Stamp Duty Land Tax

James Cleverly Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor for setting out the opening case for the Opposition’s position on stamp duty. I feel particularly passionate about this policy, which is one I put forward when I was running for the leadership of the Conservative party. Like all good ideas, it has been embraced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I am particularly glad—this is a key point—that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor and his team have worked hard to make sure that cutting stamp duty is not just a headline, but a fully costed and set out policy.

The Leader of the Opposition has, I think very magnanimously, said that if the Government want to steal this idea and implement it now, they will get no opposition from us. I think that shows her typical generosity of spirit. The Government are clearly struggling to come up with credible economic plans of their own, so they are very welcome to steal our economic plans.

I have been struck by the positive nature of this debate. As Conservative colleagues have noted, the expected wall of thoughtless opposition to this proposal has not materialised at quite the scale we expected. It has materialised in some instances, but that is only to be expected. We heard in a number of speeches, and I will refer to some contributions as I go through my speech, that Labour Members recognise that stamp duty is a bad tax, a counterproductive tax and a tax that has a dampening, drag-anchor effect on the housing market. However, they went on to say, “But we need the money.” They are desperate for the tax revenues, which I think shows the fundamental challenge that, frankly, Labour is going to have to deal with in November. If the Government cannot agree to get rid of this damaging, counterproductive tax, what tax will they be willing to reduce? If they are going to say to the House that, basically, there is not a single tax in the British system that they are willing to cut, reduce or remove, then the mask has slipped. Under a Labour Government, this country faces ever-increasing taxes—that is basically what they are saying. They admit that this is a bad tax, but they are not willing to vote for its removal because they want to see—they need to see, are desperate to see—taxes going up. That was fundamentally the argument put by many Government Members.

[Dr Luke Evans]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is compounded by the Government’s position on spending reductions? We saw that on the Floor of the House, when the one attempt to make spending reductions was gutted mid-discussion, with proposals being pulled from a Bill that dealt with welfare. Therefore, the Government will not make any spending cuts either, which does not leave much else bar borrowing, in my estimation.

[Sir James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is spot-on. That point was very well highlighted by my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who said that official Opposition felt that this damaging and counterproductive tax should be removed. As I have said, my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has set out that that would be paid for by a reduction in the welfare bill—something that I know has universal support on our Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater highlighted that a reduction in welfare spending is not only something that we think is a necessary and good idea, but something that Labour Front Benchers used to think was a necessary and a good idea until, with great leadership, they were told by their Back Benchers to stop thinking that it was a necessary and a good idea, and to start thinking that it was a terrible idea. Such leadership from the Back Benches is something that I admire from that party. If only Labour Front Benchers had anything like the spine of the Labour Back Benchers, the country might not be in quite such a dire economic state.

Labour Members have basically said that they are unwilling to cut even the worst taxes because basically they want to see taxes go up. The Lib Dem position is yoga-like in its ability to bend—

[Dr Luke Evans]

Pretzel-like.

[Sir James Cleverly]

Yes, pretzel-like. One after another, the speakers on the Lib Dem Benches stood up and said, “We agree that this is a bad tax. We agree that this is a counterproductive tax. We agree that it is a tax that needs to go.” I, and I suspect others on the Conservative Benches, thought, “Here we go. Here is the crescendo, the pièce de resistance,” and that those speeches would end by saying, “Which is why you will see us in the Lobby with you, ensuring that the motion is passed.” But that is not what we heard.

[Bobby Dean]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir James Cleverly]

In a minute—I have a punchline to get to.

That is not what we heard. What we heard was, “We think this is a bad tax that should be got rid of, but we are not going to vote to say it is a bad tax that should be got rid of, because blah”—which is always the Lib Dems’ punchline. I was waiting for an explosion of political integrity, only to be presented with a political damp squib.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bobby Dean]

Exactly. He obviously was not paying enough attention to our argument. Yes, we did agree with the analysis that stamp duty is a poor tax, but we could not support the motion, because we do not think there is a credible plan for abolishing it. We would like to see a much more holistic review of property taxes, alongside a credible plan. There is no credible plan in the motion. We do not trust the public spending cut proposals that have been put forward.

