Esther McVey has called for the scrapping of the Mansion Tax and the costly Number 10 of the North project, arguing Labour will have raised just £20m by 2028/9 while wasting £110m a year on the Manchester building.
Government debt surges to £3trillion
The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show government debt surged to £3trillion this week – up £95bn on this time last year. McVey said Burnham 'seems determined to spend money like a drunken sailor'.
She warned the Mansion Tax, starting on homes worth £2million or more, would soon become a £1m mansion tax, then a £500,000 tax. She compared it to Rachel Reeves' first £40bn tax busting budget in 2024 – supposedly a 'one off', but followed by her next budget which raised another £26bn.
Costs and penalties criticised
McVey said the tax would force many asset rich but cash poor people out of homes that have been in their family for years. She criticised new valuation officers having 'Stasi-like powers' to barge into people's homes, with penalty fines of between £200 to £500 if they judge the homeowner to be not complying.
By 2028/29 Labour are hoping to make £400m a year from their Mansion Tax by charging 165,000 homeowners an extra £2,500 to £7,500 a year for homes over £2m.
Implementation costs and waste
Leaked internal HM Treasury figures reveal the cost to implement this tax will be £380m before a single penny is raised, meaning £20m raised in 2028/9 if all goes according to plan. Those £380m costs are made up by £215million lost in Stamp Duty fees, £150m in up front administrative costs and £65m in reduced Inheritance Tax.
McVey said some of the £150m Value Office Agency (VOA) costs will be up front, like software development, but much will be ongoing – staff wages, buildings and a predicted 'appeal spike' by homeowners, so extra costs for tribunals. Valuations will take place on a five year cycle.
She added Labour will have 'screwed' 165,000 homeowners to raise £20m by 2028/9 but are wasting £110m each year for just one building – Number 10 of the North. Another Whitehall leak estimated policing of the building alone will be £15m a year, Cabinet Ministers travel costs around £25m a year, relocation compensation costs for civil servants between £3k to £5k each on top of their salary costs and specialised social media producers estimated at another £25m a year.
McVey suggested Labour should stop the 'vindictive mansion tax' and put an end to the 'wasteful, unnecessary' Number 10 in Manchester, saying all taxpayers will be 'quids in'.
