Labour leader Ed Miliband set for defeat over 'impractical' mansion tax

 
Ed Miliband: Insisted his troubles with his brother are "over"
12 March 2013
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Ed Miliband faced defeat today in a Commons vote on a £30,000-a-year “mansion tax” on £2 million properties.

The Liberal Democrats snubbed his plea to break ranks with the Conservatives and back a Commons motion demanding the tax.

Shadow Treasury minister Cathy Jamieson denied the policy was “written on the back of an envelope” to embarrass the Lib-Dems.

“Ed Miliband made it very clear that he wanted to do this because he believed it was the wrong thing to do to scrap the 10p tax rate before,” she said.

But Business Secretary Vince Cable accused Labour of “playing games” on the issue. Communities minister Brandon Lewis claimed a mansion tax was “just not practical” because it would require homes to be valued. “If we want to raise tax on those high-earners, the people with real wealth, the stamp duty increase was introduced last year,” he said.

“It’s far more effective, less invasive of people’s privacy and doesn’t penalise pensioners and people who have bought a home and saved up and improved their own home.”

Mr Miliband only recently adopted the idea of an annual charge on expensive properties, claiming it could fund a partial restoration of the 10p tax rate abolished by Gordon Brown. Today’s vote was intended to deepen coalition divisions. However, the Coalition parties planned to unite around an amendment that acknowledged that Nick Clegg and David Cameron disagreed.

Nine out of 10 homes affected by such a tax would be in London.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in