The Welfare Reform Bill starts ‘Report Stage’ in the house of Lords today – a five-day debate, where the House decides whether to change the legislation by voting on amendments proposed by individual Peers.  The Welfare Reform Bill contains a radical set of reforms that will affect the lives of millions in the UK. The implications of even the most minor errors in design are practically unimaginable. So today Peers are trying to fine-tune the government’s reforms, to ensure mistakes are nipped in the bud.

Today’s debate, from about 3pm, will cover a number of vital issues. However, one particularly critical decision will be over whether the new Universal Credit will be paid monthly, or fortnightly as Baroness Lister of Burtersett and a group of other Peers from across the aisle has proposed.

Not such a big deal? Well, for millions of people on low incomes, particularly women, it will be.

The government is rolling a range of benefits into a single ‘Universal Credit’ (UC), which they plan to pay once a month. Lots of these old benefits are currently paid weekly or fortnightly, often on a fairly flexible basis. For example, tax credits may be paid every week, or every four weeks, according to what is most convenient for a claimant (although they don’t get the final say). Housing Benefit can be paid at intervals of a week, two weeks, four weeks, or monthly, depending on the frequency with which rental payments are due. Child benefit, which is especially important to causes like increasing gender equality, reducing domestic violence, and ending child poverty, is paid weekly. Even Jobseekers’ Allowance is paid fortnightly. A shift to monthly payments for all these benefits is a big change, so it is worth weighing carefully.

The problem with paying Universal Credit on a monthly basis

The government’s argument for paying UC monthly is pretty straightforward: it reflects the frequency at which wages are paid, and therefore prepares people for that experience, making it less of an upheaval.

That sounds pretty sensible; after all we’re all paid monthly to work, why can’t benefits be paid the same way? But we aren’t all paid on a monthly basis. Three quarters of people employed in Britain are paid monthly, something Department of Work and Pensions recently acknowledged. Predictably, lower paid, lower skilled jobs are less likely to be paid monthly. Actually, only around half of jobs paid under £10,000 a year are paid monthly. Sadly, more vulnerable benefit claimants are more likely to graduate into these jobs first.

The government does recognise the change will come at a cost. In its white paper ‘Universal Credit: welfare that works’ (Cm 7957 November 2010), it conceded that:

We understand that many people on low incomes will be used to managing fortnightly payments of benefits and will ensure that, whatever the period of payment, there will be appropriate budgeting support to ensure recipients are supported effectively.

More vulnerable claimants are certainly less well equipped to budget on a monthly basis. DfES research shows that numeracy skills are painfully low amongst some groups. Five million people have ‘poor’ numeracy skills, while 1.7 million people have ‘very poor’ numeracy skills. Providing support to deal with monthly payments will cost more money. Those with lower skills are more likely to enter unskilled work that pays more frequently, so the upheaval will have been unnecessary.

Particular groups are clearly more vulnerable. Organisations such as Mind, the National Autistic Society and the Disabilities Benefits Consortium have all expressed real concern about a plan to pay UC on a monthly basis is a recipe for debt. Put together with the current plan (also in the Bill) to abolish crisis support through the Social Fund, a strict system of monthly payments is more likely to drive vulnerable claimants towards lenders and loan sharks.

Oxfam would add women to this lengthy list. Our experience and research in the UK shows that women tend to take responsibility for budgeting for essential living expenses and the needs of children, which all tend to be spent on a weekly basis. In couples, and particularly in abusive relationships, women sometimes rely on the weekly payments like child benefit as their sole source of independent income. One worry is that if benefits are paid monthly to a couple rather than individuals within the couple, less money will reach women and children, or be spent on essential expenses. In any case, when the money for essentials is already tight and tough to manage, monthly payments would seem to just make things harder.

A compromise: simplicity without debt

In short, for many claimants, monthly payments will probably work fine. But for those who with little experience of work, vulnerable claimants, claimants with very low numeracy skills, or claimants who face severe financial pressures because of inequality within the household, weekly or fortnightly payments are essential for effective budgeting. The only alternative for many will be yet more crushing private debt. As Baroness Lister argued last week in the Independent, a strict imposition monthly payment threatens ‘pay-day loan peril’.

