Super-rich must give more - Clegg

In an interview with the Guardian, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested people of “very considerable personal wealth” could make a “time limited contribution” as the country faced a “longer economic war”.

The Lib Dem leader is expected to flesh out his thoughts on a possible “wealth tax” at the party’s autumn conference in Brighton next month, according to the report.

Mr Clegg told the newspaper: “If we are going to ask people for more sacrifices over a longer period of time, a longer period of belt tightening as a country, then we just have to make sure that people see it is being done as fairly and as progressively as possible.

“While I am proud of some of the things we have done as a government I actually think we need to really hard-wire fairness into what we do in the next phases of fiscal restraint. If we don’t do that I don’t think the process will be either socially or politically sustainable or acceptable.”

His comments appear to indicate a renewed bid to better differentiate his party’s economic approach within the Coalition with Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives.

Mr Clegg added: “If we want to remain cohesive and prosperous as a society, people of very considerable personal wealth have got to make a bit of an extra contribution.”

“In addition to our standing policy on things like the mansion tax is there a time limited contribution you can ask in some way or another from people of considerable wealth so they feel they are making a contribution to the national effort? What we are embarked on is in some senses a longer economic war rather than a short economic battle.”

Commenting on the interview, Chris Leslie, Labour’s shadow treasury minister, said: “Nick Clegg is once again taking the British people for fools. He talks about a tax on the wealthiest, but he voted for the tax cut for millionaires in George Osborne’s Budget.

“And he has supported a failing economic plan which has pushed Britain into a double-dip recession and is leading to borrowing going up by a quarter so far this year.”