Britain’s five richest families worth more than poorest 20%

The Duke of Westminster’s family, Britain’s richest, owns several acres of London’s Belgravia. Photograph: Jeffrey Blackler/Alamy

The scale of Britain’s growing inequality was laid bare in another Oxfam report, A Tale of Two Britains: Inequality in the UK, which showed that the country’s five richest families now own more wealth than the poorest 20% of the population. Oxfam said the poorest 20% in the UK had wealth totalling £28.1bn – an average of £2,230 each. That was equivalent to the five top UK entries on the Forbes rich list, who were worth £28.2bn in total.