Labour MPs have warned the Treasury against widening the incoming “mansion tax” to all properties worth more than £1.5m.
One London MP told The i Paper that the move would be a “catastrophic electoral own goal”, while even some left-wingers representing seats elsewhere in the country fear it could hit “ordinary families” living in the capital.
In last year’s Budget, then-chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that owners of properties in England valued at more than £2m will have to pay a surcharge of at least £2,500 from 2028.
PM to meet Trump for first time this week – what to expect
Prime Minister Andy Burnham set off for New York on Monday for the United Nations General Assembly.
It will be Burnham’s first foray into global diplomacy, as well as his first opportunity to meet his US counterpart Donald Trump.
Burnham is expected to meet Trump on Tuesday, at a time when the UK’s special relationship with the US is particularly fraught.
From the war in Iran, to Israel and the Falklands, there are a string of issues that could lead to conflict. Though there are hopes for co-operation too.
PM to set out vision for Britain
For Burnham, who Trump has described as the “mayor of a town”, an array of flashpoints may crop up in their 30-minute meeting.
The meeting will happen the same day the PM plans to set out his vision for Britain’s place on the world stage.
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What could be on the agenda?
Britain has not endorsed the wider Iran war, which is driving up energy costs.
Burnham is expected to press Trump for more support for Ukraine.
Trump has pressed former PMs to expand North Sea drilling and welcomed Burnham’s pledge to do so.
What could be on the agenda?
Digital services tax
Trump has threatened trade deals over the UK’s £1bn digital tax and has concerns over its under-16 social media ban.
Trade deals
Burnham may press Trump to fully revive the £31bn tech prosperity deal.
Trump has declined to commit to defending the Falklands, stoking fears that he could treat the islands’ sovereignty as negotiable.
Watch more from The i Paper
Cash ISA cut to go ahead in April – everything we know
A cut to the tax-free amount savers can deposit in a cash ISA will go ahead next April, The i Paper has learned.
Here is everything we know about the changing rules so far.
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What you need to know
The Government will press ahead with reforms to the cash ISA on 6 April 2027.
Former chancellor Rachel Reeves proposed the change in 2025 so that only £12,000 of the £20,000 annual ISA allowance could be held in cash, in a bid to encourage more people to invest in stocks and shares, which can offer higher long-term returns and boost businesses and the economy.
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Uninvested cash subject to new tax
The amount savers under 65 can deposit into a cash ISA tax-free each year will fall from £20,000 to £12,000 in April.
Savers in that age bracket will still be able to invest a further £8,000 tax-free in a stocks and shares ISA or the rarely used innovative finance ISA. Any interest earned on uninvested cash held inside stocks and shares ISAs will also face a new 22 per cent tax charge.
Finance industry calls for delays to new rules
- With less than seven months to go, the finance industry is demanding clarity on how the change will work – with some calling for a delay.
- Yorkshire Building Society described the timetable for implementing the changes as “challenging”.
- The Treasury has said officials are working “at pace” to put the necessary rules in place ahead of its launch next April.
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Customers face confusion about new rules
Bryan Byrnes, director of personal finance at savings provider Moneybox, said that customers were already confused about how the new rules will work.
He added: “Helping customers navigate these changes will therefore be just as important as implementing them.”
How baby girls are more sociable than boys from birth
Baby girls tend to be more people-focused than boys from when they are first born, a study suggests.
Researchers found that when newborns were shown side-by-side videos of a face and a toy, girls spent proportionally more time watching the face than boys did, suggesting that differences in attention may emerge from birth.
Biological factors at play
Because the babies were only a day or so old, it is unlikely that cultural or social experiences had influenced the effect.
It instead points to biological factors, including genetics and differing levels of testosterone exposure in the womb.
However, it is worth noting that the findings, based on tests with 130 babies at the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge, do not apply to all girls and all boys.
There was still plenty of variation and overlap between each sex.