Ideally, claimants should simply be able to choose how often they receive Universal Credit. This would certainly contribute to the government’s admirable aim of making the system more tailored to the needs of individuals. However, if Ministers are set on fixing a universal frequency for payments, given that many of the most essential benefits are paid weekly, paying UC on a fortnightly basis would seem like a reasonable compromise.

UPDATE

The result is in, we lost this one I’m afraid. It was extremely close: 224 for to 227 against – less than a handful of votes short. It was heartening to see such a strong support for this amendment. Yet the fact it was so close is just mortifying – one wonders whether one could have swung it with just four more emails! On a positive note the 224 who voted ‘aye’ on amendment one deserve huge congratulations and thanks, and the speeches in favour were really strong. Click here to read the short debate, and check of who voted.

Clearly this is really disappointing, there’s no other way to put it. On a positive note though, the government does acknowledge that a system which precludes choice and presumes in favour of monthly payments will require special protections and tailored help for at least some individuals. Though such a system seems unlikley to reach the millions who are likely to struggle with monthly payments, there is clearly now a job to be done to help ensure proposals are as effective as possible. Additionlly, because a big part of our concerns around this issue stem from the attending context of current proposals mentioned in my post to retract crisis support offered through the Social Fund, securing a better solution on that could really help.

Strikingly, yet again, the cost of living for the poorest has risen faster than for the rest of society. At around 5%, the Minimum Income Standard rose half a percentage point higher than average inflation. Over the past decade, this has added up: the minimum cost of living has risen by 43% compared with 27% and 35% for CPI and RPI inflation respectively. That difference has been largely driven by the soaring cost of essentials like food and energy. Earlier this year, food price inflation peaked at 5.7%, compared with 4.4% for overall inflation. In August 2008, those figures were 14.5% and 4.7%, and there’s every chance there are further food price spikes around the corner.

All this means that the poorest need above-average increases in incomes just to stand still. Indeed, the JRF calculates that a family of four needs to earn 24% more than a year ago, while a lone parent with one child needs 20% more. This is partly about the rising cost of living, and partly because of the freezing or cutting of in-work benefits. There’s more detail in Chris’s blog.

In reality, however, government action is driving incomes in the opposite direction. A swathe of benefit cuts are reducing the incomes of millions of people, while a change to uprating to the lower, CPI measure of inflation will see decreases locked in year-on-year. Meanwhile, the National Minimum Wage continues to fall in real terms, with decreases in October 2008 and 2010 and a freeze in 2009. That’s before accounting for the fact that average inflation underestimates the real cost of living for people in poverty.

The Minimum Income Standard was a groundbreaking piece of work, as it tells us what ordinary people see as the minimum required to take part in society. This latest annual update is no less important, as it shows that much more is needed to meet the basic imperative of making sure poor people don’t continue to fall further behind.

This year’s update highlights some surprisingly big increases in what people need to earn just to make ends meet. It is clear that many millions of people in the UK do not manage to reach the standard and – for working families with children in particular – it’s getting much harder to do so.

For a family of four, the wage needed has risen to £18,400 per year before tax for each parent (assuming that both of them work full-time, and require childcare). This is a 24 per cent rise on the same figure in April 2010. For a lone parent with one child, the gross wage required has leapt to £18,200 from £12,500 last year. Equally large increases of above 20 per cent can be seen for most other working families who have to pay for childcare.

The cause of this rise can be put down to a combination of the freezing or cutting of in-work benefits, especially Childcare Tax Credits and Child Benefit, alongside a continuing increase in prices. Because of how Tax Credits are tapered (i.e. reduced as your wages rise), families have to earn more to cover even a small reduction in benefits.

These figures certainly demonstrate, then, that the squeeze has already begun. But it is not just low-income families in work and using childcare who are feeling the pinch. If you have to survive on out-of-work benefits, a couple with two children will only get 63 per cent of their minimum needs met and a lone parent with one child only 64 per cent. Pensioners, in contrast, are able to reach their minimum income standard if (and it is a big if) they collect all the benefits to which they are entitled to on top of their state pension. For single adults with no dependants, the amount provided by benefits falls to 44 per cent.

More positively for single people, if they do have a job and earn enough, they do benefit from the rise in the income tax personal allowance. This has offset some of the other pressures on their costs of living.

