Jeremy Hunt has challenged Sir Keir Starmer to explicitly rule out property tax increases if Labour wins office at the general election.
Writing in The Telegraph, the Chancellor unveils a new pledge not to increase capital gains tax, stamp duty or the number of council tax bands.
He calls on the Labour leader to match the promises, which the Tories have dubbed their “family home tax guarantee”.
His comments come after Rishi Sunak repeatedly accused Sir Keir of planning to raise taxes by £2,000 in Tuesday night’s TV debate.
The Tories believe that policies over tax rises show the difference between them and Labour.
Mr Hunt writes: “I am throwing down the gauntlet to Rachel Reeves [the Labour shadow chancellor] and Sir Keir Starmer to join us in this pledge.
“This isn’t party political point scoring. I actually want to see the Labour Party say they will put families first and higher taxes second.”
Labour declined to do so on Wednesday night, instead issuing a blanket statement on wanting to “reduce taxes on working people” and accusing the Tories of “desperate claims”.
Last week, when the Conservatives challenged Labour to explicitly rule out a VAT rise, they did so.
Three new pledges
The “family home tax guarantee” is made up of new Tory pledges in three specific areas of property tax.
The first is promising that more council tax bands, “expensive” council tax revaluations and council tax discounts will not be implemented under a Tory government.
The second is that the party will maintain private residence relief, where people do not pay capital gains tax on their main home when it is sold.
The third is that the Tories will not increase the rate or level of stamp duty.
Tory sources pointed to Welsh Labour’s move to expand council tax bands and Ms Reeves’s past interest in property taxes to argue that their rivals could return to such ideas in office.
The intervention opened up a new front in the Tory tax attacks after the first TV election debate where Mr Sunak repeatedly claimed Labour would raise tax by £2,000 on working families over four years.
Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of lying and even breaking the ministerial code over the claim, saying the Prime Minister’s willingness to push the attack showed “a flash of his character”.
But the Tories countered by insisting that those complaints were not matched by a clear explanation as to why the Conservatives’ estimate of a £38 billion black hole in Labour’s finances was wrong.
The focus on tax changes comes as the Tories continue to try to change the dynamic of the election campaign while Labour enjoys a vast lead in the opinion polls.
The first poll since Nigel Farage announced he would run as an MP put Reform, the party he now leads, just two percentage points behind the Tories.
Reform was on 17 per cent of the vote and the Conservatives 19 per cent, a YouGov poll said. Labour was on 40 per cent. That 21-percentage point lead is broadly in line with the average of other pollsters.
The Tory redoubling of efforts to reclaim their traditional tax-cutting mantle comes after the surprise calling of the general election for July 4 and a policy blitz failed to significantly shrink Labour’s lead.
Mr Hunt writes in The Telegraph: “Labour will raise your taxes. It’s who they are, it’s in their DNA. The Conservatives are the party of free enterprise and entrepreneurialism. Labour are the party of an ever-increasing state.
“Our philosophy is founded on clear principles that people and businesses should keep more of their money to spend and reinvest, thereby creating economic growth. Labour’s philosophy depends on grabbing ever more of that money to feed an expanding public sector. At this election, Sir Keir Starmer is telling you otherwise. He is trying to claim that Labour have changed. They haven’t.”
Labour did not match the Tory promises on stamp duty, council tax and capital gains tax on Wednesday.
Instead, a Labour spokesman said: “We will not be raising taxes on working people. The Conservatives cannot be trusted on tax and taxes are at a 70-year high on their watch.
“These are more desperate claims from Rishi Sunak who lied to the British people before and is lying to them again.”
Labour has already promised not to increase the rates of income tax, National Insurance and VAT – the same pledge the Tories made last election, which they are repeating for this one.
Labour is not proposing property tax increases, save for a stamp duty hike for overseas buyers of UK property.
However, Labour has faced pressure from the Tories to explain in more detail how it would fund many of its planned policies.
Tory sources pointed to support, past and present, for changes to property taxes among Labour figures.
Additionally, Welsh Labour is undertaking a council tax revaluation and considering increasing the number of council tax bands from nine to 12.
Ms Reeves, who will be the chancellor next month if Labour wins the election, expressed interest in property taxes in a 2018 report called The Everyday Economy.
She wrote in that report: “We should also consider the case for [council tax’s] overhaul and replacement with a property tax, levied on property owners. It would be more equitable and it would place the burden on landlords and not tenants.”
In the 2015 election campaign, Ed Miliband, the then Labour leader, proposed an annual charge for people with homes worth more than £2 million in what was dubbed a “mansion tax”.
Despite their promises, the Tories have faced criticism for overseeing a rise in the tax burden to its highest level in 70 years over the last parliament via “stealth” freezes to tax thresholds – something Tory MPs have publicly criticised.
Source: The Telegraph