Kemi Badenoch has announced the Conservatives would abolish stamp duty if she wins the next election.
In her closing speech at the annual Tory conference in Manchester, the party leader insisted that she had a plan to fix Britain’s “broken model” – including the housing market.
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“Young people trapped in the pain of working,” she said.
“Pensioners wanting to downsize. Stamp duty is a bad tax. We must go further. We must free up our housing market’I have looked at the stamp duty thresholds to see where we can change them. I have decided that we can’t. That simply will not be enough.
“Conference, the next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on your home. It will be gone.”
Stamp duty is a tax property or land buyers have to buy if purchasing a property over a certain price in England and Northern Ireland.
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Badenoch claimed she would be able to afford to do this by introducing a “golden economic rule” where “every pound we save will go to work, at least half will go towards cutting the deficit, because living within our means is our first priority.”
She continued: “And with the rest, we will get Britain growing and bring down the taxes which are stifling our economy.”
Although the Tories have consistently polled at less than 20% in recent months, Badenoch also listed all of the tax hikes Labour has already implemented and called them “shameful”.
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“The tax burden is so high it is making Britain poorer because business is giving up, business is leaving,” the MP for North West Essex said.
“Britain is being held back by a broken model,” Badenoch claimed. “To fix our country, we must reverse Labour’s broken measures.
“So, we will cancel their vindictive tax on education,” she said, alluding to Labour’s decision to drop the VAT exemption on private schools.
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“We will scrap their tax on family farms,” she added, pointing to the government’s decision to tax inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m at 20%.
“We will scrap their tax on family businesses,” Badenoch noted, after Labour introduced a cap on business property relief.
“We will reverse the terrible measures in Angela Rayner’s Unemployment bill, written by the unions, for the unions,” she claimed, attacking the Employment Rights Bill meant to update workers’ rights.
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She also announced that “together we would build something better.”
In her speech, Badenoch insisted that “only the Tory Party can deliver the stronger economy and stronger borders that will give people a more prosperous future,” while claiming Starmer is “utterly useless and weak”.
Her remarks come after her shadow chancellor Mel Stride alarmed fellow Tories by admitting he would raise income tax if he were Rachel Reeves and facing a huge fiscal black hole in the government’s finances.
He said this would be “the cleanest thing to do”, because hiking VAT would be inflationary.
His comments sparked immediate backlash from fellow Tories – including from Tory peer David Frost and shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith, who could not hide his astonishment at Stride’s comments yesterday.
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Stride also pledged to save £47bn a year, by cutting welfare, civil service and foreign aid.
This policy blitz comes after a quiet period from the Tories, who – ever since Badenoch was appointed as leader last November – have refrained from unveiling any substantial plans for government, until now.
Over the last week, Badenoch has also vowed to cut the civil service to 2016 numbers, promised to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, deport 150,000 illegal migrants each year, and repeal the Climate Change Act.