Projections last December by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, funded by JRF, have already shown that relative poverty is expected to rise considerably over the next three or four years. The analysis provided today by the Minimum Income Standard is further evidence of the pressure on budgets being felt by families on low incomes. This pressure looks set to continue escalating and is unlikely to be alleviated by the introduction of Universal Credit in 2013; not least because the Government is considering a new formula for childcare support which would cut entitlements further to save money. And, on top of all this, if earnings do not start to grow again soon, and if prices keep on rising, the future looks bleak indeed.

While these warnings flag up an important issue, they come as part of broader concerns about the impact that the proposed radical reforms will have on millions of people in Britain, and whether the government has sufficiently considered and scrutinised the potential negative impacts of their plans to simplify the benefit system.

In response to today’s second reading of the Welfare Reform Bill, Oxfam joins a group of leading organisations who work to reduce poverty in the UK, to ask for:

1. Clarity about how the Bill will contribute to the Government’s broader goals and obligations, such as reducing child poverty, promoting equality, protecting vulnerable groups and making work pay.
2. More detail on the face of the Bill and more information during its passage about the regulations that will flow from it. We are very concerned about the lack of detail in the Bill, and about the reliance on regulations to determine numerous – and often highly significant – provisions. There are a number of important questions that the Government needs to answer before passing this Bill into law.
3. Some important changes to the Bill in order for it to help achieve the Government’s stated aims.

Oxfam has also issued its own briefing, in which we propose five specific changes to the Bill, each of which would significantly improve people’s ability to use the benefits system to exit poverty:

1. Don’t reduce support for childcare

2. Cancel plans to switch benefit uprating to the CPI measure of inflation

3. Investigate the impact of plans to pay UC in a single payment to one member of a household, and propose a clear solution

4. Don’t increase harmful conditionality

5. Don’t subject child benefit to further means testing

For more information, contact Ben Morgan, UK Advocacy Officer, bmorgan@oxfam.org.uk,

Findings include:

-       many mothers going without essentials in order to protect their household from poverty,

-       unequal access to the household purse, undermining mothers’ ability to decide how Child Benefit and Child Tax credit is spent and placing all financial control in the hands of the father

-       barriers to paid work such as attitudes of husbands, poor language skills, and lack of suitable childcare; all preventing women from improving their situation through paid work

The study draws on in-depth interviews with 30 women from the Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Arab and Black African communities in the UK. Read the full report at www.oxfam.org.uk/publications, from Friday the 27^th January. For further information about the research email Sophie Fosker, Gender Programme Coordinator, sfosker@oxfam.org.uk

I am particularly interested in the effect the changes will have on women, as women are more likely to claim benefits. This is due to women having lower incomes, and greater caring responsibilities. They are caught in the net of conditionality and struggle to balance the greater pressure to get jobs at any price, with the fact that paying for care so they can go out to work, is frankly unaffordable.

What are the facts here?  The gender pay gap is pervasive, as women are shockingly paid an average of 16% less per hour than men, and that rises to 21% less for apprentices.  Women are also more likely to carry out unpaid (and under valued) caring work. Because of women’s lower incomes and greater contribution to caring responsibilities, a larger share of their income is made up of benefits and tax credits – one fifth for women, one-tenth for men. So women are going to be much more affected by the welfare changes, and by conditionality, than men. Oxfam have called for the government to make sure benefit reform is sensitive to the differing needs of women and men.

Introducing conditionality to benefits is a controversial move, which is likely to have a negative impact on women. Douglas Alexander, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has highlighted that the sanctions will hit parents, as “women in particular are often trying to balance work that pays, with caring responsibilities”. It will be difficult for women with caring responsibilities to meet conditions such as increasing their hours or doing unpaid community work. They simply won’t have the spare time. As illustrated by Joseph Rowntree’s report on low pay, mothers found it difficult to find work to accommodate their childcare demands. Women often had to chose between family caring duties and wider employment. The white paper fails to outline how conditionality and childcare will intersect and whether any childcare support will be provided to people carrying out unpaid work. It is imperative this is addressed – or women will be stigmatized, when really they simply cannot, rather than will not.

In America work requirements (or workfare) have been used to encourage people off benefits. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) wrote a report in 2008 comparing workfare programmes in the US, Canada and Australia. Universal credit is by no means identical to US workfare, but the principle of making people do unpaid work in order to receive benefits is the same. Interestingly, the report  states that workfare is less likely to work for people facing barriers to work, such as the cost of childcare or emotional and physical problems. People facing these barriers were least likely to meet obligations to take part in paid work and in the most extreme cases they were left with no income.

