Mr. Jim Clarken:

It is bizarre that there is not a screaming moment about this. Every year, when we produce the report, the statistics get worse or the numbers get higher, or whatever way you want to describe it. In the early years, we talked about the global piece and about the number of billionaires that owned as much wealth as the rest of the entire population put together. It certainly grabs the imagination and it grabbed attention at that time. What to do about it is the bit that it has been difficult to cut through on. To have this recent work carried out by the committee has given us an opportunity to contribute.

Globally, we have been chipping away at this for quite a while. People become more and more interested in this because they see it, and not just people like us, but people in economic expert advisory positions. Across the globe, we have a group of millionaires who are very much decrying the fact that they are not being taxed enough. As I say, we have the World Economic Forum and a number of other alternative actors who are also saying it is crazy to allow this to continue. Even since the start of the pandemic, there has been that massive spike in wealth, that windfall of benefit that companies got, often through taxpayer-funded investment in the pandemic and so on, and even that part has not been taxed back yet. It has been a bit of an uphill battle to get it to the point where the conversation is at, but it is there now and it certainly feels like it is an ongoing narrative.

Globally, governments understand the demands, particularly due to things like climate, where the massive investment demands are universal and it is accepted that they are required, and we would like to think that eradicating extreme poverty is another. These massive global challenges require creative global thinking and not the continuation of trying to chip away at this in the way that we have. Our sense is that that narrative has shifted but it has taken a long time. As I say, from the occasional spikes, we have moved from, “Oh my gosh, that is a lot of wealth for a very small group of people”, to, “Hold on a second, we need to do something about this and we can.” They should contribute something, ultimately, to the economies, societies and infrastructure that have built their wealth for them. That wealth did not come out of nothing. It came out of labour and out of companies that require infrastructure, services, good governance and all of those things that have to be invested in by the public.

The sense is that the moment is clearly now. I ask Mr. Murtagh to answer some of the more specific questions.