Stamp Duty Land Tax

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) talked about millionaires getting a tax cut, but we are talking about young families getting on the ladder. Does my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor agree that while Labour Members engage in the politics of envy, we will always engage in the politics of hope?

[Sir Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As Paul Johnson, formerly of the Institute for Fiscal Studies—I quoted him earlier—says, this tax

“also acts to reduce effective supply for everyone”

right across every age and every section of the income scale.

If only the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell)—I see he is not in his place—who is a former director of the Resolution Foundation, could show some backbone and at least agree with his former self and the quote that I read out from the Resolution Foundation. The facts are clear: the Government should support this motion today if they believe in growth, a fairer society and a stronger economy.

As we approach the Budget, through a period of great uncertainty, the Chancellor faces a clear choice—a choice between still higher taxes, and controlling spending and getting taxes down; between continued anaemic growth and getting the size of the Government under control; between destroying jobs, and getting people off benefits and into work; and between doing the right thing for our country and simply ducking the challenge. The Opposition know what must be done, even at this late stage, to save our economy. Perhaps even the Chancellor herself knows, deep in her heart, that we are right. Yet is it not the truth that faced with the serried ranks of obstinate delusion arrayed behind her, she is just too weak to act? No plan, no backbone—no wonder that under this Government we are staring into the abyss.

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[Saqib Bhatti]

On helping Ministers with amnesia, does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there was a pandemic that required a huge amount of intervention, or is he claiming that he would not have supported so many people during that period?

[James Murray]

Speaking of amnesia, a lot of Conservatives have forgotten Liz Truss and are not prepared to talk about the impact she had.

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[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is very interesting to follow the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin), because I mentioned him in an earlier intervention. He knows that I fundamentally disagree with him. Abolishing stamp duty would be a tax cut for everybody, irrespective of the value of their houses. Fundamentally, we know that the housing market is gummed up, and I have serious questions about whether the Labour Government will be able to meet their housing targets. I am not sure what the housing numbers are currently—maybe he will be able to enlighten me—but this is fundamentally a tax cut that would apply to everybody.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) said earlier, the speeches from Labour Members have been very interesting, but they are slightly siloed. They slightly miss out the context of what we are talking about: the economy is stalling, and the jobs tax means that unemployment has gone up. More hard-working people are now unemployed, and more young people are now out of work, as a result of this Labour Government. They can talk down this motion—as I am sure they will, because the Whips have told them to do so—but the reality is that we are putting something on the table that is credible and funded, that will un-gum the housing market, and that will contribute £1.2 billion-worth of economic growth. At a time when the Chancellor is scrambling to fill her own black hole, we are putting credible ideas on the table that the Government should take more seriously.

[Connor Naismith]

The hon. Gentleman said that this tax cut would benefit everybody. Can he tell me how it would benefit people who do not currently pay it because their property is not worth enough?

[Saqib Bhatti]

First of all, it would increase mobility in the housing market. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) stated in an incredibly eloquent speech, it would also mean that the construction industry and all the peripheral jobs would start to mobilise. It would create economic growth—I suspect that the figure of £1.2 billion is probably a bit of an underestimate, and that abolishing stamp duty would actually create more growth. We are talking about creating jobs, making people wealthier and being aspirational for the aspirational, whereas Labour Members are talking down a credible policy that would put money on the table for some of our poorest people. Ultimately, abolishing stamp duty would mean that more and more people are able to get on to the housing ladder.

Let us face it: the Government are not going to meet their housing targets. It is already quite obvious that they are massively behind, and it will not be possible to meet their targets. They are killing off aspiration and confidence in the economy, and house builders will not want to meet the targets—unless, of course, they are met with huge subsidies. The question I have for those on the Government Benches is this: given the current economic situation, how much representation have they made to their Chancellor about introducing growth principles and cutting taxes so that people have more money in their pockets? The answer will be none, because that is not happening.

The hon. Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) said that he was not making an argument for not cutting welfare, but he did not put a figure on the table. We know that the welfare bill is ballooning, and it started ballooning post covid. We intervened during the pandemic, which had to happen. We saved a £2 trillion economy, we saved businesses and we saved jobs. We did all those things—sometimes with the support of those on the Opposition Benches and sometimes without, I am sad to say—to save the economy. Of course, all of that comes with a cost. It is now right that we look forward to make sure that we are putting proposals on the table that help grow the economy and, by the way, help the Chancellor to get out of this mess. I want her to do better, because right now I have constituents who are struggling, who are anxious and who are worried. Her policies, backed by those on the Labour Back Benches, have contributed to higher inflation and a higher cost of living. These are all consequences that they backed by walking through the voting Lobbies.

