Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between Rebecca Paul and Ashley Fox

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

Yes, I should declare that interest.

This amounts to an economic failure, but also to a social failure. Home ownership gives people stability, autonomy and long-term security. It encourages saving, it strengthens families and it fosters pride and a sense of genuine community in our towns and villages. Abolishing stamp duty will save families thousands of pounds and put the many benefits of home ownership back into reach for the next generation.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Does my hon. Friend agree that cutting stamp duty will not only benefit young people aspiring to home ownership, but act as an incentive for older people to downsize, freeing up larger family homes and making them available for families that need to increase the size of the house they own?

[Rebecca Paul]

I will make that exact same point later in my speech, and I completely agree that that is a relevant change that will come from this policy.

I clearly see in my constituency the way in which stamp duty chokes and distorts the market as it penalises those who move, creates a disincentive for older people to downsize and deters growing families from upsizing into more suitable family homes. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has put it, in a crowded field, stamp duty land tax is

“the most economically damaging tax in the UK.”

I cannot disagree with that.

My constituents feel that acutely. Stamp duty is all the more painful in an area where the average house price is now above £490,000. The young families I speak to, who have made the move out of London and settled in towns such as Redhill or Reigate, have been hit with eye-watering up-front costs that made those moves extremely challenging. Many more will have found it impossible. That is why our policy matters.

We intend to strip away one of the fundamental barriers to family life in this country. Eliminating stamp duty will save the average first-time buyer in the south-east around £4,000 and as much as £18,000 in London. Unlike the Labour party, we will not punish those looking to move further up the ladder with frozen thresholds and stealth tax hikes.

I would, of course, be expected to paint a suitably positive view of the proposal, but what do the experts think? Zoopla’s Richard Donnell has rightly said,

“More home moves would support economic growth and the ambition to build more homes.”

The Institute of Economic Affairs went further, calling this

“the single best reform any government could make to Britain’s tax system.”

Indeed, the case seems so strong that one has to wonder why the Government oppose us on this.

The truth is that Labour has always been the party of higher taxes on homes. It reversed the Conservative policy that raised the first-time buyer threshold to £425,000. It is freezing stamp duty thresholds in real terms, dragging more and more people into paying this punitive tax each year. While it talks endlessly about house building, its actions tell a different story. Not only is it on track to miss its self-imposed housing targets, but the Housing Secretary tried to block 237 new homes in his constituency despite promising to “build, baby, build”. By contrast, the Conservatives have delivered 2.8 million homes over the past 14 years, including nearly 750,000 affordable homes, and we pledge to go further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rebecca Paul]

My hon. Friend’s excellent point is pertinent to my constituency as well, which is full of amazing and beautiful green-belt land. We are suffering from what this Government have done on housing targets, which have doubled in Reigate and Banstead while going down in London. That means that we are building more homes, but not for local people and not for the children the hon. Member for Hexham mentioned, who want to stay close to home. It is for people living in London who then move out to Reigate and Banstead.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that in the south-west of England, the Government have reduced the building target for Bristol city council, which has a lot of Labour members, and have instead increased the building target for rural Somerset, where there are few Labour members, by 40%? Does she share my concern that Labour is fiddling the housing targets for political advantage?

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank my hon. Friend for yet another relevant and important point. I urge the Government to think logically about what they are trying to achieve. We all support the ambition to build more homes and recognise the problem that needs to be solved. However, the way we do it is really important, and it is important that we have those homes in the right places and that we set the targets in a logical and meaningful way. With this policy, and others like it, we are offering the public a clear choice between a party that wants to unlock aspiration and reward the hard work of our young people and a party that clings to economically damaging taxes because its own Back Benchers refuse to make even the smallest concessions on out-of-control spending.

We on the Conservative Benches are clear that any significant change to tax policy must be properly costed. The public finances are in a challenging place, and reckless commitments only add to the prevailing sense of uncertainty. That is why it is so important to emphasise that our intention to scrap stamp duty on primary residences is costed, fully funded and fully paid for through our £47 billion savings package. Our plan is clear: it is costed and it is rooted in a belief that home ownership should be within reach of the next generation, just as it was for our own.