LONDON (Reuters) -The opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch on Wednesday made a surprise promise to abolish tax on buying homes alongside a new “golden rule” to reduce government borrowing through spending cuts.
In a speech at the Tory party conference on Wednesday, Badenoch said she would abolish stamp duty on homes, a transaction tax paid by buyers on properties valued at above 125,000 pounds ($167,537).
The tax, which applies in England and Northern Ireland, is widely criticised by economists because it is charged on transactions, acting as a disincentive to people moving and putting a brake on economic growth and mobility.
The pledge was one of many made by Badenoch at the conference after she struggled to convince her party and the public that she could be the next prime minister.
The Conservative Party, the most successful party in British history, is also struggling to restore its reputation for competence after it oversaw a period marred by chaos and division following the 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
Badenoch and her team set out plans to cut 47 billion pounds a year by reducing spending on welfare, aid and the size of the government workforce, with half of all savings being used to reduce Britain’s deficit after the national debt soared to almost 100% of the size of the economy in recent years.
The other half would be directed toward tax cuts or spending. She also vowed to scrap net zero targets.
At the Labour Party conference, Prime Minister Keir Starmer used his speech to warn about the threat from Nigel Farage’s right-wing, anti-immigration Reform UK party, which is currently leading in most opinion polls.
But Badenoch took a different approach and cited a phrase attributed to the playwright George Bernard Shaw: “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and a pig likes it.”
($1 = 0.7461 pounds)
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Kate Holton)
