Stamp Duty Land Tax

Jack Rankin Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sandher]

That is not at all the argument I am making. My argument is: how can we ensure that people live a decent life through £23 billion of social security cuts, given the huge amounts of destitution and increased unaffordability for families? I say this to the Conservatives as well: I worked in the Treasury under George Osborne, and even he would not have come up with something like this. When he tried something similar, he did not get it past this House.

[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

Will the hon. Member reflect on the fact that one in six people in this country on universal credit are not British citizens? How would he justify that to his constituents?

[Dr Sandher]

People in this country who have the right to remain and the right to work, and who have earned social security contributions, can make claims. The hon. Member will know that many people in this country have no recourse to public funds at all. That meant that during the pandemic, for example, despite paying into the system, they could not claim back out.

It is a shame to see where the Conservative party has got to on this stuff, to be honest. There was a time when the Conservatives condemned Enoch Powell, and a time when they joined us, across this House, in believing that every single person, regardless of the colour of their skin, when given the legal status to remain, has rights and responsibilities, like a British citizen. It is such a shame to see where the Conservative party has got to.

The truth is, I think the Conservatives feel ashamed. When they talk about things like cultural coherence, we can hear the dog whistle—across this country, we hear it. I will tell you why, Madam Deputy Speaker: it is because British citizenship is not just about the colour of our skin or the way we look; it is about our values, the way we act, and the way we cohere together—different communities across this nation who speak in different ways. It is a deep, deep shame—dog-whistle away.

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[Bobby Dean]

Surprise, surprise, I do not. I will come on to the reasons why.

Mortgage companies will lend around four times someone’s income, so we can see how big the problem is. A couple may stand a chance of getting a mortgage; someone on their own has no chance. The other problem with house prices accelerating away from wages so much is that the 10% deposit that people often need to raise is completely out of reach. To put this in context, in 1990 the average wage was around £8,000 a year, and a person might have needed to save about £2,000 for a deposit. Today, a person on the average wage of £33,000 would have to try to save £28,000. People simply cannot do it unless they have the support of their mum or dad, or others in their family.

This is the death of meritocracy in our country. We now live in a society where a person’s family wealth, not their work or talent, defines their future financial security. We are back to Victorian-era levels of social mobility. That is absolutely abhorrent, and no amount of tinkering around the edges is sufficient to fix it.

Scrapping stamp duty will not be a silver bullet. In fact, on its own, it might represent a bit of a giveaway to those who are already faring better than most in society. If we are serious about fixing the housing crisis in our country, we need a generational change in the level of house building, and a holistic approach to redesigning the property tax system.

[Jack Rankin]

I agree with the hon. Member wholeheartedly, and he is making an excellent speech, but I would gently say that lots of us in the shires who face Liberal Democrats in our constituencies get leaflets from his colleagues that oppose building almost anywhere, ever. What would he say about that to some of his colleagues?

[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.

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[Rebecca Paul]

I thank my hon. Friend for that pertinent point. This is proper Conservative policy. This is the kind of thing everyone in this country is clamouring for—[Hon. Members: “More!”] This party is delivering that under our new leadership. For too long, stamp duty has been a dead weight on the housing market, a tax on aspiration and a barrier to the kind of home ownership that gives people a genuine stake in their community. It is time that we abolished it on primary residences.

Surely we can all agree that our housing market is not working as it should. Far too many young people feel locked out, priced out and increasingly disillusioned. The average age of a first-time buyer in England is now 34, up by nearly a decade from where it was 40 years ago. In London, it is even higher, and across the country 20% fewer 25 to 34-year-olds own a home today than was the case in 2000.

I have skin in the game: I have three children and I want them to be able to buy a house without coming to mummy and daddy to help them out.

[Jack Rankin]

I bet my hon. Friend does—she should declare an interest!

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[Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)]

In preparing for this debate, I was thinking about my history when it comes to stamp duty. I recall quite vividly going to see a mortgage broker on Dedworth Road in Windsor—I am not quite sure what year it was; perhaps I was in my late 20s. I had been quite dutifully saving for some years in order to achieve my aspiration, which a lot of young people have, to get a foot on the property ladder. I remember that I dutifully took my payslips and bank statements, and the mortgage broker turned to me and laughed. He said, “Congratulations on saving that, Mr Rankin. You have now saved the stamp duty; we just have to save up for a deposit.” It was a joke, but it was kind of true.

There has been lots of criticism of our record, but one of the things we Conservatives did in office that I was most heartened by was removing first-time buyers from stamp duty. That was incredibly powerful for young people in this country.

I might have to declare an interest that is not just historical. I am a father with a young family—we have two boys under the age of four. Housing is incredibly expensive in my constituency, with the average house costing around £750,000. We are considering a third child, and just like families up and down the country we are discussing what that means. The particular limiting decision for my family, despite us wanting a third child, is housing. We live in a wonderful home in the village of Sunninghill that is probably okay for three babes and tots, but it would not be okay for a growing family. That is the kind of decision that is being made up and down this country.

