Kemi Badenoch to pledge inheritance tax cut in conference speech — follow live

UK Politics Live Kemi Badenoch to pledge inheritance tax cut in conference speech — follow live The party leader will also announce plans to halve national insurance at the Conservative Party conference Steven Swinford , Political Editor , Oliver Wright , Policy Editor , Geraldine Scott , Assistant Political Editor , and Fintan Hogan Share Share this article Email Twitter Facebook Link Save Kemi Badenoch prepares her conference speech in her hotel room in Birmingham on Tuesday Stefan Rousseau/PA What you need to know Kemi Badenoch is due to announce cuts to inheritance tax and employers’ national insurance in her keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference The party leader is expected to say that the reduced taxes will be paid for by £30bn in welfare cuts Badenoch will say that her cuts to employers’ national insurance for young people will create tens of thousands of jobs She will also take aim at Labour, saying voters face the starkest choice since Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election For updates throughout the day listen to Times Radio 7 minutes ago 9:35am October 7 Burghart unsure of policy’s cost The deputy leader of the Conservatives did not know the cost of his party’s multi-billion pound employment policy when challenged on Times Radio. Asked by Kate McCann how expensive it would be to half National Insurance for those aged between 21 and 24, Alex Burghart replied: “So the policy is fully-costed. We have said that we will fund it by making cuts to welfare, to Whitehall and by cutting back on arm’s length bodies.” When challenged again, he said: “I’m sorry Kate, I’ve forgotten the cost, but I can tell you that it is fully-funded.” The policy, announced yesterday afternoon, would cost an estimated £3.3bn to implement but the expense would fall to about £2.3bn once extra tax receipts and lower benefits spending were accounted for. 18 minutes ago 9:23am October 7 Reform can’t buy integrity, says Burghart Reform can buy “a lot of things” with their donations but not “integrity”, the deputy Conservative leader has said. Speaking about a £72m windfall from cryptocurrency billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, Alex Burghart said he was “very suspicious of large sums of money given from cryptocurrency, which is a system set up to deliberately hide its origins”. Alex Burghart Christopher Furlong/Getty Images “You can buy a lot of things with money but you can’t buy integrity,” he told the BBC. “We are not doing a deal with Reform — Reform have said they are out to destroy us.” Asked if he would ever consider an electoral pact with the challenger right-wing party, Burghart simply said: “No.” 23 minutes ago 9:18am October 7 ‘Jobs market toxic for young people’ The job market has become “toxic for young people”, the head of the recruitment website Reed has warned. James A Reed told Times Radio he was “kept awake at night” by the issues facing young people and called on the government to cut taxes on employment. “AI is literally eating jobs,” he said. “We had 180,000 jobs advertised on our site [a few] years ago. Today we have less than 50,000.” “We should not be taxing jobs if indeed we care about the next generation,” Reed added. “Jobs, I think, should be really encouraged and protected.” Advertisement 31 minutes ago 9:11am October 7 Cutting inheritance tax a ‘point of principle’ Alex Burghart has defended the idea of cutting inheritance tax as a “point of principle”, despite less than 5 per cent of estates paying the levy. “People have worked all of their lives, paid tax on those earnings when they earned them, bought things for themselves and we think that they should be able to give that property and those savings to their children and grandchildren if they want to,” the deputy leader of the Conservative Party told BBC Breakfast . “We want to have lower taxes in this country so we can have higher growth. That’s why at the last conference we announced the abolition of stamp duty to help more people buy their home. That was a bad tax — we said we would get rid of it.” 34 minutes ago 9:08am October 7 Tories who defected to Reform ‘appalled by old party’ The Conservative MPs who joined Reform showed “conviction” after being “appalled” by their old party, Richard Tice told Times Radio. After it was suggested that Reform had become “the retirement home for failed Tories”, Tice suggested they had instead “showed conviction, courage of their beliefs”. “If you just look at a couple of those you mentioned, for example Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, you know they actually left government because they were so appalled at how the Tories were failing and not listening to them,” he said. Suella Braverman and Richard Tice at the Reform conference last month Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Both Braverman and Jenrick left the Conservatives after the party was defeated in the 2024 general election. 