How the Sunday Times rich list billionaires can help society - Yorkshire Post Letters

The Sunday Times rich list tells us we have more billionaires in the UK than ever, with one individual having an estimated £23bn. A recent eurolottery winner collected £184m.

There comes appoint when we need to ask ‘‘how much money does an individual need in their life time?’’ For those that do not know, £24bn is 24 lots of £1,000m.

With that you could not only buy your own private jet but own the entire British Airways fleet. The lottery winner could own 184 expensive houses.

The likes of James Dyson should be applauded for what he has done, he has revolutionised vacuum cleaning (certainly in my household) and we need him and other entrepreneurs to go on inventing the next generation of artificial intelligence to make our lives better, especially for the elderly.

Some of these wealthy people already give generously to charity, but this is the essence of my letter, as a nation, as a government, we need to do more, lots more, to create more opportunities from this wealth for those lower down the ladder.

I am no equal opportunities campaigner but what I do believe is that where you have done well in life, and you are financially safe, all there is left to do is to help others to get a grip on that ladder, and to start to climb it. That would surely help these mega rich people sleep better at night.

So, what sort of opportunities am I talking about? Well firstly we need to find a mechanism that says after a certain level of wealth, the rest goes into an opportunities pot, largely overseen by that wealthy individual, that provides lots of opportunities for other people to do the right things in life, mainly earn a better living for themselves.

Any initiatives would carry their own name, so they get full recognition for their work, with the government supporting them in any way they can.

Initiatives should be self-help in nature, aimed at encouraging people to be more socially responsible so government does not have to spend billions of pounds of tax payer’s money addressing the same issues year after year.

So creating things like prenatal centres where young prospective parents learn more about what it means to bring up a child, the costs and other life implications before they make that decision; more educational and apprenticeship support so we develop more young people ready for work; or generating more job opportunities so no one is without work.