Andy Burnham has won the backing of influential Labour MPs from the party’s former “Red Wall” heartlands for a radical overhaul of Britain’s tax system that could see land and property owners in London and the South East hit with a new levy based on the value of their assets.
The Labour Red Wall Group of more than 40 MPs have added their voice to calls to scrap council tax and stamp duty and replace it with a land value tax to be paid on the market rental value of land.
In a statement given to The i Paper, the group described council tax as “broken”, “unfair” and “indefensible”, pointing out that bills are still calculated using property valuations frozen in 1991.
Shorts
The group argues the system punishes working-class communities, noting that families in ordinary, semi-detached homes in northern towns can end up paying more than owners of multimillion-pound properties in some of the country’s wealthiest postcodes.
