26 November 2025
Sarah Edwards, Executive Director:
As a faith organisation we had hoped to see a Budget that put fairness and compassion at its heart, and sought to address the deep challenges of poverty, inequality and the climate crisis.
Overall, while we welcome the Chancellor’s rhetoric on the need for the wealthiest to contribute a fairer share, we are disappointed in the substance of this Budget. These half-measures only serve to make the sums add up and do not reflect a deep commitment to invest in the country and tackle inequality.
Today the Chancellor took some welcome steps to tackle poverty and address the cost of living, including abolishing the 2 child cap on Universal Credit and increasing minimum wages. Despite a handful of welcome measures on energy, climate change was most conspicuous by its absence.
We are pleased that Rachel Reeves acknowledged the need for fundamental reform of our tax system, as we called for in our statement signed by 17 faith organisations earlier this week. We welcome the recognition that our tax system is unfair, with taxes on wealth significantly lower than taxes on work. Across the tax system, many aspects are not fit for purpose, and many taxes go uncollected.
But the Chancellor’s diagnosis was not matched by her remedies. Her largest tax rises came in the form of ‘taxes by stealth’ on working people, through freezing Income Tax and National Insurance thresholds. Meanwhile increases in taxes on wealth were small and piecemeal. The so-called ‘mansion tax’ does not go far enough to provide necessary root-and-branch reform to Council Tax. Increasing taxes on investment and minor changes to Capital Gains Tax relief will not raise significant revenue, let alone tackle soaring inequality. Proper reform and equalisation of these taxes on wealth with Income Tax rates would have both improved fairness and raised more money for public services, as we have been calling for.
We were disappointed not to hear more about closing the tax gap – tens of billions in revenue that could be raised by actually collecting the taxes that are due. A modest sum for ‘tax compliance’ is a drop in the ocean by comparison.
We believe that tax can be a tool for the common good – enabling us to love our neighbour in our complex modern society. We continue to urge the Chancellor to make bold choices to tax wealth more, and more fairly, including through a 2% Wealth Tax on assets over £10 million, to reflect our shared responsibility to care for one another and the planet.
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I agree with all your points. The government need to know how disappointed we are. Please keep on with your great work.
Need to keep pushing them as no real tax on wealth.
Please keep on doing what is right .The Government needs to listen and work for ordinary people ,not fossil fuel companies ,or millionaires and big business .