{"id":90851,"date":"2026-07-26T23:38:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T23:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/90851\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T23:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T23:38:40","slug":"burnham-actively-looking-to-scrap-council-tax-and-stamp-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/90851\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham actively looking to scrap council tax and stamp duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government is actively considering options to replace council tax and stamp duty<\/a>, The i Paper understands, as pressure grows on Andy Burnham to act on a system he has previously condemned as unfair.<\/p>\n

The former housing secretary, Steve Reed, in his final Commons select committee appearance before he was replaced by Angela Rayner, confirmed that officials were looking at options for council tax and stamp duty reform.<\/p>\n

The i Paper has been told that Treasury officials were also looking at their options for overhauling the way property is taxed ahead of Burnham entering No 10 in order to brief the incoming government.<\/p>\n

Two models are competing for support: a proportional property tax, which would replace both council tax and stamp duty with a flat 0.48 per cent annual charge on a home\u2019s current value; or a land value tax \u2013 an annual charge based on the value of the land a property sits on, rather than the building.<\/p>\n

Burnham has previously said he has \u201clong been persuaded of the argument\u201d for reforming the system and has repeatedly called council tax \u201chighly regressive\u201d, though he has stopped short of endorsing a specific model.<\/p>\n

He has also been clear he will \u201cstick to the fiscal rules\u201d, which require the Government to cover all day-to-day spending with tax revenues and ensure that public debt is falling as a share of the economy.<\/p>\n

It is understood the Chancellor will review all tax options ahead of the Budget, with any decisions taken within that framework.<\/p>\n

But pressure is growing from his MPs, with more than 100 \u2013 around a quarter of The Labour Party \u2013 now part of groups actively advocating for the system to be overhauled.<\/p>\n

That figure includes members of the newly formed Labour MPs for Council Tax Reform caucus, the Red Wall group of more than 40 MPs<\/a>, and members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Council Tax Reform.<\/p>\n

It is understood that the Prime Minister was handed a policy document outlining the case for council tax reform by supportive MPs in his first days in power.<\/p>\n

Pressure mounts from Labour\u2019s northern MPs<\/p>\n

Jonathan Brash, the Hartlepool MP who chairs the APPG, said: \u201cCouncil tax is one of the most unfair taxes in Britain, and nowhere is that injustice clearer than in towns like Hartlepool.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to the gap between a Band D home in Wandsworth, where residents pay \u00a31,020 a year, and a comparable property in Hartlepool, where the bill is \u00a32,556.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need another sticking plaster,\u201d he added. \u201cWe need wholesale reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many are pinning their hopes on Burnham being the prime minister to oversee the change, with Jonathan Hinder, Labour MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, saying that \u201ca proportional property tax is an idea whose time has come, for a leader whose time has come\u201d.<\/p>\n

Chris Webb, the Labour MP for Blackpool South, added: \u201cWe were elected on a promise of change \u2013 our broken property tax system is crying out for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The options for reform<\/p>\n

Two models are competing for support. A proportional property tax, championed by the campaign group Fairer Share, would replace both council tax and stamp duty with a flat 0.48 per cent annual charge on a home\u2019s current value.<\/p>\n

Stamp duty is currently paid by homebuyers on purchases over \u00a3125,000, rising to \u00a3300,000 for first-time buyers. Scrapping it would mean spreading that one-off cost across an annual charge instead.<\/p>\n

Fairer Share claims it model could save households in areas such as Hartlepool around \u00a3950 a year, and would see around 75 per cent of households better off.<\/a><\/p>\n

A land value tax, a model Burnham has backed for well over a decade, would work differently. Rather than taxing a home\u2019s overall value, it would charge owners based only on the value of the land it sits on, not the building.<\/p>\n

He first raised the idea during the 2010 Labour leadership contest, when he argued a land value tax could replace stamp duty, which he branded \u201ca tax on the aspirations of young people\u201d trying to put down roots.<\/p>\n

In 2021, he said: \u201cThere is a really interesting discussion about how we reform property tax. The party can\u2019t tiptoe around it any more. Council tax is bearing too much weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Launching his Makerfield by-election campaign in June, he said he was \u201cpersonally keen to see reform of council tax\u201d, branding it \u201ca highly regressive tax\u201d and adding that he saw \u201ca big case for land and property and business taxation to be changed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Over that period, his argument has broadened from replacing stamp duty alone to also covering council tax. But he has not set out a specific rate for a land value tax, nor confirmed exactly how, or whether, it would replace both taxes at once.<\/p>\n

Allies warn reform could take years<\/p>\n

But not everyone around Burnham is convinced reform can happen quickly.<\/p>\n

Lord Blunkett, a Labour peer and one of Burnham\u2019s closest allies, has warned that a land value tax would be \u201cpolitically problematic\u201d<\/a> and could \u201cdislocate the system\u201d by creating winners and losers across the housing market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will not happen and cannot happen in the immediate future,\u201d he told The i Paper last week. \u201cSo there\u2019s got to be a grounding of reality in politics, as well as radical thinking in economics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pressure could also come from a parliamentary petition, which passed 100,000 signatures this week.<\/p>\n

The petition, organised by Fairer Share, calls for an independent review to be launched looking at the future of both council tax and stamp duty.<\/p>\n

Passing that threshold means it will be considered by the Commons petitions committee for debate. If it is selected, a Government minister would be required to give a response.<\/p>\n

That could hand Burnham one of his first parliamentary tests on property tax within his opening months in office.<\/p>\n

Decisions about tax are usually made at the Budget, due to take place in the autumn.<\/p>\n

The Government was approached for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government is actively considering options to replace council tax and stamp duty, The i Paper understands, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7786,2119,1468,5,20,6],"class_list":["post-90851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-andy-burnham","tag-council-tax","tag-stamp-duty","tag-uk","tag-uk-politics","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116988916925414590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}