Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has committed “not to increase the rate or level of stamp duty” as part of a “Family Home Tax Guarantee”.
In an opinion piece for The Telegraph, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (pictured) said that the guarantee is a commitment not to increase the number of council tax bands, undergo council tax revaluation or maintain private residence relief.
He called on the Labour Party to join the Conservative Party in its pledge, adding that it wasn’t “party political point-scoring” and it wanted to see its rival party “say they will put families first and higher taxes second”.
“Families need to have the peace of mind that the Government will not spring surprise tax rises on them. That is why we need the Family Home Tax Guarantee,” Hunt noted.
He said that when analysing the costings of Labour proposals, which he said had been done by Treasury officials and in some cases, Labour had costed it itself, Labour’s “spending commitments and revenue raisers add up to a black hole of £38.5bn over the next four years”.
“The impact of this unfunded spending would be equivalent to a tax rise of £2,094 per working household. And that is on top of the tax rises Sir Keir has already said he wants to impose,” Hunt said.
The Conservatives came under fire this week for promoting potentially misleading claims as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak repeated the £2,094 figure 11 times in the debate earlier this week.
Hunt said: “So, the question Sir Keir needs to answer is: if the £2,094 figure is wrong, which of the policies and costs does he dispute? What is the real amount of tax rises he is going to impose on working people? It’s a question Rishi Sunak put to him 12 times in the ITV debate on Tuesday night. And 12 times Sir Keir could not, and did not, answer.
“Sir Keir is playing the British public for fools, saying he will not raise taxes while making pledges that would require a tax rise of more than £2,000 for every family in Britain.”
