Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, confirmed on Sunday night that she wants to scrap inheritance tax, revealing she has asked her team to find "fiscally responsible ways" to tackle what critics call the "death tax".
The confirmation follows a report in The Mail on Sunday that first revealed the move was under consideration. New Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith has said inheritance tax would be his first choice of levy to abolish, and there are growing expectations that Badenoch will unveil the policy in her speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham next month.
Badenoch said the tax mainly hits "home-owning middle-class families due to house price inflation, diligent savers, and small-business owners", while "the super-wealthy can afford trusts and sophisticated tax planning or move abroad".
Inheritance tax is charged in the UK at 40 per cent on the value of an estate above a threshold, currently set at £325,000, though a range of reliefs and exemptions can reduce or eliminate the bill for larger estates. Its unpopularity with voters is why it is often nicknamed the "death tax".
Clash with Reform UK over priorities
Badenoch's announcement came as she seized on a claim by Robert Jenrick, her former rival for the Conservative leadership who is now aligned with Reform UK, that it would be "morally wrong" to prioritise abolishing inheritance tax ahead of taking low earners out of income tax altogether.
Writing on social media, Badenoch said: "Reform says abolishing inheritance tax is 'morally wrong'. I think it is morally wrong to punish people for doing the right thing - spending a lifetime working, saving, building up a business or a home to pass on to the next generation."
She acknowledged that Conservative supporters would "sometimes include wealthy people" but insisted her party stood for millions who had "paid their dues" and wanted what they had built up to benefit their children or communities. "We are on their side," she said, adding that no announcement would be made "till there's a clear plan".
Row over crypto donations
Badenoch also took aim at Reform UK's donors, including Christopher Harborne, one of two cryptocurrency tycoons whose record-breaking £72 million donations to the party are at the centre of a growing row over political funding. She claimed such donors "don't need to worry about ordinary inheritance tax planning, because they keep money in crypto or out of the country".
Jenrick hit back last night, saying: "We can all agree inheritance tax is a bad tax. But the question is, when you have to choose what to cut first, given the appalling state of the public finances, what do you pick? You are choosing to help the wealthiest 5 per cent, while we want to raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 to benefit 97 per cent of workers instead."
Echoes of the stamp duty pledge
The move follows Badenoch's pledge to abolish stamp duty if she becomes prime minister, a policy that electrified last year's Conservative conference and helped revive both the party and her leadership. Griffith's remarks suggest inheritance tax could now be lined up as a similar rallying point ahead of the Birmingham conference.
Burnham's rival 'death tax'
Separately, Andy Burnham has ruled out calling an early election, though many in Westminster believe he could still do so to free himself from Keir Starmer's manifesto pledges and red lines on tax. Burnham is known to favour a different kind of "death tax": a potential 10 per cent levy payable by most households on death, to fund his plans for social care.
Badenoch has said no formal announcement on inheritance tax will come until the Conservatives have a clear plan in place, with attention now turning to her conference speech in Birmingham next month.
