In reply to captain paranoia:
This article [1] says that: "The highest income tax rate will be 40p from April 2023. About 660,000 of the highest earners will benefit from the scrapping of the 45p rate, saving an average of £10,000 a year."
Which would imply 660,000 X £10,000 per year income tax raised from the 45% rate, which is £6.6bn
This website [2] says the government raised £915bn last year. That would mean the 45% rate is generating about 0.7% of total UK tax receipts. I thought this was interesting.
I suppose from a purely financial perspective you would need to work out whether removing the rate would generate more than £6.6bn of more tax from growing the job market / economy or whatever. But from a cultural / perception perspective it wasn't well received was it!
At the minute our government is like living in a house with parents that are getting divorced or can't agree how to parent, it's not very confidence inspiring.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/28/top-uk-earners-share-your-vie...
[2] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/