A view of £5, £10, £20 and £50 bank notes
BRITISH billionaires’ wealth surged by £35 million a day last year, new research reveals, as the rest of the nation worries about energy bills.
According to a report by Oxfam released today, the collective wealth of billionaires in Britain increased to a total of £182 billion in 2024.
The amount would be enough to cover the whole of Manchester in £10 notes one and a half times, the charity said.
The same report revealed that global billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion (£1.6bn) in 2024 — three times faster than the year before.
Oxfam inequality policy lead Anna Marriott said that the world is on course for the emergence of at least five trillionaires within a decade.
“The global economic system is broken, wholly unfit for purpose as it enables and perpetuates this explosion of riches while nearly half of humanity continues to live in poverty,” she said.
On average, the wealth of the world’s 10 richest people grew by almost $100 million (£82m) per day.
Meanwhile, 44 per cent of the world lives on less than $6.85 (£5.60) per day, the charity said.
Four new billionaires were created in Britain, taking the country’s current total to 57.
Ms Marriott urged the British government to prioritise economic policies that tackle inequality, such as higher taxation of the super rich.
“Huge sums of money could be raised to tackle inequality here in the UK and overseas and provide crucial investment for our public services,” she said.
Separate research firm Strand Partners has found that 88 per cent of Brits are just as worried about paying their energy bills as they were last winter.
It comes after hikes to the Ofgem price cap increased average yearly bills to £1,738 — up by £21 from the previous cap implemented in October.
And households are becoming increasingly chilly after the nation experienced its coldest January night in 15 years, with temperatures plummeting to -18.9°C in Scotland.
Polling by Opinium conducted in November estimated that 16 per cent of British adults, or 8.8m people, live in cold damp homes.
A 2022 study conducted by the UCL Institute of Health Equity estimated that 10 per cent of excess winter deaths were directly attributable to fuel poverty.
