{"id":49582,"date":"2026-10-08T01:22:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/10\/08\/kemi-badenoch-says-tories-would-scrap-inheritance-tax-on-family-homes\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T01:22:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:22:38","slug":"kemi-badenoch-says-tories-would-scrap-inheritance-tax-on-family-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/10\/08\/kemi-badenoch-says-tories-would-scrap-inheritance-tax-on-family-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemi Badenoch says Tories would scrap inheritance tax on family homes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"rich-text\" data-block=\"text\">\n<p>Rival parties hit back and said the proposals for IHT, which is levied on the value of someone&#8217;s estate when they die, would prioritise support for wealthier people in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Badenoch arrived in Birmingham&#8217;s Symphony Hall with a message to Conservative Party members that they face a &#8220;battle for the soul of the this nation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She argued her party is &#8220;renewed&#8221; and &#8220;coming back&#8221; as she continued efforts to convince voters that it has changed following an historic defeat at the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n<p>In a nod to those who have defected to Nigel Farage&#8217;s party, Badenoch said: &#8220;The Conservatives have had an export boom of drama queens going to Reform. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This party is now the no drama party, we are the no-nonsense party.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the party trailing Labour and Reform in the polls, Badenoch acknowledged that people are &#8220;looking through the shop window&#8221;, they &#8220;like what they see&#8221; but &#8220;not enough of them are buying yet, we need to fix that&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Her inspiration for how to revive a long-standing brand was Marks and Spencer (M&#038;S), saying they have &#8220;adapted their style for today&#8217;s market and people are flooding back&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Badenoch added: &#8220;Just like M&#038;S, we must learn from our mistakes, win back trust and make people feel good about our party again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One of the biggest responses in the room from members came as Badenoch made clear she did not want to do an election deal with Reform.<\/p>\n<p>She described many Reform voters as &#8220;our people&#8221;, adding: &#8220;We let them down and we want them to come back home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Following a section of the speech mocking some of Reform&#8217;s senior figures, Badenoch said: &#8220;To those who say &#8216;unite the right&#8217;, we are not uniting with that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People deserve better than that and we are going to give them better than that. Character, conduct, and standards matter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She also said she did not want to live in a country run by people who &#8220;debate whether my mixed-race children are English&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In one of many jibes aimed at Burnham, Badenoch labelled him a &#8220;Paddington Bear prime minister&#8221; who was &#8220;hoping that the problems will just go away&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"rich-text\" data-block=\"text\">\n<p>In the days ahead of Wednesday&#8217;s speech, there was widespread speculation that Badenoch would announce changes to IHT.<\/p>\n<p>As the opposition leader neared the end of her 66-minute speech, she said IHT was &#8220;supposed to be a tax on the super wealthy&#8221; but it is &#8220;now a tax on ordinary middle-class families in every corner of our country&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She said: &#8220;The next Conservative government will legislate so nobody will ever pay inheritance tax on their family home.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On top of that, couples would be able to leave an additional \u00a31m tax-free and these changes mean every inheritance tax bill will be cut and the number of families paying inheritance tax will fall by more than half.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Conservatives have estimated the policy would cost around \u00a36bn a year and believe they have identified \u00a371bn of savings that can be made to government spending, including welfare cuts.<\/p>\n<p>Under the current rules, estates worth more than \u00a3325,000, or \u00a3500,000 if a home is left to children or grandchildren, can face a 40% tax rate on assets above the threshold.<\/p>\n<p>Married or civil partners can also transfer assets between each other.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023-24, 4.72% of UK deaths resulted in an IHT charge and raised around \u00a37bn for the government.<\/p>\n<p>Badenoch also said her &#8220;ambition is to abolish inheritance tax altogether, as soon as we can afford it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Labour Party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson said: &#8220;The Tories haven&#8217;t changed. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kemi Badenoch has shown that the Tories&#8217; choice is to do nothing to help ordinary families struggling with the cost of social care, prioritising the wealthiest instead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reform UK economy spokesman Robert Jenrick said Badenoch had &#8220;chickened out of doing anything big&#8221; and is &#8220;for the 2%&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The former Tory MP said: &#8220;While the Tory Party is offering handouts to multi-millionaires, Reform will give everyone a \u00a3500 tax cut by raising the tax-free personal allowance to \u00a315,000. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Tory Party is looking after its own in Kensington, Reform is looking after the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"rich-text\" data-block=\"text\">\n<p>Elsewhere in her speech, Badenoch referred to other policies the party has announced in recent days.<\/p>\n<p>These include a \u00a310bn anti-missile defence system, 50,000 new prison places and halving the rate of employer national insurance on earnings for people aged between 21 to 24.<\/p>\n<p>They also pledged to scrap the &#8220;cliff edge&#8221; that means parents in England lose out on childcare support when they earn more than \u00a3100,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p>Another policy to be scrapped would be the High Value Council Tax Surcharge (HVCTS), dubbed the &#8220;mansion tax&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>This is due to take effect from 2028 and introduces an extra levy for owners of properties in England valued at more than \u00a32m.<\/p>\n<p>Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey responded to the speech by saying Badenoch had been &#8220;lecturing the country on fiscal responsibility while making tens of billions in unfunded promises&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Green MP Carla Denyer added: &#8220;Kemi Badenoch once again defined the Conservative Party as pro-billionaires, pro-inequality and pro-damaging the environment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rival parties hit back and said the proposals for IHT, which is levied on the value of someone&#8217;s estate when they die, would prioritise support for wealthier people in the country. Badenoch arrived in Birmingham&#8217;s Symphony Hall with a message to Conservative Party members that they face a &#8220;battle for the soul of the this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-market","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}