Badenoch vows to scrap stamp duty as she closes Tory conference

KEMI Badenoch promised to abolish stamp duty if the Conservatives win the next election as she closed the party conference.

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Having focused on borders in her opening address, Mrs Badenoch used her leader's speech yesterday to set out her vision of a country where the state “does less but does it better” and “profit is nota dirty word”.

She pledged to impose a “golden rule” on her budget plans, spending only half of any savings made through spending cuts, with the rest going to reduce the deficit.

And she said she would cut student numbers, saving £3bn that would then be spent on doubling the apprenticeship budget.

But in the final passages of her speech, she went further, committing to free up the housing market by abolishing stamp duty on people’s primary homes.

She said: “Stamp duty is a bad tax.

“We must free up our housing market, because a society where no one can afford to buy or move is a society where social mobility is dead.”

Stamp duty land tax brought in an estimated £13.9bn in the last financial year, but a large proportion of this is from additional homes and other buildings.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences will cost around £4.5bn.