The Conservatives have announced plans for an investment visa to woo back “golden geese” non-doms who have left the country under Labour.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said he was working on plans for a “genuinely world-beating offer for wealth creators”, which would include exemptions from Labour’s inheritance tax on global assets.
It comes after Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said he would introduce a £250,000 “Britannia card” to lure the wealthy back to Britain.
Research suggests that 16,500 high-net-worth individuals are expected to leave the UK in 2025, after Rachel Reeves scrapped the non-doms regime and changed inheritance tax rules to apply to foreign holdings.
Mr Griffith said in a speech at the Prosperity Institute on Thursday that the Tories were working on their own proposals to attract the wealthy to London.
“Instead of increasing wealth, [Labour has] attacked those who create it, shooing away the golden geese, the entrepreneurs, investors, and the top talent that our country was famed for, the world over,” he said.
“Too many of our best and brightest young people, the future wealth creators, are exchanging Docklands for Dubai, Manchester for Miami or Leeds for Lisbon.”
Death tax ‘out of kilter’
Asked by The Telegraph how the Conservatives’ plan would work, Mr Griffith said he was exploring a new investment visa for wealthy foreigners, which would give high-net-worth individuals the right to live in the UK in exchange for a multimillion-pound investment in British companies.
“The UK does not currently have an investment visa at all,” he said. “There’s no route to come and get a visa to this country simply by virtue of your desire to invest in productive or risk-taking assets that contribute to the economy.”
He also said that the Tory scheme would fix the Labour system of taxing global wealth at death that is “out of kilter with other global jurisdictions”.
The Telegraph understands that the plan may involve giving non-dom status to those with investment visas, reviving the system that Ms Reeves has abolished.
The UK’s “golden visa” scheme was scrapped by the Conservative government in February 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, amid concerns it was mostly used by Russians.
First introduced in 2008, Dame Priti Patel, the home secretary at the time, said it would be suspended as part of a “renewed crackdown on illicit finance and fraud”.
Mr Farage said on Monday he would create a “Britannia card”, which would allow wealthy foreigners to live in the UK without a global tax on their assets, for a fee of £250,000.
He said the money would be used to fund social security payments, but critics said the scheme would actually cost £34 billion in lost tax revenue.
Separately, Mr Griffith said he would like to see London Underground trains upgraded to be autonomous and to run 24 hours a day.
“The Government’s industrial strategy talks about autonomous driving in cars one day, but there are no plans that I’m aware of to deploy autonomous driving on our Tube network,” he said.
“Many cities around the world do use autonomous driving on their trains, including Paris, but the lock grip that transport unions have on this Government’s mind means that this is a forbidden conversation.”