In Toryworld, big changes are afoot. Kemi Badenoch has started with the personnel: out goes Priti Patel, replaced as foreign secretary by Tom Tugendhat; Sir James Cleverly, off to run for London mayor; Stuart Andrew axed as shadow health secretary; and Sir Mel Stride gone, with Andrew Griffith installed in his place as shadow chancellor. And Mr S wonders whether the new faces in the shadow cabinet will bring some old enthusiasms with them…
The announcement naming Griffith arrived with a series of endorsements from business, including M&S chairman Archie Norman and AJ Bell founder Andy Bell. But what the announcement rather skipped over were Griffith’s own endorsements. Chief among them: scrapping inheritance tax. Only a few days ago the new shadow chancellor was in Sweden, extolling their fiscal transformation: ‘no stamp duty, abolished its wealth tax, and scrapped inheritance tax after recognising the damage they cause’. His verdict: ‘We can learn from them.’
Two of the three are already Tory policy, with Badenoch using her conference speech last autumn to promise the abolition of stamp duty on primary homes. Which leaves just the one item on the Swedish list unticked, and the man keen on ticking it now in charge of the Tories’ Treasury policy. Might it be one to unveil at this year’s conference speech…?
Axing inheritance tax is no new holiday enthusiasm. As city minister in October 2022, Griffith told a Centre for Policy Studies fringe at party conference: ‘I have lots of my fantastic local association [members] with me here and they will know because they asked me at my selection meeting 27 months ago which tax, if I had the choice, I would most like to see eliminated. History will record it was inheritance tax.’
Now he’s shadow chancellor, he has the chance to consign it to the history books.
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