The proposals also create an unnecessary climate of fear. Women usually manage the household budget.  They are going to be sanctioned when they have no power to avoid it. The threat of having benefits removed will cause a mother with a carefully managed family budget a great deal of stress and anxiety. What’s more, sanctions such as the removal of benefits will affect the whole family. As Sally Copley from Save the Children has said ‘it is children who will suffer when a single mum is told to take a job, but there is not suitable childcare available’. Is that what the Government wants by stigmatising women in their failure to acknowledge and address particular gender needs?

Welfare sanctions will put some of the most vulnerable women and children in society under great stress and at risk of destitution. This is unacceptable.  

This suggests to me how quickly the term ‘fairness’ has become distorted and almost meaningless.  While hesitating to read too much into an off-the-cuff remark, it does alarm me that undertaking one of the most hedonistic of activities – a day’s shopping – can be construed as constituting a task that ‘deserves’ yet more reward – a glass of wine.

Last week was a week when the term ‘fairness’ had its meaning almost obliterated by over-use on all sides of politics.  In general, the word is now rolled out by politicians as easily and as glibly as they kiss babies and think that taxpayers should pay for their piano tuning and nail polish.  As Ian Bell, columnist for the Glasgow Herald highlights, all political leaders are tying their colours to the mast of fairness. 

Fairness means such different things to different people however that I’m far from convinced it has any use in describing, let alone analysing, policy changes and cuts to public services. 

For example, for one person, ‘fairness’ might mean massive remuneration for a particular job (let’s say a merchant banker).  David Cameron has said that for him, fairness means ‘giving people what they deserve – and what people deserve depends on how they behave.’ 

For someone else, ‘fairness’ might mean that said merchant banker has his remuneration sufficiently taxed so that the state can support people less advantaged than he is (disabled people for example, or those whose employer has had to shut up shop).  Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson’s speech on Monday highlighted the unfairness of the government cuts, whereby “families take the strain while bankers grab the bonuses”.

For me, it is as unfair as you can get that families on the national minumum wage have to work 70 hours a week to cross the poverty line, just as it is unfair that ‘hard working taxpayers’ subsidise through tax credits those employers who are unable or unwilling to pay above poverty wages (but that’s a story for another blog).

So while the word ‘fair’ is hard to disagree with on face value, let’s remember that it means very, very different things to different people, and that simply labelling a policy or a Budget or a Comprehensive Spending Review as ‘fair’ does not automatically mean it is progressive or focused on supporting the most vulnerable in our communities. 

Instead, let’s judge policies according to how enlightened they are; how well they support the long term prospects of our most vulnerable people; and how effectively they contribute to wider social value.

On one hand, it is positive news that people on lower incomes will have their child benefit protected, particularly as the cuts announced in public spending thus far will hit the poorest members of society the hardest. However, there are advantages to universal benefits being paid to all parents. Because child benefit is paid to all it is free from stigma, binding rich and poor alike into the welfare system.

There is also a concern that the reform of child benefits will have an adverse effect on women. There is a common belief that resources are dispersed equally within the household. This assumption is not borne out in reality. Child benefits are one of the few state benefit that nearly always goes to the mother, meaning that changes to the child benefit system may be another cut which negatively effects women. As we know from our research on income security in Thornaby, poor women in particular appreciate the independent income derived from child benefit.

There are other ways to tax the rich aside from removing child benefit. An alternative approach would be a more progressive taxation system. For example, adding a penny to the higher taxation bracket would raise 780 million (according to Treasury calculations) and wouldn’t undermine the principle of universal benefits.

Interestingly, it was also announced in today’s papers that bank bonuses are expected to exceed £7 billion this year. This is 7 times the amount that will be saved by cutting child benefit. Bailing out the banks added considerably to the national deficit. This highlights that there is money in the economy and that we live in an unequal society where we tolerate an elite few being given astronomical bonuses.

The anti-poverty sector is been forced to choose between universal and targeted benefits, when there are better and fairer options.

Where we work: United Kingdom

As Nicola has reported, the Budget introduced a number of severe cuts in HB and each of these will increase the number of families unable to pay their rent. The Chartered Institute of Housing has taken up the issue of uprating Housing Benefit in line with the Consumer Price Index.

