What price hope?

Plus: scrap stamp duty on shares, and who will end up with the bill for social care?

Jul 21, 2026

‘We’re offering a bit of hope.’ That’s the new Chancellor’s explanation of the decision to announce a VAT cut on domestic energy bills today. It’s quite a small bit, though: the typical household will save £45 a year. As Ben Ramanauskas argued for CapX, it doesn’t encourage optimism about the new Government’s policy priorities. And if that wasn’t enough, Darren Jones helpfully pointed out that the cut is unfunded.

Perhaps in response to that, the Prime Minister used his first meeting with his new Cabinet to say they would have to ‘show how we’re going to pay’ for any new policies – well, it would be a start – and announced that they would have to make ‘difficult decisions’ to show their commitment to the fiscal rules.

But Burnham’s top team may have their own ideas about which difficult decisions they want to take. His new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has previously called for Britain’s Net Zero targets to be brought forward from 2050 to the mid-2030s. She may yet make Ed Miliband look like a moderate.

Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.

Marc Sidwell
Editor, CapX

Today’s Takes

Fresh thinking from CapX

Healey can't tax his way out of this mess

Dr Gerard Lyons

‘The UK remains a high spending, high tax and high borrowing economy… none of this will change by looking back to the 1970s rather than forward to the middle of the 21st century.’

John Healey is the eleventh chancellor since the 2008 global financial crisis. Regardless of who has occupied Number 11, the direction has been the same – modest growth, stagnant living standards and deteriorating public finances. Breaking that pattern means controlling spending, not chasing new taxes. Read More

Burnham's VAT cut is a bad idea

Ben Ramanauskas

‘Trying to tackle high inflation through price controls is a nasty habit which the Government urgently needs to break.’

Andy Burnham has announced that VAT on household energy bills will be removed from October. It’s a mistake. This piles more pressure on the public finances, adds complexity to the country’s tax system and does almost nothing to tackle the cost of living. To help households with their energy bills, the Government needs to address why prices are so high in the first place. Read More

Stat of the day

Best of the Web

Scrap stamp duty on shares

Tom Willerton-Gartside, City AM

‘Abolishing stamp duty on shares would make Britain richer, with some estimates suggesting that it could increase GDP by as much as 0.7%.’

London slumped to 23rd in the global IPO league table last year – its worst showing in 35 years. We need to make London an attractive place to list and invest once more, and the first step should be scrapping stamp duty on shares. It’s time for Burnham to prove his ‘pro-business’ promise. Read More

Who gets the bill for social care?

Ross Clark, The Spectator

‘Burnham is proposing a policy which would make little difference to the poor, would clobber many people in the middle and would amount to a significant tax break for the wealthy.’

Is Britain’s most left-wing prime minister in decades about to hand the rich a tax break? Burnham’s rumoured plan of scrapping inheritance tax and bringing in a 10% social care levy on all estates will create clear winners and losers – and could fall hardest on the squeezed middle. Read More