Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between Bobby Dean and Ashley Fox

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bobby Dean]

I think the hon. Member will find that across the country there will be opposition politicians opposing developments. In Sutton council in my borough, where we are in control, we are outstripping all of London in house building, and I am very proud of that record.

In order to fix the housing crisis, we need sustained wage growth, so that wages come up against the increase in house prices. I do not hear that on offer from the Conservative party today. I am sorry to say that we have a Trussite proposal on the table: an unfunded tax cut that lacks real credibility.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the shadow Chancellor, he would have heard him say that half the £47 billion in savings will come from reducing welfare spend. Another significant proportion will come from reducing the civil service to the size it was back in 2016. The proposal is fully funded, and he does himself no favours by inventing other facts.

[Bobby Dean]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing me on to my next point early. I want to address this proposed £47 billion in public spending cuts. If the Conservatives were to hand over that proposal in its current form to the Office for Budget Responsibility, it would laugh them out of the front door. Those cuts are not credible at all. Over half of that figure is based on welfare cuts—a welfare bill, by the way, that rose on the watch of the Conservative Government, not least because of the defunding of the NHS, which caused people to be in ill health in the first place.

The Conservatives are also talking about reducing the size of the civil service. Can any Member hazard a guess as to why the civil service has grown since 2016? It is because we have in-housed a lot of bureaucracy that we used to outsource to Brussels. One of the primary reasons why the civil service has grown is the number of services that we now have to deliver in this country.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned covid, which is the largest single contributor to the increase in the size of the state. He also did not mention the £5 billion reduction in welfare spending proposed by the Government; the Conservative party supported that, but the Government just gave in on it. There is plenty of money to be saved.

[Bobby Dean]

When the hon. Gentleman refers to covid, I think he is referring to total debt, which has increased. We are talking specifically about why the civil service has increased in size. A lot of that can be attributed to the new functions that the UK Government have had to take on.

On the welfare budget, yes, the Government struggled to get through their welfare reforms, but so did the previous Conservative Government. That is why the proposal that half of the £47 billion will come from welfare cuts lacks credibility.