The Business Secretary Peter Kyle has admitted that “it’s a worry” wealthy Brits are fleeing the UK on mass over Labour’s tax policies.
Kyle admitted that “some of the decisions” that Labour has made as seen “some people feel the need to leave” the UK.
This comes after steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal has snubbed Labour over their tax reforms and quits the UK for Dubai in a massive blow for Rachel Reeves.
Mittal, 75, has an estimated fortune of £15.4 billion and he is the latest billionaire to quit the UK since Labour took power.
Mittal has lived in the UK since 1995 with his wife and two children and previously donated £5 million to the Labour party when Tony Blair was the Prime Minister.
The Sunday Times reported that sources close to Mittal said he and his family are to leave to the UK before Rachel Reeves delivers her Autumn Budget on 26 November.
The Chancellor made a bug cull of the non-dom status in April, it is believed that this has also led to Mittal quitting the UK.
This comes days after the Prime Minister was told to sort out the “dangerous brain drain” which is causing harm the economy.
Official figures by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that more people have fled the UK than previously thought as a total of 275,000 Brits have fled Britain since Labour came to power.
Sky News asked Kyle if he thinks that wealthy people are leaving the UK amid Labour’s tax policies, he responded, “I do, yes”.
He added, “I’m not going to duck the fact that we have put up taxes and we’ve closed some of the loopholes for non-doms.”
He continued, “I think it’s a worry [but] what I don’t want to do is, as a country, just focus just on the billionaires because there are other people that have needed to leave.
“There are people starting businesses that have gone to America — actually in their droves — because they haven’t had the funding that they need in this country to succeed.
“And that is something that we are fundamentally stopping the need for by recapitalising the markets here and putting a lot of work in for those spin-outs, those start-ups, those scale-up companies.”
Defending the government’s measures, he added, “We’ve set up a global talent task force. We have set up a global talent visa. We are making it easier for people to come here who have high talents.”
He added, “Now, some people are going to leave because they were here, because of the way that the old non-dom system worked.
“There are other people who are coming to this country because of the excitement that’s in our economy at the moment, including the fact we are investing in AI.
“So lots of people are coming here because of the new excitement in our country, but I accept because of some of the decisions we’ve made, like closing those non-dom tax loopholes, some people feel the need to leave.”
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