Badenoch pledges to scrap stamp duty in conference speech

Kemi Badenoch has pledged to scrap stamp duty entirely on the purchase of main homes, in her party conference speech today.

The Conservative leader today pledged to free up the housing market by scrapping the tax.

“Our housing market is not working as it should, because there’s a big barrier that keeps getting in the way”, she said.

“That barrier, conference, is the tax you have to pay when you buy your home.”

She added: “[There are] young people trapped in the pain of renting, workers who want to further their career, pensioners who want to downsize but can’t afford the thousands of pounds they have to pay in tax.”

Badenoch said a society “where no one can afford to buy, or move” is a society where social mobility is “dead”. She said the move would have wider benefits to the economy because it would trigger a “chain reaction” of construction activity.

Residential stamp duty tax receipts totalled £8.6bn last year, according to government figures.

Tom Clougherty, executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, described abolishing stamp duty as ”the single best reform any government could make to Britain’s tax system.”

He said: ”As things stand, this outdated and uneconomic levy is wreaking havoc on our already troubled housing market – by deterring sales and depressing house-building.

“Indeed, research suggests that the wider social and economic harms are equivalent to three-quarters of the revenue raised – and that’s on top of the loss to the people actually paying the tax.”

Badenoch pledged to restrict benefits to British citizens and limit sickness benefits to those with “serious” disabilities. She also pledged a “cheap power” plan, including axing the carbon tax on electricity, drilling for oil and gas in the north sea and backing nuclear power.

The Labour government earlier this week announced its own measures to speed up the housing market  Under the proposed changes to the homebuying system, sellers and estate agents will be required to provide buyers with additional information about properties upfront, including its condition, leasehold costs and the chains of people waiting to move.