In September 2012 Ed Miliband announced his new vision for the Labour Party’s economic policies. This involves the engineering of markets to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth before taxation rather than after. ‘Redistribution’ would make way for ‘predistribution'.

For some time before then, the term ‘redistribution’ was falling in popularity. The authors of the 27th British Social Attitudes (BSA) report suggest that New Labour was reticent about appearing to be “an Old Labour tax and spend party”, so pursued “redistribution by stealth”. More people are likely to answer favourably about redistribution when the general concept is put forward without the explicit term.

Indeed, the 2015 edition of the BSA survey found that 60% of the population agree that “ordinary people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth” – but only 39% agreed that government should “redistribute” income from the better off to the less well off (this rose to 52% for Labour supporters). 

How far did different religious groups agree that “Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well off” from 2000 to 2012?

As the graph shows, in all groups only a minority agreed that government should “redistribute” income – usually around the 30-40% range across the period. Overall support for redistribution fell in 2004 and 2005, but since then has slowly increased.

Respondents of non-Christian faiths registered the highest level of agreement with the statement in 11 out of 13 years, often by a significant margin. For example, in 2004 only 30% of Anglicans agreed, compared to 56% of respondents from other faiths. (It should be noted that fluctuation in the responses of the latter group may have been influenced by its small sample size). 

Anglicans were least likely group to support “redistribution”. In 2009 36% of the population supported redistribution, according to the 27th BSA report. But as the graph shows, in that year only 27% of Anglicans did. Catholics were most likely to be supportive in 2009, above average at 45%. 

In 2012 four out of the five groups converged in their attitudes to government redistribution of wealth – they were between 38% (Anglicans) and 43% (the non-religious) in their agreement level. Again those of non-Christian faiths were the exception, with 59% agreeing or strongly agreeing. 

With the exception of those from minority religions, the attitudes of different religious and non-religious groups on the ‘r’ word are quite similar. It remains to be seen whether the ‘p’ word will do any better.

This socio-political statement is one of several asked by the BSA survey to determine where groups sit on the 'Left-Right' axis:

• Big business benefits owners at the expense of workers

• Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance

• Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well off

• Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth

• There is one law for the rich and one for the poor 

See where each group sits on the overall Left-Right axis here