Greens urge Chancellor not to shy away from taxing ‘obscene’ wealth and profits as concerns rise over business-as-usual Budget

This press release was published by the national Green Party on 27 October 2026, on the eve of the Budget. It is reproduced here as it appeared on greenparty.org.uk.

The Green Party is proposing a set of measures at tomorrow’s Budget to support struggling households to afford essentials and ensure super wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share.

The measures, which would raise over £60 billion, include aligning Capital Gains Tax (CGT) with income tax, introducing a new annual wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires, a tax on banks’ super profits and ending tax breaks to fossil fuel companies.

Treasury spokesperson and Green MP Dr Ellie Chowns said:

“While millions of households struggle to cope with the cost-of-living crisis, successive governments have permitted a handful of super-rich individuals and corporations to rake in ever-more extreme profits – and to pay proportionally less tax on that wealth. This cannot continue.

“Britain needs a genuinely bold Budget – one which taxes extreme wealth and profits fairly, makes life more affordable for struggling households and invests in our long-term climate resilience. Huge inequality and climate breakdown cannot be tackled by tinkering around the edges.

“That’s why the Green Party has laid out a clear set of measures to raise over £60 billion by taxing extreme wealth and profits fairly. This money could provide genuine breathing space for billpayers: bringing down energy bills and scaling up warm homes funding, ending the cruel freeze on Local Housing Allowance, introducing free bus travel for young people, and bringing failing water companies into special administration before Christmas.

“If Labour is serious about addressing the affordability and climate crises, the Chancellor could and should adopt our proposals at the Budget tomorrow. Unfortunately, it seems Healey is set to instead deliver another business-as-usual Budget which fails to take the bold action we need to build a fairer, greener country.”

Notes

Earlier this month, the Green Party’s five MPs, two peers and leadership team wrote to the Chancellor John Healey outlining Green proposals for the Budget:

Rt Hon John Healey MP

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Dear Chancellor,

We are writing to you as Green Party MPs, Leadership and Peers. It is now less than a week away from your first Budget, and we are increasingly concerned that – behind promises of ‘change’ – when it comes to tangible action on the economy, the direction looks set to remain the same.

People across the country face a seemingly never-ending affordability crisis. Energy bills, which have already gone up by 87 per cent since 2021, are due to jump by another £276 from January (Cornwall Insight, 2026). Food bank use is up by almost 50 per cent from 2019, and 6 million people live in households experiencing food insecurity (DWP, 2025). We’ve also just experienced deadly and record-breaking heatwaves which wreaked havoc across the country.

Working hard used to get you a good life. Now, millions of people can barely afford the basics.

But not everyone is struggling. The latest Times Rich List reported that the combined wealth of the UK’s richest 350 individuals has risen to £784 billion – which is more wealth than 50 per cent of the UK population (TJUK, 2026) – and in the first month after the US and Israel’s initial strikes on Iran, the share value of just five North Sea oil and gas companies was boosted by £73 billion (Greenpeace, 2026).

This should be a Budget to make the UK affordable. To tax extreme wealth and profits. And to invest in our long-term climate resilience. But despite promises of ‘change’, you have talked more about ‘continuity’ and ‘challenging choices’ than taxing billionaires or fossil fuel giants. Your commitment to the Government’s failing fiscal rules, new oil and gas, and chasing growth above all else seems to be more important than investing in public services, clean water or affordable homes.

The Green Party has a plan to end the cost-of-living crisis and to build a more secure future by taxing extreme wealth, making life’s essentials more affordable and scrapping your failing fiscal rules.

First, you could raise over £60 billion by taxing extreme wealth and profits, so those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share, starting with:

• Aligning rates of Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax and closing loopholes, to raise an additional £19.7 billion annually by 2030 (CenTax, 2026).

• Applying National Insurance to investment income, in line with employment income, to raise at least £6.1 billion per year (Tax Justice UK, 2025).

• Introducing an annual wealth tax of 1 per cent on assets over £10 million, and 2 per cent over £1 billion, to raise at least £14.8 billion.

• Introducing a proper windfall tax of 38 per cent on the UK’s biggest banks, to raise at least £19 billion (Positive Money, 2026).

• Ending tax breaks to fossil fuel producers to raise £2.7 billion (Global Justice Now, 2025) and introducing a permanent Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas companies.

• Removing data centres from the full expensing tax relief scheme to bring forward an additional £5 billion in corporation tax across 2027-2029.

Second, there are steps you could take at this Budget to actually deliver the ‘breathing space’ you have often talked about, by making life’s essentials more affordable:

• Energy: Bring down energy bills, by taking policy costs and the costs of servicing energy debt off bills and onto general taxation, including wealth taxation; fully decoupling the price of gas from electricity; and increasing the Warm Homes Discount from £150 to up to £650, to support households facing a spike in their energy bills.

• Housing: Introduce a three-year emergency brake on rents while you develop a long-term plan for rent controls; lift the freeze on Local Housing Allowance and create a permanent link between rents and the Allowance; and create a substantial national fund to help councils to ‘Buy the Supply’, to purchase existing homes to use as new council housing.

• Transport: Fund free bus travel for under 22s in England. A similar scheme in Scotland has had 4 in 5 young people sign up and has increased opportunities to access work, training and education (TUC, 2026).

• Food: Extend free school meals to all primary and secondary school children to help families cope with food cost inflation.

• Water: Take the worst-performing water companies into special administration and public ownership before Christmas, with close to zero compensation to shareholders or creditors (Common Wealth, 2026).

Finally, you must replace the Government’s failing fiscal rules, which are guided by a narrow focus on the wrong targets and incentivise under-investment, with a more open and transparent advisory board of fiscal referees. This board should be tasked with judging debt sustainability, to enable us to properly invest in our long-term climate resilience, in areas such agriculture, transport, renewables and speeding up home insulation – not slashing its funding as it is rumoured you are preparing to do.

‘Hope’ is an easy thing to call for – but without a genuine programme to back it up, it is impossible to deliver. Instead of a business-as-usual Budget, the Green Party is calling on you to make life’s essentials affordable, tax extreme wealth and profits, and to invest in our long-term resilience.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ellie Chowns MP, Treasury Lead for the Parliamentary Green Party of England and Wales

Carla Denyer MP

Adrian Ramsay MP

Hannah Spencer MP

Siân Berry MP

Zack Polanski, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

Mothin Ali, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

Rachel Millward, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

Anthony Slaughter, Leader of the Welsh Green Party

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

The five Green Party MPs also put forward an EDM (Early Day Motion)1017 which was tabled on 21 October 2026 Autumn: Budget and cost of living support