Lord Kinnock says rich should pay more tax

The rich should pay more tax and 50p is the correct rate for the highest level of income tax, Lord Kinnock has said.

Years of austerity should be used to build a sound foundation for the future, Lord Kinnock said, not the platform for an ideology-driven shrinking of the state.

The Labour peer, who led his party to defeat in 1987 and 1992, told the BBC One Andrew Marr Show the lessons of post-war austerity showed the least well off had to be protected and insisted this was current party policy.

“I’m not saying they can pay for everything, but bankers’ bonuses taxation should be restored to the rational system that we had,” the Labour peer said, adding that restoring it was “very clearly Labour’s unerring policy”.