Tories will scrap stamp duty on primary residences, Kemi Badenoch tells conference | Conservative conference 2025

Kemi Badenoch said the Conservatives would abolish stamp duty on primary home sales if they win the next election, in a policy-heavy speech aimed at boosting her party’s economic credibility.

The Conservative leader told his party’s conference he would abolish the tax new buyers in England and Northern Ireland have to pay on home purchases over £125,000. The Conservatives estimate this will cost the Treasury £9bn a year. Stamp duty will still apply to additional properties and properties purchased by companies and purchases by non-UK residents.

Badenoch said the commitment was affordable due to a separate promise of around £50 billion in spending cuts by 2029. Economists say the promised spending cuts are vague and difficult to evaluate, but the Conservative leader said they would raise enough revenue to cover both tax cuts and deficit reduction after the next election.

“Owning a home should be a dream open to everyone,” he said at the conference. “Removing stamp duty in your home is the key to unlocking a fairer, more welcoming society. Removing stamp duty will benefit people of all ages, because conservatism must appeal to all generations: the young professionals buying their first flat, the couple looking for a place to raise their first baby, the growing family looking for their forever home.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is considering replacing stamp duty with another form of property tax, but sources say she is unlikely to do so in the upcoming budget.

Badenoch said the tax should be eliminated entirely as a way to stimulate the housing market and the economy in general. The pledge came at the end of a Tory conference packed with policy announcements, including promises to leave the European human rights convention, repeal the Climate Change Act and cut welfare payments.

The sheer number of proposals contrasts with Badenoch’s insistence earlier this year that the party would not make a policy pause until 2027.

He told his party: “You’ve seen this on the fringes all over Manchester; this is a party full of ideas.”

While Badenoch put a big tax cut at the center of his speech, he said he would not make promises to others without closing the budget deficit first. In a passage intended to highlight the damaging Liz Truss era, he said: “Securing our borders, putting people to work, policing our streets, defending the nation; none of this is possible without money to pay for it.”