GRAHAM GRANT: Grasping Nationalists want a 'conversation' on new wealth taxes - with Burnham as PM, they're pushing on an open door

By GRAHAM GRANT, SCOTTISH HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR Published: 20:14, 20 July 2026 | Updated: 20:14, 20 July 2026 In the Beatles track Revolution, John Lennon sang: ‘You say you got a real solution - well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan.’ Andy Burnham has a solution, and a 10-year plan to achieve it - or claims to have - and we’d all love to see it, but he has been remarkably vague so far about the details. Yet there is something we can be sure about amid the uncertainty of our new Prime Minister’s first days in office, and that’s his passion for taxes. Mr Burnham has refused to rule out imposing a wealth tax and says, presumably with a touch of understatement, that people may have to pay ‘a little more’. Our new leader has stressed that he does not want to ‘demonise one group or create a new way of dividing people’ or look like someone ‘coming with grudges and agendas’ – heaven forfend. But he said last year that there was a case for raising the highest rate of income tax from 45 per cent to 50 per cent – which would also directly break Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledge not to raise income tax. There was a 50p tax rate between 2010 and 2013 which we were told would bring in about £2.7billion a year for the Treasury - but it generated a fraction of that amount because those who were in the crosshairs changed their behaviour. It’s worth remembering that the top 10 per cent of earners in the UK generate almost 60 per cent of all income tax receipts, which are expected to total around £350billion this year. New PM Andy Burnham has refused to rule out imposing a wealth tax Admittedly, the new Prime Minister has coyly signalled he might increase the personal allowance of £12,570 before people start paying income tax – a crumb of comfort, though far from the radical overhaul taxation desperately needs. In Scotland, the highest-taxed part of the UK, the SNP is listening with great interest and John Swinney has said he wants a ‘constructive relationship’ with the new Prime Minister – a novel concept. For the tax-hungry SNP, the Burnham camp’s talk of draining the nation’s bank balances is music to its ears. The grasping Nationalists have warmed to the idea of wealth taxes – their ‘mansion tax’ is a proposed council tax surcharge for homes worth more than £1million, due to take effect on April 1, 2028. In June, Finance Secretary Jenny Gilruth said ‘meaningful’ reform of tax would require ‘significant’ co-operation from the UK Government, and called for a ‘broad, evidence-based conversation’ on how Scotland can tax wealth more effectively. Alarmingly, it now looks as though Ms Gilruth will be pushing on an open door - and we should all be very afraid. The whole of the UK is now saddled with a failed statist dogma, with no hope of imminent respite. As Margaret Thatcher said in 1976, ‘socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess - they always run out of other people's money’. Hence the plans for yet another cash-grab, and it doesn’t matter whether the politician forcing you to hand it over is wearing a tie and is reckoned to be an affable communicator, or prefers an easier-going approach like Mr Burnham. Either way, it’s clear to anyone who’s been paying attention that tax hikes, and in particular wealth taxes, are on the horizon. John Swinney has said he wants a ‘constructive relationship’ with the new Prime Minister Matthew McGregor, Mr Burnham’s chief political strategist, has previously lobbied for a 2 per cent annual wealth tax on the ‘ultra-rich’ to raise another £24billion to fund benefits. He endorsed a policy paper which told the UK Government how to successfully sell a fresh tax raid on the 2,000 richest people on assets worth over £10million. The Scottish Trades Union Congress has modelled a 2 per cent tax for families with wealth of more than £5million, estimating this would raise £1.4billion. Yet pensioners who aren't exactly cash-rich but live in homes which have gained value as prices rose over the past 20 years could find themselves falling foul of these taxes. Mr Burnham yearns for a return to the 1970s - but let’s hope he Googles wealth taxes before he makes any final decisions. Labour promised in its February 1974 manifesto to impose an ‘annual wealth tax on the rich’, which would include houses, land, businesses, pensions, and art. On top of this, it proposed new taxes on transfers of assets and property transactions. With energy rationed and unemployment surging, the well-off were to be soaked in order to avoid addressing fundamental problems in the British economy. Like so many of Labour's ideas, it came up short when confronted with reality. Having won the election, Denis Healey, the then Chancellor, tried to implement the policy - but eventually gave up. As with David Lloyd George, who had tried to introduce his own wealth tax in 1910 in the form of a land value tax (another failed idea supported by Mr Burnham), Mr Healey found it was ‘impossible’ to make the proposed levy ‘yield enough revenue to be worth the administrative cost’. Taxing wealth meant employing thousands of new, expensive civil servants to value assets with no ready market price. None of this will put off the tax-addicted SNP in its ceaseless efforts to inflict yet more financial pain on families who are already the most punitively taxed in the UK. It needs more of your cash to pay for the benefits bill as it soars towards £9billion somehow - and its rhetoric about savings from public sector reform is hard to take seriously, given its past record. Back in the 1970s, Denis Healey gave up on implementing a wealth tax As an arch devolutionist, Mr Burnham has flown the kite of a Greater Glasgow mayor – perhaps an opening for Nicola Sturgeon? The Prime Minister wants to rebuild bridges with the SNP, and to make sure these new moves have the backing of the Scottish Government. But a placatory stance will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by the separatists as they look for new ways to breathe fresh life into their stalled case for independence. In the event of a snap election, who knows whether Mr Burnham would buckle to SNP demands for another referendum to get a majority, should Labour fall short of regaining outright control of the Commons? Mr Burnham will have to learn to say no to the SNP on day one – no to more constitutional turmoil, and no to more devolution of power to Scotland. After all, the SNP has caused more than enough damage with the power it has had over the past 19 years. Giving more of it to a government and a devolved political system which have shown themselves to be dismally incapable of governing, and being held to account, would be not just a bad idea - but a deeply dangerous one. Mr Burnham should also say no to the SNP’s tax demands - or risk driving the country further towards the precipice of economic ruin.