Cllr Elizabeth Campbell is the Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council
With the smorgasbord of tax rises, loss of business confidence and rising prices associated with this Labour Government, it is sometimes difficult to work out which group has been impacted most.
One nominee must be property owners. Since Labour took power in July 2024, listings are down, prices cut, and confidence among sellers and buyers alike has collapsed. Just this month, the property website Rightmove reported that asking prices in Kensington and Chelsea have dropped by almost £100,000 in a month, heaping further misery on the property market in Central London.
Under this Government, families in my borough have seen the value of their home shrink and now face selling their home for less than they paid for it. These are not, as some in Westminster seem to imagine, faceless investors or absent landlords. They are families who have lived in the same street for decades, who raised children there, and who now find the value of their life’s work shrinking with every passing month.
As if that were not enough, homeowners also face the prospect of Labour’s Family Homes Tax, an outrageous tax on owning a home. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, families face the unenviable choice of selling their home for less than it is worth or holding onto it and paying the price for doing so.
Homeowners now await each Autumn Budget with a sense of trepidation, waiting to see what Labour will do next to make the simple act of owning a home harder still. Already there is speculation of a wider property tax, or an expanded mansion tax, and it is little wonder confidence has collapsed when nobody knows what the rules will look like from one Budget to the next.
This uncertainty carries a cost far beyond individual households. London is the engine of the economy, driving more growth, contributing more tax and attracting more visitors and businesses than anywhere else.
A property market in freefall means fewer transactions, less stamp duty revenue, and a weaker local economy for the businesses that rely on people moving house: estate agents, removal firms, tradespeople, and the high street more broadly
Labour’s approach to taxing homes is not just unfair to homeowners; it is self-defeating as a matter of economic policy. The Government suggests that they will only raise £400 million from their proposal for a mansion tax, no recompense for the wider damage being done.
Rather than priming the pump, Labour’s approach is much more akin to pumping the brakes.
If there is anything that most Conservatives believe in, it is the importance of home ownership. The freedom that comes from a family having a place that is their own. Against Labour’s assault on family homes, it is vital that we fight back. I wholeheartedly welcome Kemi’s pledge last year to abolish Stamp Duty for primary residences, making the dream of home ownership more achievable for millions, and standing in stark contrast to what we are seeing from Labour.
But a future Conservative government is little comfort to families facing this tax now. That is why I wrote to the new Chancellor earlier this month alongside the Council Leaders of Westminster, Richmond and Wandsworth calling on him to rethink the proposals to levy a tax on owning a home.
Few groups of boroughs are as directly and disproportionately affected by these proposals as we are. Together we would pay well over 50 per cent of the entire bill the tax would generate, asking a group of residents who already pay more than their fair share to dip into their pockets again.
For many of us living in London right now, it feels like the Labour Government views owning a home here as a luxury. A privilege to be taxed and envied, not the centre of family life.
The Chancellor has a choice in this Autumn’s Budget. He can listen to the councils, businesses and homeowners who are telling him that this approach is not working. Or he can press ahead regardless, and watch as the market that pays for so much of what he wants to fund shrinks further still.