12 February - UNA-UK helps launch Robin Hood Tax campaign

The Robin Hood Tax campaign is a movement of nearly 50 organisations pushing for a global tax on transactions between financial institutions as a means to generate funds in the fight against poverty, hunger and climate change.

The campaign was launched on 10 February, with a letter sent to the leaders of the three main UK political parties. The letter argued the tax would provide an 'innovative, modern, regular way of accumulating a fund of money to deal with big issues boldly'.

As a long-standing member of the Stamp Out Poverty network which is leading this campaign, UNA-UK was among the first organisations to sign up. We believe that innovative financing is urgently needed if the world is to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

The Robin Hood Tax is in essence a repackaged and expanded version of the Tobin tax, first proposed by Nobel winning economist the late James Tobin in 1972.

The idea behind it is to introduce an international levy on currency transactions between financial institutions and not banks' transactions with their high street customers. So for example it would not impact individuals exchanging currency for a holiday.

Rates for different transactions would vary, but on average it would equate to a very low rate of around 0.05 percent, starting at five pence for every thousand pounds traded.

The tax, which would raise hundreds of billions of pounds, is also designed to discourage large-scale currency speculation by making it less profitable.

The Robin Hood campaign is calling for half of the proceeds of a tax on transactions between banks to be used by governments domestically, and half abroad, with a 50-50 split between poverty reduction and fighting climate change.

The campaign has received international political support, including from Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, as well as backing from business and economists alike.

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