Housebuilders call on Hunt to act ahead of 6 March Spring Budget
Three of Britain’s biggest housebuilders have called for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to cut stamp duty on property purchases in the Spring Budget to ‘unlock’ the UK’s housing supply and boost the economy.
Jennie Daly, head of FTSE 100 builder Taylor Wimpey, said in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, that there was a ‘real case’ for reducing the levy on lower-priced properties and for sellers over the age of 60 who were looking to downsize. The
She said: ’House moves drive the economy. Mobility is fundamentally important for a healthy economy.
’When that is made harder because there is a tax such as stamp duty or a lack of availability of homes, then you start to constrain the economic options of the individual and the economy. We have to look at the dampening effect that stamp duty has.”
Rob Perrins, chief executive of the The Berkeley Group, said stamp duty cuts ‘would help with consumer demand’ and encourage more people to move, while Graham Prothero, chief executive of Gleeson, said lowering the levy would help “stimulate confidence and activity.”
>>See also: ‘We’re victims of short-term policy-making’: Interview with Taylor Wimpey boss Jennie Daly
The comments follow former housing minister Robert Jenrick calling for a stamp duty cut earlier this month.
Jenrick said: “Stamp duty is a terrible tax. It exacerbates the housing crisis because it leaves people in the wrong houses. It’s an obstacle to younger people moving to take highly productive jobs and it hinders the more than a quarter of homeowners, particularly pensioners, who want to downsize.”
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