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This is a very active and heated debate in the field of sex differences: what are the causes behind sex differences and how early in life are they present? What our research shows is that at least some differences are present at a small scale very early on in life.
Yumnah Khan, a PhD student at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge
What does it tell us?
- Small differences at birth may play a role in long-observed trends.
- For example, girls typically learn to talk earlier than boys, and develop certain social skills younger too.
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The expert view
If they’re showing heightened social interest from birth onwards, that might facilitate the development of these skills.
Although only a hypothesis, Khan said that greater social interest from birth could help facilitate verbal and social skills.
However, she said further studies that follow the babies until they are toddlers would be required to support that idea.
The high value council tax surcharge – which was quickly dubbed the mansion tax – will increase depending on the price of a property, with the highest charge of £7,500 affecting houses valued at £5m or more.
reported last week that Chancellor John Healey is considering lowering the threshold for the tax from £2m to £1.5m in his first Budget on October 28.
Doing so would increase the number of homes forecast to pay the charge from 134,000 to 271,000 based on current values.
With about half of the properties affected by a £1.5m threshold located in London, the suggestion that the Chancellor is looking at the idea has sparked alarm among Labour MPs with seats in the capital.
Labour currently controls 58 of London’s 75 parliamentary seats and is fighting a crucial by-election against the Green Party in Holborn and St Pancras to hang on to Sir Keir Starmer’s old seat. The Greens have selected its leader, Zack Polanski, as the candidate for the north London seat.
On Monday, the Greens also criticised the £1.5m threshold idea.
Dr Ellie Chowns, Green MP for North Herefordshire, told The i Paper: “This is more tinkering from Labour under Andy Burnham, when many people hoped he’d bring real change.
“Instead of half-measures and minor tweaks which are likely to end up raising little money, Greens want to see fair taxation of wealth to pay for the investment this country desperately needs.”
Commenting on the idea of reducing the threshold to £1.5m, a London Labour MP told The i Paper: “I don’t support this and I don’t think it will happen as it would be a catastrophic electoral own goal.”
While moves to increase the taxation of expensive properties tend to find support on the Labour left, some left-wingers representing seats outside London are cautious about the idea of lowering the threshold.
Jon Trickett, MP for Normanton and Hemsworth in West Yorkshire, said: “I believe it is right to tax mansions at a reasonable rate but the threshold needs careful thought.
“In parts of the country £1.5m would indeed buy you something akin to a mansion. I am, however, less sure that is true in central London where prices have been driven up often by a kind of gold rush of foreign investors in real estate. The consequence could be that ordinary families who bought their home years ago could well be impacted but lack the means to pay any new tax.”
He added: “The Government needs to reflect very carefully if they intend to lower the threshold with a detailed published impact assessment to justify their decision.”
Steve Rotheram, the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region and a close Burnham ally, has also previously warned against measures that impact people who may be “capital rich” but do not necessarily have high incomes.
Meanwhile, some Labour MPs want Burnham to take a much more radical approach to taxing property rather than simple adding a mansion tax on top of existing council tax bands.
A group of Labour MPs mainly based in the North of England want Burnham and Healey to scrap stamp duty and council tax and replace them with an annual proportional property tax based on the value of a home.
Jonathan Hinder, MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, who is among those campaigning for such a change, posted on X on Monday: “I don’t want to see a ‘mansion tax’ bolted on to a broken system. Let’s do proper tax reform, scrapping two stupid taxes and replacing them with a proportional property tax.”
Brian Leishman, the Scottish MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, said that the Government should prioritise measures such as equalising capital gains tax with income tax and introducing an annual “wealth tax” of 2 per cent on people with assets over £10m.
“Let’s tax multi-millionaires with generational wealth, not workers,” he said.
A Treasury spokesperson said: “As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the Chancellor to set out at fiscal events, rather than routinely commenting on rumour, speculation or proposals.”