spacious enough to be a perm home for a family. Not for sale, but anyone would be able to rent there for some very reasonable amount, eg. £500/month in Lon. Given it's infra, not regular spending, markets would approve it and it wouldn't even cost that much. I wouldn't resolve housing crisis via planning permissions on green belt to profit making building corporations, they won't reduce prices. In this case NMW would be sufficient for a person to live on without state top ups and for a couple to raise family. It's not COL and low wages which is a problem in the UK, it's the cost of housing.

State childcare for 1-4 yo, similar to other European countries, might not be free, but very cheap.

In parallel I'd review PIP to allow diagnosis only, not self certified things. And make UC time limited, e.g. you get 80% of your previous salary for 3 months, then 50% for 6 months and then nothing, you have to find a job. This would reduce welfare bill drastically, no tax rises would be needed.

Which taxes would you have raised to bring in the money required for the NHS/Public Services and to pay for the unfunded commitments Hunt left Labour?
The latest one is 850m to fund the Afghan resettlement scheme - botched.

Its all very well complaining about growth/taxes/wealthy leaving BUT HNWI have been leaving since 2016... Tory supporters are always very quiet about this and also the 8 years in which we had stunning low growth.

We were in recession in 2023.

Thanks for FT info

So predictable. 🥱

I posted it here several times - Scandi are much more tax heavy at the bottom and almost the same at the top. And those at the top are entitled to all the same public services, not like our childcare stupidity.

And Norway did lose their wealthy:
Super-rich abandoning Norway at record rate as wealth tax rises slightly | Norway | The Guardian

I was going to post similar (assume it's about FTSE, not Thames Water).

But - if you're trying to interpret this as FTSE strengths then I'm sorry.

The explanation is here:
FTSE 100 hits 9,000 points for first time

Investors are wary of US and Europe is not in a good place due to tariffs, so it's hiding in the UK rather than investing.

"However, investors said the UK government’s tight fiscal position remains a barrier to further growth. “I will struggle with the UK until we’ve got some more certainty on the fiscal position,” said Birrell. Barclays’ Cau said “if we see a proper bond market strop” about the UK’s fiscal position, then “there might be a ‘sell UK’ moment”."

Added to this is Leeds reform and talks about ISA changes. So it's a combination of hiding and banks deregulation (remember 2008?).

Some people will make huge money on current moment and these aren't your middle/low earners.

Ironically, a large part of this is the result of recent pro business reforms that make it cheaper to invest in the U.K (the newly announced Leeds reforms, and the four year tax relief for new tax residents on foreign assets and gains).

Now they just need to focus on making the U.K. attractive as a place of residence for HNWI so they can actually be subject to CGT and tax on dividends.

I’ll just leave this here.

www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/jul/15/ftse-100-index-9000-point-record-thames-water-loss-mps-business-live-news-updates

Agree.

I'm irritated by the constant comparison with Scandi countries. They are much much smaller countries. I think Denmark has something like 6million, Sweden is the largest and only 10million or so. Norway is also only 6 or 7 million and sits on vast natural resources. They're completely different and face completely different challenges. They're also either in the EU or EEA.

This is so stupid I laughed. Maybe we don’t care about billionaires here on MN but the Times made it clear that more have left the UK than any other country.

For the high earners whose tax affairs aren’t big news, we will know in March ‘26 and March ‘27 when tax receipts are down. If I left today, I’d still show (lower) income this tax year. It’s not until ‘27 that my zero income tax return would show up.

So why would anyone choose to move here, concierge or not?

The Labour Party have done nothing for growth despite all the cheerleading. In fact, it’s the opposite - they’re taxing the high earners and business owners more than ever. 99% of businesses are small businesses by number.

If high earners (100-500k) are worried about their increasing tax bills and inability to pass on some wealth to their children, they leave the country.

Without growth, you can’t afford to reform policing or hire more teachers.

That’s on Labour (who I voted for, incidentally).

Apparently Rachel is now concerned:

Reeves to open ‘front door’ for investors in UK with concierge service

No, because the ‘exodus’ refers to those who are liquid millionaires and HNWI. That total number of millionaires touted by TaxJustice includes those that have benefited from such things as rising property prices, who are distinct from the aforementioned.

It also only references the amount that have left in a single year, when the number has been rising yearly from 2016. The U.K. is the only country in the G10 that has experienced negative millionaire growth in the past decade, and is expected to lose £66 billion in 2025 alone.

Link please? because it's about 600-700,000 of liquid millionaires in the UK.
Millionaire Tracker — Adam Smith Institute

There is about 3m of millionaires, but this includes granny on state pension who bought her house in London 50 years ago and it's not valued £££

But still a tiny minority, as you illustrate. Liquid millionaires in UK number 2.85million.
Not an Exodus...

Brexit caused a great many to leave, Tories don't seem to want to talk about that....

To illustrate. The U.K. had had a net outflow of HNWI since 2016, at one of the highest rates in the world. That this is very much a problem has been recognized by Labour (hence the four year tax break for foreign investors in the U.K.).

We already have competition in pay, hence so many Dr's and other HCPs leave the NHS.

We don't want to pay the taxes for extra pay and when pay is given, we get cries of "Labour hand over money to their union pay masters.." or in your case "they already get a decent bump..."

Getting attacked etc is very upsetting but it should be for the security staff to handle.

The best way to improve UK medical pay is if we had more private care and opened it up to competition.

I don’t think getting verbally and/or physically attacked is in anyone’s job description. This kind of casual disregard for the critical role doctors play in society is one of the reasons morale is so low.

Then that goes to show they should be earning a lot more than many other professions.

There is plenty of competition, we have a huge private health set up here and they can easily go abroad, i cycle with a few HCP's who now work in the private sector... Physio's OTs & Doctors.

They earn less because of Austerity, a political choice, this is across all healthcare workers.

Same with Care workers, thats solely privatised, loads of competition, yet earn SFA... so leave.