Richest 1% in UK own as much as poorest 55%

Guardian News and Media

London

 Britain’s richest 1% have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population put together, according to the latest official analysis of who owns the nation’s £9.5tn of property, pensions and financial assets.

In figures that also lay bare the extent of inequality across the north-south divide, the Office for National Statistics said household wealth in the south-east had been rising five times as fast as across the whole country.

The average wealth of households in the southeast of England had surged to £309,000 at the end of 2012, up 30% since the first wealth report published by the ONS covering 2006-8 - while the average rise in England was only 6%.

But wealth in the north-east of England had fallen, the only region where it did so, to an average of just under £143,000. In Scotland the figure was £165,500.

The data also shows that one in nine households have second homes or rental properties and one in 14 sport a personalised number plate on their car.

Northern regions lost out after a dramatic rise in stock market values that was grabbed mostly by households in the south-east, the ONS figures show.

The situation is likely to have worsened following an 18% surge in house prices over the past year in the south-east of England and even higher at the top end of the market.

A rush to save among richer households as the recession deepened boosted the nation’s total wealth and ensured Britain’s long-established financial inequality remained in place, with the top 10% laying claim to 44% of household wealth - while the poorest half of the country had only 9%.

Rachael Orr, Oxfam’s head of poverty in the UK said the figures were a “shocking chapter in a tale of two Britains”.

The charity recently reported that five billionaire families controlled the same wealth as 20% of the population.

“It is further evidence of increasing inequality at a time when five rich families have the same wealth as 12mn people,” she said. “We need our politicians to grasp the nettle and make the narrowing gap between the richest and poorest a top priority. It cannot be right that in Britain today a small elite are getting richer and richer while millions are struggling to make ends meet.”

Duncan Exley, director of the Equality Trust, said: “The grotesque concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority is fracturing our society, weakening our economy and giving disproportionate power to the richest.

“Unless policymakers adopt a clear goal of reducing the gap between the richest and the rest, they will have to govern an increasingly dysfunctional nation.”