Britain’s second-largest trade union is calling on the new Labour government to introduce an emergency wealth tax of one percent on the assets of the super-rich to finance ten percent pay rises for public sector workers and to fill over 100,000 vacancies in the British health service NHS.

Unite’s demand is one of several to be made to the Trades Union Congress, which meets in Brighton next month and is set to expose tensions between Keir Starmer’s government and sections of the trade union movement. It comes as Rachel Reeves prepares her first budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer for October 30.

Labour MPs and ministers believe the TUC conference could mark the moment when an effective truce between many unions and Labour – which supported Starmer’s election campaign – begins to crumble, as the prime minister and Reeves reiterate their commitment to fiscal responsibility and stress the need for tough decisions if the economy is to get back on its feet.

Other key unions are preparing to push for further policy changes from Labour, including scrapping the two-child benefit cap, which Starmer has so far opposed, and reversing the recent decision to end winter heating allowances for millions of pensioners, which has sparked a fierce reaction among Labour backbenchers.

While Reeves’ budget proposal appears to be considering an increase in capital gains and inheritance tax, Unite’s motion to the TUC conference goes much further, saying that given the financial difficulties facing local authorities, a much-needed increase in public investment cannot wait until economic growth occurs at some unspecified point in the future.

Unite’s plan would impose a 1 per cent tax on the wealth of anyone with assets over £4 million. This would raise £25 billion a year to invest in public services and avoid a return to austerity. Under the plan, someone with assets of £6 million would pay a 1 per cent tax on the £2 million above the £4 million limit. This wealth would include property, shares and bank accounts, but not mortgaged properties.

Unite points to studies showing that Britain’s 50 richest families now have a fortune of almost £500 billion.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said: “Unite’s resolution to the TUC on the economy calls a spade a spade. The British economy is broken.

“Britain was the leading force in the world’s first industrial revolution. Yet decades of underinvestment in manufacturing and national infrastructure have left us catastrophically lagging behind other countries in the new technological era and the transition to net zero.

“We need serious investment in our struggling public services and industry to secure a prosperous future for British workers and their communities. We will not get the money we need to do this by simply waiting for growth.”

Unite was a generous donor to the Labour Party in 2019 but did not participate in this year’s election campaigns. The organisation believed the election manifesto did not go far enough in protecting workers’ rights and jobs in the oil and gas industry.

The transport union RMT also tabled a motion at the conference calling for the introduction of a wealth tax to finance public investment and the abolition of what it sees as “unnecessarily restrictive and arbitrary budget rules” that limit the government’s ability to borrow.

A motion by shop workers’ union Usdaw calls for the cap on the two-child allowance to be removed, and an amendment to the same motion by civil servants’ union PCS calls on the TUC to “reject cuts to the winter heating allowance” and demand “appropriate taxation of corporations and the super-rich to fund the social security improvements set out in this motion”.

The TUC is also expected to push for a “wage restoration” to offset ten years of real pay cuts for public sector workers.

Such demands will further increase tensions between Labour and its union supporters, following a series of pay deals between the Starmer-led government and striking workers in a range of sectors from health to rail.