Kemi Badenoch Pledges to Scrap Inheritance Tax on Family Homes

What changed

Kemi Badenoch said a future Conservative government would remove inheritance tax from family homes and let couples leave an additional £1m tax-free. Speaking at the Conservatives’ conference in Birmingham on 7 October 2026, she said full abolition would come “as soon as we can afford it”, but not while defence, prisons and the economy still carried spending commitments.

Why it matters

The proposal would change how estates are taxed when people die. Badenoch said every inheritance-tax bill would fall and that the number of families paying it would be cut by more than half.

That is a sizeable promise, but it is still a political pledge rather than a worked-out tax plan. No detailed costing or implementation timetable was reported, and it remains uncertain whether the proposal would appear in a future manifesto or how legislation would define and finance it.

Badenoch used the announcement to draw a line between the Conservatives, Labour and Reform UK. Her wider message was that the party had changed after its 2024 election defeat and wanted Reform voters back, while refusing an election deal with Nigel Farage’s party. The inheritance-tax pledge is therefore doing two jobs at once: offering relief to households with family homes, and giving the Conservatives a clear economic proposition as they try to rebuild support.