Tories pledge to scrap mansion tax along with 'bonfire of red tape'

The Conservatives’ economic chief has promised to cut one tax every year if the party returns to power, following in the footsteps of one of the party’s Treasury grandees.

Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith told the Conservative Party Conference he would scrap the levy Labour has placed on high-value homes, widely dubbed the mansion tax.

Mr Griffith also promised to remove a tax on plastic packaging, as he claimed the Conservatives were now fighting “a battle of ideas about the very basis of where prosperity comes from” with Labour.

In a widely trailed speech at the Birmingham conference, the Shadow Chancellor promised a bonfire of red tape, and to axe arms-length Government bodies, as a means of freeing up business to grow the economy.

He told the conference: “I didn’t come here to raise taxes – I came to lower them.

“No country in history has ever taxed its way to prosperity, so we will cut taxes, but only when we can afford to do so, and always saying clearly how we will fund that within our golden economic rule.”

He added: “Like Nigel Lawson, it’s my ambition to scrap at least one tax every budget. What would we prioritise? There’s a lot.

“Tax cuts that help growth, tax cuts that improve incentives to work, tax cuts that make life simpler and fairer.”

Mr Griffith described the family homes tax introduced by former chancellor Rachel Reeves at the last budget as “a vindictive raid on family homes”.

Under the tax, properties valued at more than £2m face an extra levy on their council tax from 2028, which then goes straight to central Government coffers.

The Shadow Chancellor said: “They pretend it’s a mansion tax, but it will hit people here in Birmingham, in Manchester, and those living in ordinary homes making long commutes to our capital city. For many, it will be simply unaffordable.”

He added: “It’s an anti-growth tax that will distort the housing market and remove the incentive to make home improvements. So conference, today I can announce that we will scrap Labour’s family homes tax.”

Mr Griffith admitted “most people have never heard of” the plastic packaging tax that he vowed to scrap, but he insisted it damaged businesses.

The shadow chancellor also claimed the party was now engaged in a battle of ideas with Labour, after Kemi Badenoch unveiled a new set of political tenets that the Conservatives will use to guide their policy platform.

Referring to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour Party conference speech last week, Mr Griffith said: “It makes our task more important than ever not simply to fix the economy but once again fighting a battle of ideas about the very basis of where prosperity comes from.

“Too many in society today believe that business is bad, wealth is unworthy and that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, life would only be better if we had greater public control, more regulations and higher taxes, and that anything might be improved by putting (Housing Secretary) Angela Rayner in charge of it.”

Mr Griffith told broadcasters that both he and Mrs Badenoch “ultimately” want to remove inheritance tax, but said the party would first need to ensure the move was funded.

“There’s lots of things that we would like to do, but the job of chancellor is to make sure that those can be paid for,” he told Sky News.

“We’re going to have a very difficult situation. We won’t be able to do everything that we want to do on day one.”

Dismissing suggestions that new pledges like abolishing the £100,000 earnings threshold for free childcare amounted to “looking after the rich”, he argued the Tories wanted a “simpler” system for everyone.

The star of Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime also decried the conditions faced by business owners and asked: “Why would anybody set up a business in this country right now?”

The former host of BBC motoring show Top Gear said problems had been caused by international conflict and referenced the family farms tax policy by the Labour Government. He joked he was going to set up another pub – but not in Britain, due to Government policy.

He said it had been a “terrible” year for farming due to the hot weather, but said he was optimistic about the future.