One of the things that has made me proud this afternoon to sit on the Conservative Benches was listening to some Labour Members, because from some there has been a sneering assumption that stamp duty is a tax for the rich. When I think about myself and many young people in their early 20s trying to put together their stamp duty, I do not think that is a tax cut for the rich. When I think about families trying to get another bedroom in order to grow their families, I do not think that is a tax cut for the rich. That is not going into any of the other dynamic effects at all. I am proud that on the Conservative Benches, we stand up for aspirational people.

If we think about the crowded field of all the taxes we might want to cut, to my mind stamp duty is where we might start. We have heard from many Members who have quoted distinguished economists—much more distinguished than anything I might come out with—but it is clear that stamp duty is one of those taxes that destroys almost as much wealth as it raises. It is anti-growth, anti-ambition and anti-free market, and as I have already articulated, I think it is anti-family. It is a significant part of the reason why this country has such a lethargic housing market.

This is all despite the fact that home ownership is not only key to our prosperity; perhaps even more so, it is important to people’s pride and the security of millions of families around this country. It is the foundation of this great property-owning democracy, but as a nation, we are not in a great state when it comes to housing. For my generation and the generation behind me, home ownership sometimes looks quite impossible. To fix this, our focus must be on supply, supply, supply, but we also need a market that flows freely. Frankly, today’s housing market is gummed up.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell), used to be part of the Resolution Foundation—that well-known right-wing think tank—which itself has called for the abolition of stamp duty to free up the housing market in the way my hon. Friend is describing?

[Jack Rankin]

I would say that I hope the hon. Member in question is closer to this Budget, but having listened to some of his other utterances, perhaps most of us on the Conservative Benches would not hope for that. Never mind!

The main criticism we have heard from Government Members, which is a fair criticism, is that of cost. There has been some constructive criticism from Labour Members who have agreed that stamp duty is a bad tax, but have then said that cost is the problem. They should be a little bit self-aware about that, because one of the reasons we are in such a fiscally precarious place is that some of the decisions the Government made in their previous Budget have put us in something of a fiscal doom loop, which we do not seem to have any chance of escaping.

[Mr Snowden]

While we are on the subject of paying for things and ownership of land—trying to find the funds to abolish a tax and allow our citizens to purchase their own home—one obvious solution would be to not give away territory that we already own and pay £36 billion over the lifetime of the deal to do so. One way of paying for this policy that my hon. Friend might suggest to Labour Members is to avoid paying to give away our own land, taking money off our citizens who want to buy their own land.

[Jack Rankin]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Although we are at risk of picking apart the Budget in its entirety, I would suggest that giving away our sovereign land and paying for the privilege might not be a great thing to do at any time, but particularly in a fiscally constrained environment.

Despite having to have a reasonable answer on the question of cost, which I will get to later in my remarks, Conservative Members should not be shy when it comes to talking about some of the other positive fiscal benefits that abolishing stamp duty would yield. One area in which we Conservatives have not done as well as we could is that of making the positive, dynamic argument for some tax cuts, because every move in the housing market engages a raft of removers, decorators, window cleaners, gardeners, plumbers and electricians. Do those sound like the kind of people who could be described as “the rich”, as we have heard from Labour Members? These are real working people with decent jobs, generating income for the Exchequer through VAT, income tax and national insurance, and we should not be shy about saying that. If we are lucky, abolishing stamp duty might also lead to a reduction in welfare spending through job creation.

There are also gains that cannot be recorded in a spreadsheet. Those include families such as mine moving into homes that are the right size for them, and pensioners rightsizing—some people have used downsizing, but I think rightsizing is the better word—to be closer to their grandchildren, which might provide childcare support for young families. They also include economic and social mobility, such as taking a promotion in a new area. Those things might not show up on a Treasury balance sheet, but they are really important things for our society. Cutting stamp duty would generate extra revenue for the Treasury in myriad ways that we should be happy to talk about.

That said, as a credible Opposition, we still need to cost this policy. That is why, as we have heard already in this debate, the Conservative party has found £47 billion of savings, all while being able to honour our golden economic rule. That economic rule says that the majority of public sector spending reductions that we identify must go on deficit reduction.

As a policy, the abolition of stamp duty aligns with many of the principles that those of us on the Opposition Benches hold dear to our hearts. It rewards ambition, it unlocks free markets, and it lowers the tax burden on families. Labour will not make any difference on housing because it is just too conflicted. Fixing the housing market needs holistic solutions. We cannot talk about improving the housing market with the levels of migration that we currently have. We cannot talk about improving the housing market while overseeing record low house building numbers in London, as our developers are strangled in regulation. We need a holistic solution. We need to abolish stamp duty. We need to end mass migration. We need, I am afraid to say, to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.

I look forward to seeing more ambition from the Opposition on reforming our planning system. That is part of a vision for my party, and I am proud to be a part of it. However, it is not a new vision. Home ownership and supply-side reforms have been at the centre of the Conservative vision throughout our storied history, whether that is Stanley Baldwin, Harold Macmillan or Mrs Thatcher. It is a moral mission to support young aspirant people through these important gateways of life. Buying your own home and starting a family—these are the building blocks of all our communities. Abolishing stamp duty in this costed way will give people the keys to their own futures and secure the future of this country.