Sir Mel Stride

As usual, my right hon. Friend makes a characteristically poignant point. There is another act of damage that this Government have created: some of the most successful high net worth wealth creators in our country have simply gone; they have left. It is estimated that 16,000 have gone over the time that this Government have been in office. Socialists will say, “Who cares? Good riddance!”, but they should dwell on the fact that the tax paid by those 16,000 people is probably equivalent to between a third of a million and half a million people on average earnings. Hard-working people up and down our country are paying the price of Labour’s policies. There are choices; it does not have to be like this. We can reduce taxes if we get on top of and control Government spending. At my party’s conference, we set out £47 billion-worth of savings across Government, including £23 billion in savings across the welfare budget. What did the Government do when they tried to tackle the welfare budget? They showed us that this is a Dad’s Army of a Government with a Captain Mainwaring of a Chancellor. They are no match even for the rabble behind them. We know that we need to have responsible tax cuts. That means that they need to be funded and they need to lean into growth. That is why we have announced that, were we in government, we would be abolishing stamp duty on primary residences. It is one of the worst taxes in our tax system. The OBR states that a 1% increase in stamp duty would lead to a decrease of between 5% and 7% in the number of transactions, yet on this Government’s watch, the stamp duty due on a home valued at £300,000 will have doubled during their time in office.