Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
Griffith makes his pledge to scrap a tax every budget depend on a savings rule
Andrew Griffith said a Tory government would aim to scrap at least one tax every budget and would abolish the £2m-plus mansion tax due in 2028. The specific taxes he named, including a packaging scheme that firms pay for, are firmer promises than the per-budget goal, which he made conditional on affordability.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
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What happened
- The Conservatives would also scrap the EPR scheme that requires firms to pay for collecting, recycling and disposing of the packaging they produce.
- Shadow ministers proposed a single levy on developers to replace section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy.
- The party would abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency and move their functions to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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Why it matters
- cost Firms paying under EPR carry those packaging costs for as long as the current scheme stands; the repeal pledge changes only a scenario for a future Conservative term.
- constraint Each repeal needs spending cuts worth at least twice its cost, so how often the party can actually scrap a tax is set by how much spending it can find to cut.
- decision Housebuilders appraising sites beyond the next election have two planning-cost cases to model: today's section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy charges, and a single replacement levy.
- contradiction Griffith now backs a triple lock he called unfair in 2021, and Hunt and Tugendhat call it unsustainable, so pensions are the party's least settled fiscal commitment.
The Birmingham speeches made two kinds of commitment, and a business plan should weight them differently. The named repeals are specific enough to hold the party to: the surcharge, the packaging scheme, and the two developer contributions that a single levy would replace [5][9][12]. The per-budget pledge is looser [4]. Griffith compared his approach to Nigel Lawson's and said: "It's my ambition to scrap at least one tax every budget. What would we prioritise? There's a lot." [8]
The affordability condition comes with a formula. "No country in history has ever taxed its way to prosperity, so we will cut taxes, but only when we can afford to do so, and always saying clearly how we will fund that within our golden economic rule," Griffith said [6]. That rule sends at least half of identified savings to the deficit [7]. So each £1 of tax cut needs at least £2 of savings, and more when pro-growth measures draw on the same half [17]. The BBC's report of the speeches does not say how large a pool of savings the party has in mind.
For operators, the packaging scheme is the item that costs money now. EPR puts the cost of collecting, recycling and disposing of packaging on the firms that produce it [9]. Griffith presented the repeal as a break with his party's past, calling EPR the "sort of thing the old Conservative Party went along with" [10]. A finance team can carry the repeal as a scenario for a Conservative term. This year's packaging costs are still set by the scheme in force [9].
The surcharge comes down to dates. It takes effect from 2028 and applies to properties in England worth more than £2m [5]. "It's an anti-growth tax that will distort the housing market and remove the incentive to make home improvements," Griffith said [11]. Whether owners ever pay it depends on when an election falls relative to that start date.
A sceptic would start with the record. Labour said the Tories "completely failed at every turn" to grow the economy during their 14 years in power [15]. Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said the party had "cemented their position as a pointless anti-growth, anti-business party" [16]. Those are judgements about credibility. A business can price a named repeal without trusting the party. It needs a view on whether the party wins, and when.
The plan to abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency [13] drew an objection about planning delays. Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, which represents members at both bodies, said: "Conservative budget cuts have left these regulators struggling to perform their vital functions with 'lack of resources' the most common reason for planning delays." [14] He added: "The solution is to restore their funding to adequate levels, not scrap vital safeguards." [14]
Pensions make the savings rule harder to meet. Asked about the triple lock, which Prime Minister Andy Burnham has proposed changing, Griffith told BBC Breakfast: "We are going to keep it." [1] In 2021, as a backbencher, he wrote that the triple lock was "unfair" as pensioners could "gain from the misfortune of others" [2]. Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt and shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat have each suggested the current version is unsustainable [3]. In my view, keeping it limits where a Conservative Treasury could find the £2 of savings behind each £1 of tax cut [17].
What to watch
- Whether the Conservatives publish costed savings against the golden rule, which would show how many repeals a single budget could fund.
- A rate or design for the single developer levy meant to replace section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy.
- Any change in the Conservative position on the triple lock as Burnham's proposal to change it moves forward.