Ross Clark

Lewis Hamilton doesn’t need a knighthood

• 31 December 2020, 11:36am

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  Ross Clark

  Lewis Hamilton doesn’t need a knighthood

  

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

A few weeks ago, it was reported that his tax status was being vetted by the Palace, and it doesn’t appear to have prevented his name appearing on the honours list. Then again, it is hard to escape a suspicion that the big attraction for his decision to live in Monaco might just possibly have been the modesty of its fiscal demands upon its residents – in which case it is not hard to wonder whether a more appropriate honour might have been the Ordre du Merite Culturel, bestowed by Albert II.

There is always outrage – not unreasonably – when political donors are given honours. The sale of honours is, after all, supposed to be illegal. But in one respect I wish there was a bit more linkage between money and honours. It ought to be a condition that recipients of British honours are paying their full taxes in this country. The whole point of having the Queen bestow honours is surely to reward people who have gone out of their way to be of service to this country. It is hard to square that with someone making a decision to live abroad specifically to avoid UK taxes. We all have every right to leave the country and choose to live somewhere else, of course. But I don’t see why the Queen should be expected to wheel out the full pageantry from someone who has just flown in from their tax haven by private jet.

In fact, why not formalise it and make paying taxes grounds for an honour? Pay your first £10 million in taxes and you should qualify for an MBE (so long as you haven’t also committed a serious crime). Once you have reached £20 million in taxes it should be bumped up to an OBE, with maybe an automatic knighthood for anyone who has paid £100 million. Why not? We hand out honours virtually automatically to civil servants who have reached a certain rank and done their time behind a desk. Why not formally recognise paying taxes as a public good?

Lewis Hamilton has won enough prizes on the racing circuit. He hardly needs the recognition of a knighthood. How much better if the honours system was used to reward blameless grafters who have helped bail out the Exchequer, without any recognition of how much the country relies on them.