Tories unveil sweeping deregulation plan to cut housing costs and simplify taxes

In a televised interview, shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith outlined the Conservative Party’s “bonfire of red tape”, describing it as the most ambitious deregulation effort in a generation. The plan promises to cut the price of a new house by roughly £50,000 by abolishing the future homes standard, replacing section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy with a single charge, and dissolving Natural England and the Environment Agency into Defra.

Griffith also said the party aims to remove inheritance tax and raise the personal allowance, though he warned fiscal limits will prevent all measures from being introduced at once. He rejected claims that the reforms would ignore local planning objections, framing them as a simplification of a “spider’s web” of rules. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper dismissed the proposals as fantasy, while Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick accused the Tories of copying his party’s policies.