Andy Burnham stamp duty reform: what could a PM Burnham do?

Andy Burnham has never been shy about picking a fight with the property establishment. The Greater Manchester mayor has floated ideas around scrapping or radically overhauling stamp duty land tax — and with his star rising in Labour circles, housing experts are starting to ask a serious question: what would he actually do with the levers of power?

What has Burnham actually said?

Burnham hasn’t published a detailed manifesto on property taxation. But he has repeatedly argued that both stamp duty and council tax are broken systems that punish ordinary people and do little to fix the chronic undersupply of homes. Speaking at a Greater Manchester housing event last autumn, he described the current property tax structure as “a relic that belongs in the last century.” He’s pointed specifically to first-time buyers in cities like Manchester and Salford, where average house prices now sit above £230,000, meaning buyers can face stamp duty bills of several thousand pounds on top of already stretched deposits.

The case for scrapping stamp duty

Economists have long argued that stamp duty is one of the most economically damaging taxes the Treasury operates. It suppresses mobility. People stay in homes that no longer suit them — the retired couple rattling around a four-bedroom house, the growing family crammed into a two-bed flat — simply because moving is too expensive. The Adam Smith Institute has estimated that stamp duty costs the economy around £5 billion annually in lost economic activity. That’s a big number. And it’s not contested by many serious housing economists.

A Burnham government might look at abolishing the tax entirely for properties under £500,000, or replacing it with an annual land value tax paid over time rather than upfront. Both options have vocal supporters in academic and policy circles.

Council tax: the other broken system

Still, stamp duty is only half of Burnham’s stated concern. Council tax is, frankly, a mess. It’s based on 1991 property valuations — meaning a modest terraced house in Leeds and a multi-million pound townhouse in Chelsea can end up in suspiciously similar tax bands. “The current system isn’t fair to working people and everyone knows it,” said a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Burnham has suggested a proportional property tax model could replace council tax, linking annual payments to current market values rather than three-decade-old estimates.

What do experts think he’d actually do?

Cautious. That’s how most housing policy analysts describe any likely Burnham approach to reform.

The political reality is brutal. Stamp duty raises around £11.6 billion a year for the Treasury. Any government scrapping it wholesale would need to find that money elsewhere — fast. More likely, experts suggest, is a phased reform: higher thresholds for first-time buyers, reduced rates for downsizers, and a gradual shift toward land value taxation over a Parliament or two. Bold in direction. Cautious in execution. That might end up being the Burnham way on housing — if he ever gets the chance to prove it.