From 2013, instead of being increased in line with the actual level of rents locally, HB will be uprated by the increase in the CPI. Everyone commenting on the change was worried that the link to how much families actually have to pay was being broken, but even so it was hard to believe that uprating would be in line with the CPI, not the RPI. The main difference between the two is that CPI does not consider housing costs, so many people assumed that the government had made a mistake, and uprating would actually use the RPI.

As I reported on Budget Day, CPI is normally lower than RPI. CPI can be higher – when mortgage interest rates are coming down – but now that interest rates are at historically low levels, they can only go up, and the RPI has already overtaken the CPI again. The gap is at present 1.7 percentage points. Each year this gap will mean that the gap between rents and HB will probably grow. The Chartered Institute of Housing estimates that, by 2020, every tenant’s Housing Benefit will be too low to cover the whole of their rent.

An obvious consequence is likely to be an increase in homelessness. Another expert organisation, the Building and Social Housing Foundation, has published their response to the Emergency Budget; in it, they look at the effects of another change – benefit rates will be set in relation to the 30^th per centile of local rents (at present they are set at the 50^th). The BSHF point out that this policy will have short-term and long-term effects. In the short-term, it is inevitable that some people will be unable to find rents that will be covered by HB – in some areas more than 30 per cent of tenants claim HB, in those areas it will be impossible for everyone to get enough HB to pay their rent. In the longer-term they point to the risk of the “total exclusion of the poor from large areas”, with their concentration in “Parisian-style banlieues”.

A story in today’s Times (p. 11, not on their website) reveals that another of the Budget’s changes to HB will cut 600,000 families’ benefit by an average of £1,000 a year. From next year, HB will be ‘capped’ at £250 per week for a one bedroom property, £290 for 2 bedrooms, £340 for 3 bedrooms and £400 for 4 or more.

The Times reports an analysis – again by the CIH – showing that the biggest losses will be faced by the largest families, who tend to need more bedrooms. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has pointed out, large families are one of the groups most likely to face poverty – children in families with 4 or more children account for 19 per cent of all children in poverty.

According to CIH, the worst impact will be in London (where rents are highest) but other areas will lose out as well:

• Families with a 3 bedroom house will lose more than £1,000 a year in Ashford, Bath, Brighton, Cambridge, Canterbury, Exeter, Guildford, Winchester and Welwyn and Hatfield.
• Families with a 5 bedroom house will lose more than £3,000 a year in Bedford, Bournemouth, Chichester, East Cheshire, Exeter, Leeds, Solihull, Southern Greater Manchester and York.

Presumably, the Coalition wants to send a message to unemployed people in these areas: that they should move away to places where housing is cheaper.

That is one half of a two-faced policy. At the weekend we saw the other half – Iain Duncan Smith (same minister, same Department) telling unemployed people he wants them to be more mobile and move to the areas that have got jobs. And we have IDS cheer leaders telling us that “there is plenty of scope for committed people to find jobs”.

But the Coalition doesn’t seem to have noticed that the places with jobs tend to be the same places that have got high and rising rents.

What makes these proposals particularly dispiriting is the fact that, at the end of it all, the Housing Benefit cuts may not even achieve the savings the Coalition is aiming at. The Building and Social Housing Foundation hints that these changes lead to increases in other areas of spending, including discretionary housing payment (paid to help families at risk of homelessness) and knock on effects in health, education and criminal justice. The BSHF report cautiously recommends that these areas should be “closely monitored to ensure that the changes to housing benefit are not leading to increased expenditure in these areas.”

So we have: yet another instance of the Budget for fairness increasing poverty, cuts that lead to increased spending, a housing policy that will increase homelessness and a policy on mobility that is directly contradicted by another from the same Department just days later.

Not terribly impressive.

With thanks to Richard Exell for allowing us to repost his blog. To see the original please visit: http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/07/housing-benefit-cuts-will-make-people-homeless-and-drive-them-away-from-jobs/

A more progressive taxation system:

>>National Insurance has been rising rapidly but it is effectively capped meaning higher earners don’t pay any more than anyone else. Where possible necessary rises in NI, should be replaced by increases in income tax.

>>Reduce indirect taxes such as consumption taxes that disproportionately impact the poor, and reduce demand – much needed during this fragile recovery.

