Compass Urges Burnham Government to Tax Wealth, Reform Social Care, and Reshape Democracy
The thinktank Compass has published a wide-ranging report urging Prime Minister Andy Burnham to tackle UK inequality through a wealth tax on net assets above £10 million, universal free personal social care, and the return of gas and electricity networks to public ownership. The report, titled "Ending Business as Usual," was released on 9 September 2026 ahead of the first autumn budget of Chancellor John Healey. The Guardian
Introduced by Michael Jacobs, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, and Neal Lawson, director of Compass, the report collates 70 policy options drawn from 15 left-wing thinkers. It lands as the Burnham government prepares its first major fiscal statement (the equivalent of a financial game plan for the year ahead), with progressive voices inside the coalition pressing for bolder action to redistribute wealth.
The flagship revenue-raising proposal is a wealth tax on net assets above £10 million. Caitlin Boswell of Tax Justice UK estimates this would raise approximately £24 billion a year. The report also proposes equalising capital gains tax (the tax paid on profits from selling assets like shares or property) with income tax rates, which it says would generate a further £11.3 billion annually — enough, it claims, to fund 90,000 new social homes. Council tax and stamp duty would be replaced by a proportional property tax, though roughly 23% of households, concentrated in London and the south-east, would end up paying more.
On social care, the report calls for free personal care funded by a 1% income tax surcharge on individuals over 40, raising £8 billion to £9 billion a year. Care costs would be secured against a person's property and recovered after sale or death. Sebastian Rees of the IPPR, one of the contributors, argues that personal care needs such as washing, dressing, and eating should be covered by the state — a model already operating in Scotland.
The report's democratic reform agenda is equally ambitious. It proposes a £50,000 cap on political donations and the abolition of the House of Lords, alongside an immediate cost-of-living package. These themes build on earlier Compass publications. An August 2026 report, "100 Ideas for 100 Days of the Burnham Government," laid out a transitional programme for Burnham's return to Westminster as Prime Minister. Another Compass publication, "Winner Takes All: Why Economic Justice Now Rests on Democratic Justice," argued that the first-past-the-post electoral system gives right-wing media, corporate lobbyists, rich donors, and swing voters a veto over policies aimed at greater fairness and equality. A separate study, "Treating causes not symptoms: Basic Income as a public health measure," by Elliott Johnson, Howard Reed, Daniel Nettle, and others, examined the public health impact of a universal basic income. Compass
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pushed back on at least one of the report's core revenue assumptions. The IFS argued that equalising capital gains tax with income tax could actually lower total tax revenue and reduce investment, as wealthy individuals would likely move money offshore or leave the country entirely. That critique speaks to a perennial tension in British tax policy: the gap between a measure's static revenue projection (what you'd raise if nobody changed their behaviour) and its behavioural feedback effects (what actually happens when people respond to the new rules). The Guardian
The report also sits in an evolving relationship with Burnham's own stated positions. In July 2026, Burnham signalled he would not increase wealth taxes immediately upon becoming Prime Minister. The Guardian He has, however, consistently argued that the UK has "overtaxed labour and undertaxed wealth," and has advocated a land value tax to replace stamp duty and council tax, citing what he calls the under-taxation of land. Rathbones Schroders
The gap between Burnham's July caution on wealth taxation and the Compass report's September ambition for precisely that measure frames the central political question now facing the government. The report's authors are, in effect, testing whether the intellectual momentum within progressive policy circles can shift the Overton window (the range of ideas considered politically acceptable) fast enough to influence Healey's budget. The IFS's counterpoint on capital gains equalisation raises a second question: whether the revenue figures the report presents can survive contact with the behavioural economics literature on capital flight and tax elasticity.
The proportional property tax proposal carries its own political risk. A reform that raises costs for nearly a quarter of households, disproportionately in London and the south-east, would test the government's ability to sell redistribution to voters who may not see themselves as wealthy but would face higher bills nonetheless. The social care funding model, with costs recovered against property after death, mirrors mechanisms that have proved politically toxic in previous attempts at adult social care reform in England.
What the Compass document does most effectively is consolidate a coherent progressive programme from scattered individual proposals, giving the Burnham government a single reference point for what the left of its coalition expects. Whether Healey's budget reflects any of its recommendations will be the first concrete signal of how far this government intends to push on redistribution in office.
