Chancellor Rachel Reeves will need that hard hat if the housing market slows down too (Image: Getty)
Absolutely nothing goes right for Labour’s accident-prone Chancellor. As I wrote yesterday, Reeves has the reverse Midas touch. Everything she touches is tarnished. Jobs, stability, inflation, the pound – all have unravelled under her watch.
It’s hard to have sympathy. Her first speech after Labour’s July election victory was arrogant and spiteful, full of disdain for the Tories and confidence in her own brilliant ideas.
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But as we’ve since discovered, she hasn’t got a clue. The economy immediately stalled, then shrank in October and November, and we may now be lurching into recession.
Borrowing costs are soaring, Reeves is about to breach her own fiscal rules and now faces the unenviable choice of slashing spending or hiking taxes.
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If she hadn’t been so self-assured to begin with, there might be room for pity. Instead, I only feel sorry for the country she’s dragging down.
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Yesterday from China she insisted, "Growth is the number one mission of this government.”
Yet everything she’s done so far has undermined it.
The intellectually bereft Reeves had only ever had one idea for generating growth anyway. Through a massive house-building campaign.
Many welcomed Labour’s planning reform proposals, despite Keir Starmer’s aggressive rhetoric about "bulldozing" rules and overriding local objections. We desperately need more homes.
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Labour pledged to build 1.5 million this Parliament, or roughly 300,000 a year. As I warned way back in July, that’s clearly an impossible target given the shortage of skilled workers.
But that wasn’t the only flaw. Reeves has now sabotaged her own plan.
Tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg says HMRC's property transaction figures for November were a huge disappointment amid weak residential and commercial sales.
Heather Powell, the firm’s head of property, noted annual growth figures remain well below historic peaks, warning: "The property sector is not leading the way to economic growth for the Chancellor."
This is chilling because housing was Reeves’ only growth idea. So, what’s gone wrong?
Part of the blame lies with Reeves and Starmer’s decision to talk down the UK economy, damaging confidence.
The four-month policy vacuum before Reeves’ October Budget only made things worse, as speculation about potential tax hikes left buyers scared stiff.
Rising inflation and mortgage rates have further dented confidence, with Reeves partly responsible for these as well, as her tax and spending spree revives inflation.
Another significant factor is the autumn Budget itself, which disrupted property sales in November 2024.
Buyers rushed to complete transactions before October 30, fearing a stamp duty hike with immediate effect. It didn’t materialise but it’s coming soon enough.
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First-time currently buyers benefit from a higher temporary stamp duty threshold of ￡425,000. Reeves will slash that to ￡300,000 on March 31.
When she does, a first-time buyer purchasing a ￡500,000 property will see their stamp duty bill jump from ￡3,749 to ￡9,999.
At the same time, she'll cut the general stamp duty threshold from ￡250,000 to ￡125,000. For someone moving to a ￡625,000 home, stamp duty will more than double from ￡10,000 to ￡21,250.
Reeves may enjoy a temporary spike in sales before March as buyers race to beat the deadline. Afterwards the market is likely to stagnate as costs rise and buyers sit on their hands.
Stamp duty is one of the most damaging taxes of all as it gums up the property market by making moving unaffordable. And now Reeves is going to make it even more punitive.
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This will kill her own golden goose.
Powell calls a buoyant property market “the bedrock of a growing economy.” She says the knock-on effects of a slowdown will be costly, reducing VAT and corporation tax receipts and curtailing activity for builders, plumbers and a host of other sectors that feed off the property market.
As Reeves taxes anything that moves, including house buyers, everyone ends up poorer. She’ll be even further from the growth she claims to prioritise but doesn’t know how to achieve.