Stamp Duty Land Tax

Joe Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

I will make that exact same point later in my speech, and I completely agree that that is a relevant change that will come from this policy.

I clearly see in my constituency the way in which stamp duty chokes and distorts the market as it penalises those who move, creates a disincentive for older people to downsize and deters growing families from upsizing into more suitable family homes. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has put it, in a crowded field, stamp duty land tax is

“the most economically damaging tax in the UK.”

I cannot disagree with that.

My constituents feel that acutely. Stamp duty is all the more painful in an area where the average house price is now above £490,000. The young families I speak to, who have made the move out of London and settled in towns such as Redhill or Reigate, have been hit with eye-watering up-front costs that made those moves extremely challenging. Many more will have found it impossible. That is why our policy matters.

We intend to strip away one of the fundamental barriers to family life in this country. Eliminating stamp duty will save the average first-time buyer in the south-east around £4,000 and as much as £18,000 in London. Unlike the Labour party, we will not punish those looking to move further up the ladder with frozen thresholds and stealth tax hikes.

I would, of course, be expected to paint a suitably positive view of the proposal, but what do the experts think? Zoopla’s Richard Donnell has rightly said,

“More home moves would support economic growth and the ambition to build more homes.”

The Institute of Economic Affairs went further, calling this

“the single best reform any government could make to Britain’s tax system.”

Indeed, the case seems so strong that one has to wonder why the Government oppose us on this.

The truth is that Labour has always been the party of higher taxes on homes. It reversed the Conservative policy that raised the first-time buyer threshold to £425,000. It is freezing stamp duty thresholds in real terms, dragging more and more people into paying this punitive tax each year. While it talks endlessly about house building, its actions tell a different story. Not only is it on track to miss its self-imposed housing targets, but the Housing Secretary tried to block 237 new homes in his constituency despite promising to “build, baby, build”. By contrast, the Conservatives have delivered 2.8 million homes over the past 14 years, including nearly 750,000 affordable homes, and we pledge to go further.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I represent a rural constituency where young people are constantly forced to move away from the villages they grew up in. Will the hon. Lady explain to me where in rural Britain those affordable homes were located, where young people could move to and make a family life? For 14 years, they were shut out of the communities they grew up in.

[Rebecca Paul]

The hon. Member raises an important point. We have this situation where a lot of young people are forced to go elsewhere; indeed, the area where I live is very expensive and I am worried that my children will be forced to look elsewhere. That is why it is so important that we now focus on the future.