Sir James Cleverly

I thank my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor for setting out the opening case for the Opposition’s position on stamp duty. I feel particularly passionate about this policy, which is one I put forward when I was running for the leadership of the Conservative party. Like all good ideas, it has been embraced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I am particularly glad—this is a key point—that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor and his team have worked hard to make sure that cutting stamp duty is not just a headline, but a fully costed and set out policy. The Leader of the Opposition has, I think very magnanimously, said that if the Government want to steal this idea and implement it now, they will get no opposition from us. I think that shows her typical generosity of spirit. The Government are clearly struggling to come up with credible economic plans of their own, so they are very welcome to steal our economic plans. I have been struck by the positive nature of this debate. As Conservative colleagues have noted, the expected wall of thoughtless opposition to this proposal has not materialised at quite the scale we expected. It has materialised in some instances, but that is only to be expected. We heard in a number of speeches, and I will refer to some contributions as I go through my speech, that Labour Members recognise that stamp duty is a bad tax, a counterproductive tax and a tax that has a dampening, drag-anchor effect on the housing market. However, they went on to say, “But we need the money.” They are desperate for the tax revenues, which I think shows the fundamental challenge that, frankly, Labour is going to have to deal with in November. If the Government cannot agree to get rid of this damaging, counterproductive tax, what tax will they be willing to reduce? If they are going to say to the House that, basically, there is not a single tax in the British system that they are willing to cut, reduce or remove, then the mask has slipped. Under a Labour Government, this country faces ever-increasing taxes—that is basically what they are saying. They admit that this is a bad tax, but they are not willing to vote for its removal because they want to see—they need to see, are desperate to see—taxes going up. That was fundamentally the argument put by many Government Members.