Labour's "damaging" Stamp Duty games | housefund.co.uk

Labour’s “damaging” Stamp Duty games

Philip Hammond, the Conservative Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has accused Alistair Darling of playing “damaging short term games” with the property market over the possible suspension of Stamp Duty.

In a letter to the Chancellor, Philip said that the housing market needs “certainty and a steady hand” and attacked Labour for floating a suspension of Stamp Duty without confirming it one way or the other.

He stressed that Labour’s dithering over the issue had undermined the housing market at a historically low point, by “creating a significant incentive for people to delay house purchases”.

And he demanded that Darling end the uncertainty over the matter, pledging cross-party support if Labour were to adopt our plans to lift the Stamp Duty threshold for first-time buyers to £250,000.