39 minutes ago 9:03am October 7 Burghart: Labour and Reform don’t have a plan Challenged by Kate McCann about the Conservatives’ “credibility gap” with voters, Alex Burghart insisted it was instead Labour and Reform who did not “have a plan”. “The credibility gap isn’t with us, it is with Labour who are in government and don’t have a plan and Reform who don’t even have a defence spokesperson,” the deputy leader of the Conservative Party told Times Radio. Burghart had been unable to remember the cost of the party’s announcement of a cut in national insurance — £2.3bn — but defended the policy and said Labour was putting “punitive pressures” on business. “We have been speaking to businesses across the country that have been saying, ‘We don’t want to hire young people because it’s too expensive to do so’,” he said. Advertisement 48 minutes ago 8:53am October 7 ‘No urgency in Labour’s defence plans’ There is “not enough urgency” in the government’s defence policy, the former head of Joint Forces Command has warned. General Sir Richard Barrons told Times Radio: “If they continue to privilege sustaining what we all understand is an unaffordable welfare offer at the expense of sorting defence out, then it’s a decision they’re entitled to make, but I will continue to argue then they are putting the country in great jeopardy. General Sir Richard Barrons Leon Neal/Getty Images “It’s absolutely clear right now there’s not enough urgency. If you look at the Labour Party conference last week, very little conversation about defence.” The Conservatives yesterday announced their “Britannia shield” defence policy, a £10bn network of radar, command and control and interceptor missiles to protect critical national and military infrastructure. 1 hour ago 8:36am October 7 Reform don’t want a ‘coalition with soggy Lib Dems’ The Conservatives are still “soggy Lib Dems” despite their promises on tax cuts, net zero and the ECHR, Reform’s deputy leader has said. Richard Tice told Times Radio: “It is a form of flattery that she’s copying our policies but the problem is that no one believes it…it’s all waffle, no action and that’s why the country’s ended up in the pickle that we’re in.” “We don’t want a coalition with soggy Lib Dems pretending to be Conservatives,” the deputy Reform leader added. “What we want is [for] people to recognise that the way to avoid hard-left socialism bankrupting the country is to vote for competence, business-like reform, and that’s what we represent.” 1 hour ago 8:32am October 7 Tories will announce tax cuts ‘we can afford’ The Conservatives cannot commit to completely abolishing inheritance tax yet, the party’s deputy leader has suggested. Speaking to BBC Breakfast , Alex Burghart said: “Kemi [Badenoch] said she would like to abolish inheritance tax but it’s very important we can afford any announcement we make. “That is why she has asked Andrew Griffith, shadow chancellor, and the economic team to see what’s possible. When that work is finished we will make an announcement on what we are going to do.” He told Sky News: “It would be a big commitment — and if we are going to do it, we have to make sure that we can do it. There are a lot of pressures on the public purse because of the decisions of the Labour government.” Advertisement 1 hour ago 8:28am October 7 Labour doesn’t understand the economy, says Burghart Labour does not “understand how the economy works at all”, the Conservatives have argued ahead of a tax-cutting announcement by Kemi Badenoch. Alex Burghart, the party’s deputy leader, told Times Radio that the government was “using one credit card to pay off another”. Alex Burghart Ian Forsyth/Getty Images “We have been finding savings from Whitehall, we have been finding money from working age welfare,” he said. “Rachel Reeves did not set out any tax cuts and I don’t think the Labour government understands how the economy works at all. I am not being mean.” 1 hour ago 8:24am October 7 ‘If you want the triple lock, vote Conservative’ Kemi Badenoch has used interviews before the speech to insist that the Conservatives remain committed to the state pension triple lock, although she has stopped short of promising to reinstate the existing system if Labour abolishes it before the election. “If people want the triple lock after the next election, you’ve got to vote Conservative,” she said. “What I can’t do, you know, you just heard me talk about changing the first jobs bonus. As circumstances change, we may have to adapt to things. I don’t know what that situation will be, but if people want to keep the triple lock, vote Conservative. That’s the policy.” 1 hour ago 8:24am October 7 ‘Children should not inherit our bloated debts’ Kemi Badenoch will also announce a cut in the 40 per cent inheritance tax, which applies to an estate’s value over £325,000 — or above £500,000 if a home is given to a direct descendant. As Badenoch begins to construct the Tories election strategy, she will argue that voters face the starkest choice over the direction of the country since Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 election. She will contrast the Tories’ approach of cutting government spending to fund tax cuts and deficit reduction with Andy Burnham’s “reckless” approach to the public finances. “Our children will already inherit a more dangerous world,” she will say. “They should not inherit our bloated debts as well.” Kemi Badenoch speaks to Times Radio on Tuesday The Times photographer richard pohle Advertisement 1 hour ago 8:24am October 7 Pledges for inheritance tax and national insurance Kemi Badenoch will use her keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference today to set out plans to cut inheritance tax as well as halve national insurance to help young people find work. Badenoch, who is due to start speaking at 11.15am, is expected to say that the policies will be paid for with more than £30bn in welfare cuts that will also contribute towards paying Britain’s £3trn debt under the “Conservative savings plan”. The Conservative leader will say she will cut employers’ national insurance for workers aged 21-24 to 7.5 per cent in an attempt to tackle the youth unemployment crisis. Her proposal would cost £2.3bn a year and save companies an average of £1,545 for every young worker they employ. The Tories estimate that it would create 33,600 jobs by the end of the decade. 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