OPINION: Badenoch's stamp duty half-measures fail renters and markets 🏠

Stamp duty land tax on primary residences...

It wasn’t so much Badenoch’s performance on the circuit that saved her, more the proposal to cut Stamp Duty Land Tax on primary residences. It was a good effort. After all, stamp duty does need reform: it is a tax on buying and selling houses – on moving. It is a barrier to downsizing for the old and upsizing for growing families. It penalises moves that would enable more efficient use of the UK’s scarce housing stock. It inhibits the market. But I would argue that the stamp duty proposal didn’t go far enough. While annual receipts for stamp duty came to £18.3bn in 2024-25, the Tories are only cutting approximately £9.5bn of that. I would argue Badenoch’s proposal lacks ambition. We need to cut stamp duty entirely. Of course, the Conservative Party has only suggested policy while in opposition, rather than in any of the years between 2010 and 2024 when it was actually in power. First, that smacks of desperation to me. And second, who knows when the Conservative Party will next win an election? They should have done this when they were in government.