[Sir James Cleverly]

You’ve gotta love ’em, haven’t you? Never seen a fence they would not sit on, never seen a position they would not contort around. “These are our principles”, they say, “but so are these, and so are these other ones as well.” It is that clarity that we value from the Liberal Democrats.

[Rachel Taylor]

I will be a little clearer on Labour’s principles: we will not be joining the Conservatives in the voting Lobby because we will not vote for unfunded tax cuts that predominantly serve the wealthy and do nothing to help first-time buyers or ordinary working people up and down the country.

[Sir James Cleverly]

That’s how you do it! That is how you actually have a position—it is the wrong position, but at least it is a position. The hon. Lady keeps talking about unfunded tax cuts, but she is getting her language back to front. We do not fund a tax cut, because it is the British people who fund Government spending, so when Government spending is eased, it eases the burden on the British taxpayer. It is spending that needs to be funded, not a reduction in spending.

I will reinforce what I thought were a number of strong interventions in support of the motion. I was struck by my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) speaking about his own experience trying to get on the housing ladder and how his enthusiasm was diminished by the realisation that stamp duty was going to make it even more difficult. The hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) made a legitimate point that this tax affects different parts of the country very differently. He made the fair point that there will be many parts of the country where it is not typical that people pay stamp duty land tax, or a significant quantum or scale of it, but that is not a good reason to deny this reduction in cost to those people in the country who do. Although there might not be many in his constituency, I guarantee that he would not have to travel far before he starts to meet people who are being dissuaded from purchasing properties because of stamp duty land tax. Certainly for Members representing constituencies near big cities, wherever they are across the country, or constituencies in the south, significant numbers of people pay this tax.

It has been mentioned by many Conservative Members—too many to single out—that this proposal would positively impact not just the people who pay, or may pay, stamp duty land tax. I guarantee that almost all of us can imagine the streetscape that I am about to describe from our constituencies. There are perhaps Victorian or Edwardian semi-detached or detached houses on what used to be the periphery of the town or city before it expanded beyond that. It will typically be a band of properties populated disproportionately by older couples or older people, who have often been in the constituency for many decades. Their children have moved out and they are now under-occupying those properties with two, three or perhaps even four bedrooms spare, but they are deterred from downsizing because they fear the stamp duty that they will have to pay. Estimates show that 2.8 million people would consider downsizing—or rightsizing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said—if stamp duty were removed. We would then have a ripple effect throughout the housing market, freeing up family homes for people who are currently in overcrowded accommodation.

Not only that, but the London School of Economics estimates that for every housing transaction, an estimated £6,000 of economic activity is pumped into the local market, with local builders doing refurbishments, perhaps doing extensions and fitting new bathrooms and kitchens, and people buying soft furnishings and white goods—the sorts of things that people buy when they move. What type of business typically provides those goods and services? It is local businesses—small and medium-sized enterprises embedded in their communities. These are the people who are being denied economic activity because this tax is stifling the property market.

We need liquidity in the property market. We need people buying and selling. We need people spending money with local businesses in local shops across the whole of the country. That is what reducing the tax burden on people does; it is what removing the stamp duty land tax will achieve.

Yet on the Government and Liberal Democrat Benches, Members are contorting themselves to find excuses not to reduce this burdensome tax, and I genuinely do not understand why. Some 2.8 million people could release their homes on to the market; if each of those homes had two or three spare bedrooms, that would immediately eclipse the 1.5 million homes that Labour is desperately trying to convince the country will be built under its tenure. It could be done almost immediately, without a brick being laid, and—more importantly—without the need for any Government subsidy.

That is what the House is saying no to, but not those on the Conservative Benches. We on these Benches understand aspiration. The Conservative party has always been the party of aspiration. We have always been the party that helped people to get on and up the housing ladder—a noble and normal aspiration, and one that we support, even if other hon. Members do not support it.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman wonders why this might not have happened. It might be something to do with the 14 billion quid that he has not worked out how the Government will find. If it was so easy, why, in all those days before covid, did his party never do it in 14 years?

[Sir James Cleverly]

It was the Conservatives who reduced the stamp duty burden—something that was reversed almost immediately when Labour came into office.

