Seventy organisations have written to David Cameron calling on him to back a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions at today’s G20 summit in Cannes as a new poll reveals strong public support for the move.

Coming just a day after the Archbishop of Canterbury called for a Robin Hood Tax, the letter is signed by a range of domestic, international, faith and environmental organisations from Barnado’s to the Methodist Church and from Oxfam to the TUC. It warns that despite public statements from ministers in favour of a global financial transactions tax, in private the UK may be preventing progress.

It argues that a Robin Hood Tax “would be the most popular tax in history” and states: “Your government has said that you are not opposed to an international financial transactions tax… But we fear that instead the UK Government is acting to block debate. This is despite the fact that the UK has one of the largest transaction taxes in the world, the stamp duty on shares, and is a world leader in showing how to design and implement such taxes without global agreement.”

These organisations represent millions of people and their support for a FTT stands in stark contrast to the British Bankers’ Association and a small number of other organisations who recently wrote to Osborne to criticise the Financial Transaction tax.

The letter comes as a new poll reveals that the British public are in favour of a Robin Hood Tax to raise money to tackle poverty and climate change by a margin of two-to-one.

The poll of 1,001 people by Ipsos Mori for the Robin Hood Tax campaign shows that almost half the British public (48 per cent) support or strongly support the tax and that just under a quarter (23%) oppose or strongly oppose it.

In recent days, almost 80,000 people have contacted David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne to press them to back a Robin Hood Tax. Campaign group Avaaz’s action in support of a Robin Hood Tax caused so many people to ring the Treasury their phone system collapsed on 13 October.

Public anger that the banks have not been asked to pay their fair share for the economic crisis they helped to cause is also shown by the Occupy London Stock Exchange protests outside St Paul’s and by similar camps around the world.

David Hillman, Robin Hood Tax campaign spokesman, said: “The message from the public to David Cameron is clear: start putting the interests of ordinary people ahead of the vested interests of the City.

“This is a rare, historic opportunity to make finance work for people rather than the other way around. Yet rather than lead the world, David Cameron’s government is lurking on the sidelines.”

More than 1,000 parliamentarians from 30 countries, have signed a declaration in support of a Financial Transaction Tax. The declaration says: “In the light of the recent economic crisis caused by the financial sector and the immense costs to citizens in both the developed and developing world, it is time for the sector responsible to make a far greater contribution to help safeguard livelihoods and save lives.”

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