The Conservatives will scrap stamp duty on sales of primary residences if they win the next election, Kemi Badenoch has said in a policy-heavy speech designed to improve her party’s economic credibility.
The Tory leader told her party’s conference that in England and Northern Ireland she would abolish the tax that new buyers have to pay on house purchases over £125,000. The Conservatives calculate that this would cost £9bn a year to the Treasury. Stamp duty would still apply to additional properties and properties bought by companies, and for purchases by non-UK residents.
Badenoch said the pledge was affordable because of a separate promise to make nearly £50bn in spending cuts by 2029. Though economists say the promised spending cuts are vague and difficult to assess, the Conservative leader said they would generate enough to offer both tax cuts and deficit reduction after the next election.
“Home ownership should be a dream that’s open to everyone,” she told the conference. “Abolishing stamp duty on your home is a key to unlock a fairer and more aspirational society. Scrapping stamp duty will benefit people of all ages, because conservatism must speak to all generations: the young professional buying their first flat, the couple looking for somewhere to bring up their first baby, the growing family hunting for their forever home.”
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has been considering replacing stamp duty with another form of property tax, though sources say she is unlikely to do so in this year’s budget.
Badenoch said the tax should be abolished entirely as a way to stimulate the housing market and the broader economy. The pledge came at the end of a Tory conference littered with policy announcements, including promises to leave the European convention on human rights, to repeal the Climate Change Act and to slash welfare payments.
The slew of proposals contrasts with Badenoch’s insistence earlier this year that the party would not set out its policy stall until 2027.
She told her party: “You have seen it out there in the fringes, all over Manchester – this is a party busy with ideas.”
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While Badenoch put a major tax cut at the heart of her speech, she said she would not promise others without first cutting the deficit. In a passage aimed at drawing a line under the damaging Liz Truss era, she said: “Securing our borders, getting people into work, policing our streets, defending the nation – none of it is possible without the money to pay for it.”