First the millionaires, now the billionaires: Fears for Britain's next great exodus

David Lesperance pauses for a moment as he considers his answer.

“Probably a couple of hundred,” he replies. He is talking about the number of ultra wealthy people he believes have left Britain in recent times for a new life in places such as Dubai.

He’s doesn’t mean millionaires, either. He is referring to people worth £500 million-plus ($675 million) and approaching the dollar billionaire bracket that he or his contemporaries, as international tax experts, have advised on their departures.

Festive greetings now include the phrase "can't wait for Dubai", as used by the husband of Petra Ecclestone, heiress to the multibillion-dollar Formula One fortune, ahead of the Christmas break. Petra and Sam Palmer retain homes in Chelsea and Los Angeles but are reportedly setting up in the Gulf.

For all the talk of 250,000 people relocating abroad in the past year and predictions that 16,000 millionaires would depart in 2025, it is those seriously wealthy people ditching Britain he believes should truly worry the UK government, or rather those in the Treasury trying to balance the books.

And in a message that should sound alarm bells for Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, he says the tide is not yet turning. More billionaires are heading for Dubai, leaving a very large tax hole in their wake.

It is a topic that has also worried former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who said at Abu Dhabi Finance Week that the Labour government should do more to stem the flow.

The record tax-raising November budget may not have featured the much-touted exit tax but there was nothing in Ms Reeves' plans to persuade those already considering upping sticks to reconsider, Mr Lesperance cautions. The Sword of Damocles is still hanging over them.

“So my clients are saying ‘yeah, she didn't announce one this time. But she's still going to need money next autumn’. My clients will still depart. But now, they can retreat from the UK in an orderly way. They don't have to rush to be gone by a deadline.”

The flurry of departures, which had begun in the dying days of the Tory government but appears to have gathered pace since Keir Starmer’s Labour took over in July 2024, is snowballing.

The wealthier you are, the less you need to be at one location to make and