Kemi Badenoch has pledged to abolish inheritance tax on families’ homes if the Conservatives win the next general election.
The Tory leader said the party will also let couples leave an extra £1 million tax-free to their children if she becomes Prime Minister.
The new election commitments came during her speech at Conservative Party Conference, where she pledged a string of tax cuts and plans to slash government spending.
She told party faithful: ‘The Labour Party think it is selfish to pass on what you have earned to your children. We don’t…
‘The Conservatives are and always have been the party of home ownership.’
She continued: ‘Passing on your home to your family is one of the most human instincts of all.
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‘So, conference, the next Conservative government will legislate so nobody will ever pay inheritance tax on their family home.’
Badenoch said her ‘ambition’ was to abolish inheritance tax ‘altogether’, but she could not commit to that now without impacting her other spending pledges.
The Tory leader confirmed her changes would mean ‘every inheritance tax bill will be cut’ and the ‘number of families paying inheritance tax will fall by more than half’.
The plans were quickly criticised by the Trades Union Conference, who said it showed the Conservatives were on the side of inherited wealth, not workers.
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson said it showed the Tories were ‘prioriting the wealthiest’.
In a speech filled with pledges, Badenoch vowed to make ‘over £70bn’ worth of savings’, with more than £35bn going towards cutting the deficit.
She identified welfare as a key target, accusing the Labour government of being ‘addicted to welfare’ and spending too much while ‘drowning our country in debt’.
Badenoch continued: ‘We need to put the fair back in welfare.
‘It is morally wrong to tell people suffering bouts of mild anxiety that they are disabled and cannot work.’
The Conservative leader also unleashed an attack on her rivals on the right, Reform UK, who she said would take the country ‘backwards’.
She rejected pressure being put on her to ‘unite the right’, telling her members ‘we are not uniting with that’.
Badenoch continued: ‘I don’t want to live in a country run by people who threaten journalists, call veterans traitors, and debate whether my mixed-race children are English.
‘I don’t want to explain to my son, when we’re watching our brilliant England team play football, that some people don’t think our black players are English.
‘We must not let these people take us backwards. That is not the country we are. Reform MPs are openly questioning people’s identity. They are not like us. We are not like them. We are different. We are the Conservative Party.’
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, hit back on X, saying Badenoch’s speech ‘confirmed what we already knew, she has no vision for the country.’
The party pledged to invest £10bn over 10 years in a new ‘Britannia Shield’ defence system to protect Britain from drones and missile attacks.
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