Stamp Duty Land Tax

Debate between Bradley Thomas and Rachel Blake

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to speak in the debate. In a spirit of cross-party unity, I congratulate His Majesty’s Opposition on their valiant and brave attempts to dress up a political tax cut as a meaningful intervention in the housing market. I have been looking at every single Conservative Member who has spoken and thinking about whether they really believe that such a tax cut would actually make a difference.

[Bradley Thomas]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Rachel Blake]

I would like to develop my argument a little bit further, and then I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member. I read the Opposition’s proposals with interest, and have been looking to see exactly how they intend to fund their proposed tax cut. I am struck by the fact that the Conservatives want to bring forward even more unfunded proposals. They are not satisfied with their devastation of public services after their attempts at austerity; with crashing the economy, driving up mortgage costs and rents, and driving down the supply of new homes and overall rates of home ownership; or with their botched Brexit deal, which, through its impact on the economy, has wrecked many people’s chance to buy a home. No, they propose yet more ill-thought-through tax cuts.

In the likely event that the Opposition’s ill-thought-through proposals for funding this tax cut are undeliverable, I wonder whether they would cut £14 billion from Labour’s £39 billion investment in genuinely affordable homes. Would they cut £14 billion from the £23 billion that the Government invested in the National Wealth Fund to get our economy going? Would they take money out of our £3.8 billion homelessness fund? The truth is that the Conservative Government’s interventions in the housing market resulted in temporary accommodation use, rough sleeping, mortgage rates and rents going up, and home ownership going down. The Tories pretend to be the party of home ownership, but it is Labour that is absolutely determined to get homes built. It is Labour that is coming forward with proposals to get homes built, and Labour, I believe, that will deliver on that.

[Bradley Thomas]

Does the hon. Member accept that over the last 30 years, the four years with the highest levels of new housing delivery occurred since 2018, under Conservative Governments? She is trying to make the point that stamp duty abolition is a tax cut dressed up as an intervention in the housing market. What on earth is wrong with giving a tax cut to aspirational people who work hard and want to move up the housing ladder?

[Rachel Blake]

For the last two hours, the proposal has been presented by Opposition Members as a meaningful housing market intervention because of their supposed commitment to aspiration. The Labour party has always been the party of aspiration, and it has been the driving force behind social mobility throughout the last century. [Interruption.] Conservative Members know that, and that is why they are chuntering so much.

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Debate between Bradley Thomas and Rachel Blake

2nd reading
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

There appears to be a glaring omission on the part of the Government: without a thriving private sector, there is no public sector to fund at all. I wish that Labour would acknowledge that much more vehemently and clearly than it appears to.

The Government talk a lot about public services and how the proposals they have put forward in the Budget will support a thriving public sector, but we do not hear about the public sector needing to deliver much more, in terms of productivity gains. If we keep throwing money into public services without a serious plan for structural reform, we fail every single stakeholder—the taxpayer, and, if we are talking about the NHS, the patient and the doctor.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

We have heard a lot this afternoon about investment in the public sector and what the proposals will do to small businesses, but we have not heard the Opposition recognise that this country needs a healthy workforce. The Bill proposes a sustainable and manageable approach to funding that healthy workforce. Will the hon. Gentleman describe to the House how damaging the previous Government’s treatment of the workforce was, and the long-standing and growing number of people claiming out-of-work benefits? Does he not see that the Bill will make a sustainable contribution?

[Bradley Thomas]

I think the hon. Lady misses the point that I am making. If we are to have a thriving, sustainable set of public services, it is not just a case of funding them; we need structural reform, so that we can deliver the best-quality services at the point of need. Take the NHS as an example. It is fundamentally different from how it was at its inception. People live longer and suffer from different illnesses. It is incumbent on Government, the whole of the public sector and this Parliament to focus on how money is spent to deliver value for money for everyone involved.

A few weeks ago, the Chancellor said that businesses that were concerned about the impact of proposals in this Budget should “cut their cloth accordingly”. Well, the same should apply to Government. Every single one of us should challenge Government to spend our money much more effectively. Once we do that, the tax burden will come down, and when that happens, we can pass on those savings. It is those savings that will ultimately underpin and provide the foundation for an economy that will grow and incentivise businesses across the board.

The Government talk a lot about the climate and the context that they inherited, but they repeatedly fail to acknowledge covid—one of the biggest public finance interventions this country has seen, which took place only a few years ago.