Kemi Badenoch Says She Will Abolish Stamp Duty If Elected
4 min read
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has announced that she will abolish stamp duty if she wins the next general election.
In her main stage speech to Tory conference in Manchester on Wednesday, Badenoch said the policy would benefit “people of all ages” – from young professionals buying a flat, couples looking for a family home, and pensioners looking to downsize.
Stamp duty is paid when purchasing a home in England and Northern Ireland worth £125,000, or £300,000 for first-time buyers.
"We must go further, we must free up our housing market because a society where no one can afford to buy or move is a society where social mobility is dead," she told Conservative MPs and party members.
“I have looked at the stamp duty thresholds to see whether we can change them. I have looked at the rates you have to pay to see if we can lower them. I have decided that we can’t.
“Because that simply wouldn’t be enough. Conference, the next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on your home.”
The announcement was warmly welcomed by Tory-aligned think tanks, including the Institute for Economic Affairs and Centre for Policy Studies.
It was Badenoch's first Conservative Party conference leader's speech since being elected to succeed Rishi Sunak nearly a year ago.
She arrived in Manchester under pressure to reassure her party that she can help it recover from last year's heavy election defeat and reclaim ground from Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
The Tory leader urged Conservatives to be patient in an interview with The House ahead of conference. “We need somebody who’s going to be getting to the very best at the time of the election. Not someone who’s peaked on day one. I’m not somebody who peaks on day one," she said.
Her speech contained several policy announcements, including that under a new "golden economic rule", every pound saved by a Tory government would go towards reducing the deficit, while the rest would be used to "get Britain growing and bring down the taxes that are stifling our economy".
Badenoch also pledged to scale back net zero commitments, reduce benefit claimants, and cut what she described as "rip-off" university degrees to double the apprenticeships budget.
She kicked off the Manchester conference by confirming that, as prime minister, she would remove the UK from the European Court of Human Rights to help tackle illegal boat crossings.
The Tory leader likened the challenges facing the UK today to the Second World War and the economic difficulties of the 1980s, saying her party “steered this country through its darkest days” and that it must be ready to do the same again.
“We are the only party that has the vision, the courage and the competence to tear up a broken political model, deliver a new blueprint for our country, and together take Britain into an era of prosperity and security," Badenoch said.
She added: “We must be frank about the problems our country faces, because they are not the same ones that we faced in the 1940s or the 1980s, or even the 2010s.
“People had a sense of pride in our national story and excitement about the future. I'm not so sure young people feel that way anymore. They feel they are living somewhere where things never get any better. Britain is stagnating, while the world around us, moves on.”
Her conference speech done, Badenoch will now face pressure to demonstrate progress between now and what are shaping up to be a tricky set of elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England in May.
A YouGov poll conducted last week put the Tories in third place on 17 per cent, three points behind Labour and ten behind Farage's Reform.
The same pollster found that just 9 per cent of people believe her party is ready for government, compared to 71 per cent who believe it is not.
