Stamp Duty Land Tax

Ian Swales Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who made some good wider economic points. The key point about this reform is that the Government are making a very large cash input, in effect, to make the housing market more liquid and help people move house when they want or need to.

The Government and the Treasury should look at every system where there are huge slab effects, whether on the tax or the benefits side. Slab systems, by their nature, produce cliff edges; and cliff edges, by their nature, produce strange behaviour. We see that in the current benefits system, where interactions between benefits can produce behaviour that was never intended. In this case, those boundaries have led to elaborate avoidance. Overpricing of carpets and curtains is commonly used to reduce the apparent house price to below a threshold. Smoothing out the profile of stamp duty charging reduces the necessity to engage in such above-board avoidance, or nefarious avoidance, which I am sure has gone on as well, owing to the large sums of money involved.

I very much welcome the changes. I should declare an interest, in that my daughter, who lives in Basingstoke, is likely to benefit from them very soon. The reform could have been carried out in a cash-neutral way, but would have been difficult to implement because of the losers involved, so I welcome the injection of money that has enabled it to be framed in such a way that 98% of people will see no change or a saving.

This progressive reform is another example of how the Government are making the people with the broadest shoulders bear the biggest burden. Houses sold at over £937,000 will incur an increase in stamp duty, and a £5 million house will incur a stamp duty increase from £350,000 to half a million pounds—so an extra £160,000 on a large house.

[Mark Reckless]

May I put on the record a correction in relation to figures that were mentioned earlier in the debate? Purchasers of houses between £937,000 and £1 million lose out. Then there is another quite significant area from £1 million up to, I think, between £1.15 million and £1.2 million that will benefit from the reform.

[Ian Swales]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. It is not something that I have examined closely, given the nature of my constituency, which I shall mention.

The reform is yet another example of increasing tax on millionaires, which has happened on so many fronts under this Government, including capital gains and pensions contributions. Also, with the exception of the very last day of the previous Government, income tax is 5% higher than it was in their 13 years. I welcome that; it is important that we make those who are most able to do so pay more, and this is yet another measure by which we are doing that.

There are some oddities. People will gain all the way up the chain, but for those buying at exactly £250,000 and exactly £500,000 there is no gain.

The effect in my constituency of Redcar is pretty good. I do not think that there is a property worth £937,000 in the entire constituency, so every one of my constituents will benefit from the change. I have to welcome it from that point of view. I simply ask the Minister for clarification on the point that we always have to raise on Treasury measures: whether there is any possibility of avoidance. Will these arrangements be applied clearly to overseas buyers? Will they be applied to corporate buyers when the house is being moved through a share transfer—and is that loophole being, or has it been, closed? Will they be applied where the house is being bought to let, either by individual landlords or a corporate structure?

With those few questions on avoidance, I fully support these measures. Making the housing market more liquid will lead to a stronger economy, and the way in which the reform is being implemented leads to a fairer society.