There is a Budget coming. Although Labour Back Benchers may be talking in silos, the Government are already briefing the papers about all the taxes that will rise. They talk about “serious Government”, but they are not talking seriously about the cuts that they will have to put on the table, because the Chancellor knows that the moment she does that, it will be her Back Benchers who stab her in the back. That is her fundamental conundrum, because she also has to placate the bond market, where we have highest bond yields. I see Labour Members shaking their heads, but that is the reality of what Back Benchers are dealing with. We are putting good proposals on the table that would mean that young families who want to get on the housing ladder—[Interruption.] I am happy for the hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) to intervene if he wants. No? I was offering him an opportunity, because I was getting distracted by his chuntering.

The reality is that most serious economists, such as Dan Neidle and those at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, have said that stamp duty is a bad tax. In fact, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell), who I hear has been instrumental in writing the Budget, has talked about stamp duty being a “bad tax”. We all agree on that, so we have put a funded policy on the table that the Chancellor is going to need. Surely this is something that we should all take seriously, because the Government will need answers. I suspect we will come back to that.

A lot has been made of the Chancellor’s fiscal rules. The Chief Secretary to Treasury said that they are “ironclad”, and I suspect they are until the next ones. We have a golden rule. In the spirit of rules, the Leader of the Opposition has created a golden rule, which is that for every £1 saved, half will go to cutting our national debt. Surely we can all get behind that. When the interest on our debt is something like £100 billion a year, surely we can get behind that. When the Chancellor is borrowing more month after month to meet everyday spending, as is obviously happening, we should get behind that rule.

The last point I want to make is about the cliff-edge argument. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire mentioned, we had the window during covid. I was one of those on the receiving end of not being able to buy a house at that time. I was looking for a house for my new family, and houses were going quickly because people were trying to beat the cliff edge at the end of the stamp duty window. This proposal is not the same, because this gets rid of such a window, and it means that more and more people will be able to buy houses.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am perplexed by the argument the Liberal Democrats have advanced that abolishing stamp duty will raise prices. Presumably the quid pro quo is that raising it would lower prices, so why are they not proposing that policy?

[Saqib Bhatti]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am sure the Liberal Democrat spokesperson will address it, but that speaks to the economic incoherence of what they have presented.

Fundamentally, we believe in property rights. We believe in the ownership of property and the rights that derive from it, which are among the freedoms—the fundamental freedoms—in this country. It was a moment of great pride when I got the keys to my first house, and I am sure it is the same for others. Cutting stamp duty is the right thing to do, and if we win the next election, that is exactly what we will do.

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[Connor Naismith]

I completely agree. The most common reason I hear from my constituents for their inability to get on the housing ladder is that astronomical rise in house prices.

[Saqib Bhatti]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Connor Naismith]

I will make some progress. The motion tells us everything we need to know about the priorities of the Conservative party today. In the context of the vast majority of options that we could choose to pursue, this is a regressive tax cut, funded once again by cuts—cuts that they will not be brave enough to specify with any credibility. Reckless with our public finances, reckless with our public services, and utterly out of touch with the realities facing working families in constituencies like mine in Crewe and Nantwich.

[Saqib Bhatti]

The hon. Member uses the word reckless. Has he heard the news that the OBR has said the Chancellor will have to find another £7 billion to £9 billion due to the fall in productivity? Therefore her black hole has just got bigger.

[Connor Naismith]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. Look, we will await the Budget to see the OBR’s forecasts, but I will take no lessons from the party opposite on economic credibility. They are the party of Liz Truss, which dragged this country into the economic abyss.

We know that Tory austerity and a lack of investment in our country’s infrastructure are part of the story of why our economic growth and productivity have never recovered since the financial crash in 2008. It seems like the Conservatives want to take us right back to the beginning of that 14 years of chaos, failure and decline. I think my constituents would say no, frankly. What is worse, the Conservatives cannot even tell us with any credibility where the cuts would fall. We have seen this playbook before. They have no credible plan to pay for their promises, just vague talk of savings from the very services that our communities rely on—our schools, NHS and local infrastructure. The Tories have some cheek to come here and talk about home ownership when they manifestly failed to build the homes that our country needs because they presided over a broken planning system that they did nothing to reform.

As I mentioned earlier, my constituents have not forgotten what Liz Truss’s mini-Budget did to their mortgage payments. During the election campaign, I spoke directly with families in Crewe and Nantwich who had seen their monthly costs soar overnight. I distinctly remember speaking to a man who told me that his mortgage payments had risen by £1,000 a month and that he had been forced to sell his home as a result. If we want to examine the reality beyond the rhetoric of the modern day Conservative party’s record on home ownership, it is that: failure to deliver, soaring prices and broken dreams.