Badenoch closes Conservative conference with pledge to scrap inheritance tax on family homes
Kemi Badenoch said a Conservative government would scrap inheritance tax on family homes. The pledge came in her closing address to the party's annual conference in Birmingham on 7 October, the BBC said in its live coverage BBC.
Inheritance tax is the tax paid on the estate of someone who has died. The gathering ran from Sunday 4 October to Wednesday 7 October. Badenoch, the Leader of the Conservative Party, addressed delegates, the party members at the conference, as it ended, according to the event listing C-SPAN.
Badenoch had been trailed to warn of a "battle for the soul of our nation" while setting out plans to cut inheritance tax, the BBC said BBC. A separate BBC preview said she planned to tell the final-day audience that a "battle of ideas" is looming in British politics BBC. She had opened the week on 4 October by describing herself as a "classic old-school Conservative" BBC.
On 4 October the party pledged to abolish what it called the "absurd" childcare cliff edge, the point where a small pay rise can mean a sudden loss of childcare support. The party also announced 'Britannia Shield' as a plan for using extra defence funding to fill gaps in Britain's defence capabilities. Both were presented as promises for a future Conservative government, not changes in force.
The BBC said Badenoch's personal numbers are on the up while the Conservatives as a whole are not seeing the same improvement BBC. Her personal ratings are higher than those of her party. Survation said that in a poll on 22 and 23 September, 42% thought Badenoch is doing well as Conservative leader and 33% said she is not Survation. YouGov polling, reported by Politico, found 32% of voters have a favourable view of Badenoch compared with 47% unfavourable Politico. The New York Times said on 7 October that she had been buoyed by rising personal ratings.
The broader context here is that the split is unusual. Leaders in opposition normally track their party. Here the gap runs the other way. The talk of a battle for the soul and a battle of ideas pointed to an ideological pitch rather than a narrow policy rollout, and that description of herself as a classic old-school Conservative framed the announcements from the platform.
Looking at what this means for the parliamentary party, the test is conversion. A leader who outperforms her party has room to ask MPs, councillors and donors for patience. She can point to net-positive job approval in one poll and improved favourability in another as evidence that voters will listen when she speaks. Conference speeches rarely shift voting intention by themselves. They matter for discipline and selection. A run in Birmingham without a row off the platform, with childcare, defence and inheritance tax lines banked, gives the whips, who look after party discipline, and the voluntary party something to defend on the doorstep.
In my view, the risk runs in both directions. Personal outperformance without party movement leaves the strategy open to challenge at candidate selection and in Westminster corridors. If voters like the messenger more than the brand, colleagues will ask whether the offer is specific enough, funded enough, and repeated enough to move. The BBC billed its post-speech video 'The big test facing Badenoch after her conference speech'. The speech is delivered. The test is what the party does with the lines it now owns.