The simple truth is that the Conservatives have always been the party of home ownership and aspiration: helping people to have a stake in not just the country and the economy, but their local communities; helping parents to stay closer to their own parents so that grandparents can see their grandchildren; creating flexibility so that when job opportunities are created around the country, people can actually move to those jobs without facing a financial penalty for doing so.

That is what is at stake. That is what we are proposing. That is what the Conservatives will continually fight for, even in the face of opposition from Labour—a party that should be about aspiration and used to be about aspiration, but which has lost its way, drifted from the path of righteousness, and, if Labour Members do as they claim today, a party that will oppose the removal of what is regularly described by economic experts as the single most damaging tax on our books.

I will conclude with this point. [Interruption.] I can continue if Members want. [Hon. Members: “More!”] No, I will conclude on this point. If Members opposite and to my left—both physically and metaphorically—are unwilling to countenance the removal of what is pretty much universally described as the single most counterproductive tax, what tax will they remove?

The mask has slipped. Labour cannot and will not bring themselves to reduce any taxes. The British people will notice this, and so will the markets. The unwillingness of the Labour party to make any difficult decisions with regard to public spending or the reduction of the tax burden on the British people is not just painful for taxpayers themselves. It will be painful for our children and grandchildren, who are going to pay increased amounts of money to fund the spending that, as my colleagues have said, is the only way that the Chancellor can try to dig herself out of this hole. That will be a burden on generations to come.

I suspect we will divide on this motion, and when we do the choice will be between a party that seeks to support aspiration, families, small businesses and the building trade, and those parties that oppose all those things and will increase the tax burden on British people, our children and grandchildren, and indeed the great-grandchildren of people alive today. That is not what my party is about or what this country should be about. I urge all those who want to do right by small businesses and future generations to support this motion and scrap this deeply counterproductive tax. I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Rigby]

I assure him that the houses will be beautiful and that we will build 1.5 million of them over the course of this Parliament. There was a brief reference to Nirvana from the Conservative Benches before a descent back into half-baked and unfunded plans, to which we on the Government Benches thought, “Well, Nevermind.”

[Sir James Cleverly]

Have a word with your officials; that was very bad.

[Sir Mel Stride]

Stick to the day job.

[Lucy Rigby]

Thank you. I was pleased to hear the Liberal Democrats spokesman, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), and others in the party say that they will oppose the motion. I wholeheartedly agree with her that it is fundamentally flawed.

To be clear, we are a Government of fiscal responsibility. Our steadfast commitment to the fiscal rules has brought stability to our economy and allowed us to boost investment by £120 billion over the course of this Parliament. The dividends of that approach, even after just a year, are already clear: the highest growth in the G7 in the first half of this year, cuts to interest rates, real wages rising more in the time since the last election than they did in 10 years of Conservative Government, record investments from overseas, and new homes and infrastructure progressing all over the country. That is a strong foundation to build on in the years ahead.

Today, we have debated a simple question of two visions for the country. Put another way, does this country go forwards or backwards? The Conservative party wants us to go back—back to its time in office, when Britain had a Government that pursued unfunded tax cuts and austerity, leading to soaring debt, low productivity, under-investment and anaemic growth. It was a Britain where we did not build infrastructure, including houses, and where far too many people were unable to get on the housing ladder.

This Government want the country to move forward. We are managing the public finances with stability and certainty in an uncertain world. We are a Government who invest in public services, our infrastructure and our communities, and work with businesses and local leaders to bring growth and opportunity to every part of the country. We are a Government who are building houses, including in areas of the country that the shadow Secretary of State—

[Sir James Cleverly]

She missed out the word “fewer”. It is “fewer houses”.

[Lucy Rigby]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am afraid that I am being interrupted. We are a Government who are building houses, including in areas of the country that the shadow Secretary of State has previously described in rather unparliamentary language. We are a Government who support working people with new jobs, higher wages and new homes. We are a Government who are committed to building 1.5 million new homes this Parliament and to restoring the dream of home ownership.

We are a Government who will not duck the difficult decisions but face into them, because that is the only way that we will deliver a decade of national renewal and a thriving economy for the people of this country. That is what today’s debate is about: backwards with fiscal irresponsibility from the Conservatives or forwards with economic stability, investment and reform under this Prime Minister and this Chancellor.

Question put.