>>Resort to regressive indirect taxes only when they achieve worthwhile social goals, and offset regressive impacts elsewhere in the tax, and benefits system.

>>Reduce the tapers on tax, and benefits

Make welfare a genuine springboard for all:  Pay for strong, and comprehensive social protection (compared to consumer citizens, and narrow workfare policies).

>>Investing in a less myopic welfare system will be cost neutral over the long-term anyway as it will lead to greater employment in more highly skilled, and better paid roles that in turn will increase the net tax-take. The system should also be designed to prevent people being forced into the informal economy. The informal economy proves there is untapped productivity, which if utilised could increase tax receipts.

>>Invest a net £2.7 billion per year to increase earnings disregards and introduce a standard 55% withdrawal rate for both out-of-work and in-work benefits, to end the benefit trap.

>>The administration of the welfare system is far too complex and makes benefits less predictable, which in turn increases financial insecurity and people’s ability to make rational financial decisions – the system has to be radically simplified.

>>There also should be a full analysis of the differentiated effect these measures will have on women and men.

>>As a first step in welfare reform, roll out the Create Consortium’s proposals for a Community Allowance beyond the pilot areas, especially if further evidence supports the view that the model would prove cost-neutral.

Expanded community ownership: With measures to enable poor communities to organise, and access benefits. This would cost £5m to start up the infrastructure, and the facilitation, and would yield savings in the long-term.

Tackle debt at the bottom: Continue and increase investment into DWP’s growth fund that provides small loans with wider access, and longer repayments. £100m would directly enable 225,000 people access affordable credit (rather than having to use high cost lenders), and 80,000 people would be enabled to open a basic bank account or savings account.

Increase family-friendly jobs:

>>Create a pool of employees to provide extended maternity cover so small businesses have no excuse not to hire women.

>>Realise long-term ambitions to extend paternity cover; enabling couples to break away from traditional gender roles at the beginning of parenthood by ensuring the law doesn’t actively encourage one gender to take on the role of primary child-carer.

Economically empower women: £3bn to make childcare affordable, flexible, and accessible. The lack of affordable childcare in Britain (childcare in the UK is the most expensive in Europe) is a key stumbling block for women that want to work. This is the single best way to . Spending here would also enable good nurseries to meet their obligations to provide a minimum amount of free childcare without having to close because of financial pressures. The Government could also remain committed to its recent action on the gender pay gap.

Tackle domestic violence: Ensure secure and stable funding of specialist services for women and girls who have experienced violence (such as rape crisis centres), which are at constant risk of closure. Almost half of women in England and Wales experience domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking in their lifetime, but face a postcode lottery when seeking support

Increase the tax take through better Labour rights:

>>Increase enforcement of labour rights – eg. through more on-the-ground inspectors. The two key agencies the GLA and the EAS only have 64 inspectors between them to inspect the largest and most fragmented agency sector in Europe. We currently only spend about £3 million on these government bodies that have a remit to protect the most vulnerable in society.

>>It is proven that better enforcement is likely to lead to people being brought into the formal economy – increasing tax revenues, and enhancing observance of basic standards like the minimum wage.

Reduce fuel poverty: Invest £5 billion to fully insulate every home in Britain – saving around 10 million households over £200 a year on their energy bills, and helping to eradicate fuel poverty. Fully insulating every house in the UK would reduce household emissions (that amount to a quarter of national carbon emissions) by more than 20%.

Re-skill the unemployed: Provide training for roles in green growth, manufacturing and digital technology. A £5bn investment in the training and mentoring could help drive new growth. This properly funded overarching approach will be accompanied by robust policies to encourage sustainability, and strong policies to support manufacturing, such as targeted Government export insurance guarantees.

Improve social housing: Smash the social scourge of bad housing by investing £2.6 billion per year to meet the government’s annual target of 45,000 new social houses annually. This will also help the construction industry that remains in dire economic straits, and which is an enormous employer, is economically strategically important, and accounts for between 6% and 9% of UK GDP.

Alistair Darling should use the budget tomorrow to introduce a Currency Transaction Levy across Sterling – a safe and lucrative first step towards an international Robin Hood Tax.

Spend 2 minutes to urge the Chancellor to act.

This article also appeared on the Robin Hood tax website