Sir Keir Starmer paid £118,580 in UK tax over the last two years, according to financial records released by the Labour leader. The records show he paid the tax on total earnings of £359,720 from income and capital gains since 2020. Sir Keir’s release comes a day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak published details of his finances. Mr. Sunak became the first prime minister since David Cameron to disclose his tax affairs.
Sir Keir’s income and capital gains last year were dwarfed by those of Mr. Sunak, who earned more than £1.9m – nine times more than the Labour leader. Mr. Sunak’s records show he paid more than £1m in UK tax on earnings of more than £4.7m between 2019 and 2022.
The Labour leader’s records show the total UK tax he paid was:
- £51,547 on total earnings of £147,633 in 2020/21
- £67,033 on total earnings of £212,087 in 2021/22
His earnings last year included more than £85,000 in capital gains from the sale of a home he had bought with his sister, which she and her children had lived in.
‘Trust in politics’
In 2020/21, the Labour leader, who is a barrister, received more than £21,000 for legal services. He stopped taking on legal work when he became Labour leader in April 2020. He has also earned small amounts in book royalties in both the tax years reported in the document. Last year his salary for being an MP was £76,961 and he received as extra £49,193 for being leader of the opposition. Sir Keir has previously called for senior politicians – including the prime minister and the chancellor – to publish their tax returns “as a matter of course” to ensure there is “trust in politics”.
At a press conference earlier, he said he was “glad” the prime minster had published his tax details but said “there’s a wider point about choices here”. He said the record of tax policy under Conservative governments over the past decade showed “they always go after working people” rather than the wealthiest people in society.
‘Cost of living’
When asked about his tax affairs earlier, Mr. Sunak has he was pleased to be able to release information about his taxes “in the interest of transparency”. But “the most important thing”, he said, “is what am I doing to help people in this country with the cost of living”. The release of tax details by senior politicians is a recent development in British politics, though neither of the previous two prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, released theirs.
The last prime minister to do so was Mr. Cameron, who published a summary of the tax he had paid following revelations about his late father’s offshore fund. But like Mr. Cameron and Mr. Sunak, Sir Keir only released a summary of his income and gains, rather than an official tax return filed with HM Revenue & Customs.
In contrast, earlier this year, Nicola Sturgeon published her HMRC tax returns for the years since she became Scotland’s first minister, and has urged other politicians, including Mr. Sunak, to follow.
