Last year the wealth of Britain’s 1,000 richest people rose by 15 per cent to a total of £519 billion. That’s equivalent to half of Britain’s entire national debt and almost 20 times Britain’s current account deficit — the £27bn that the government says must be saved by cuts in public services.

Over the past five years the personal wealth of these 1,000 people has almost doubled. In 2009 they possessed “only” £257bn.

This poses an obvious question. Over these years the real incomes of wage-earners fell by 9 per cent. How, then, did these very rich people, few of whom work in any conventional sense, manage this amazing feat of wealth accumulation?

Tax-dodging may provide part of the explanation. The practices of the HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary represented only a small part of a very big iceberg. “Wealth management” is one of the main activities of all the big banks. Research conducted for the PCS union estimates that tax evasion cost Britain £80bn in 2014 and tax avoidance another £25bn.

On this front it’s one law for the rich and one law for the poor. So-called “benefit fraud” represents just 1 per cent of this total. And while the poorest 25 per cent pay almost 40 per cent of their income in tax, the richest 25 per cent pay only 35 per cent — figures which will inevitably exclude undeclared wealth hidden away in Zurich or the Bahamas.

This is why the Labour Party is quite correct to call for Britain’s offshore territories and crown dependencies to establish public registers of the ultimate owners of all companies and accounts based in their jurisdiction.

In the wake of the 2008 banking crash the previous Labour government established the Independent Review of Britain’s Offshore Financial Centres. Its purpose was to establish just how much money passed through these centres.

The Bank of International Settlements provided an estimate of the total cash flowing annually into tax havens across the world as $3.6 trillion (£2.4 trn). Of this total, British tax havens accounted for over two-thirds, considerably in excess of the value of Britain’s gross domestic product.

Predictably Mr Miliband’s call for a register of ultimate ownership has brought cries of outrage. George Osborne dismissed Mr Miliband as “anti-business” and “unfit for office” — even though Osborne was quite happy to serve for three years in government beside Lord Green, who presided over HSBC when it was fiddling tax.

Bermudan Prime Minister Michael Dunkley hit back by saying that its affairs are totally transparent — although a US Congressional investigation in 2013 found that the profits of US companies registered in Bermuda had increased from 200 per cent of that island’s GDP in 1999 to 1,000 per cent 10 years later.

Mr Dunkley continued: “We would also remind Mr Miliband of Bermuda’s strategic economic contribution to Britain, which includes direct and indirect employment in Britain of 100,000 people.”

In doing so, he exposed the real problem. Britain’s crown territories are largely unregulated. Although legally dependent on Britain — you the taxpayer would be liable — they make their own laws and levy virtually no taxes on wealth. And yet a great deal of the economic activity in Britain is controlled by British citizens through these territories.

This is why more is needed than just a register of ownership. As British territories, they should be progressively made subject to the same tax regime as Britain itself, with a specific time period in which to realign their economies.

This would not end the causes of inequality. Restoring trade union rights and collective bargaining is ultimately far more important. But it would help ensure that the wealth produced by working people in Britain does not disappear unaccountably into bank accounts overseas.