Kemi Badenoch used her keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Wednesday to promise that no family home will ever be hit by inheritance tax, setting out what she called a “battle for the soul of the nation”. The Tory leader pledged a £6 billion tax cut funded largely through welfare savings and declared war on Labour’s spending plans as she positioned the Conservatives as Britain’s low-tax party.
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| Badenoch waves to delegates at a Conservative Party conference. (Photo: Indy100) |
Delivering her second leader’s address since taking the helm, Badenoch walked on stage to loud applause at the International Convention Centre, her husband Hamish joining her afterwards as hundreds of delegates rose to cheer. She said Britain was “running out of money and running out of time”, and argued that only a Conservative government could put the country back on a sound footing before the next general election, which must be held by 2029.
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| A row of typical British terraced homes. Under Badenoch’s plan, no family home would ever face inheritance tax. |
The Inheritance Tax Pledge
Badenoch saved her headline announcement for the closing minutes of the speech: a Conservative government would legislate so that nobody pays inheritance tax on their main family home, and couples would be able to leave an additional £1 million tax-free to their children.
“Inheritance tax was supposed to be a tax on the super-wealthy,” she told delegates. “Instead, it is now a tax on ordinary, middle-class families in every corner of the country.” She added that passing a home down to family was “one of the most human instincts of all”.
The party says the changes would halve the number of families caught by death duties. The £6 billion cost would be covered predominantly by welfare savings, according to Badenoch, who stressed that her party would not promise unfunded tax cuts.
The pledge builds on tax promises made earlier in the conference. Badenoch has already said the Conservatives would scrap stamp duty on home purchases and dump Labour’s mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million. Her long-term ambition, she told the hall, is to abolish inheritance tax altogether — but she warned delegates that “now was not the time” for such a move.
How She Would Pay for It
The spending plan behind the promises is sweeping. The party used the speech to set out £71 billion in public spending cuts by 2030, including £36 billion from the welfare bill and £6 billion from Whitehall departmental spending.
Badenoch said the savings would pay for every tax cut and spending commitment the party has made so far, plus an extra £35.5 billion to start reducing Britain’s debt pile. “Governing is about choices, tough choices, and Conservatives will not announce a tax cut without telling you how we are going to pay for it,” she said.
Welfare reform was framed as “tough love”. The Tory leader promised to halve employers’ National Insurance contributions for under-25s, end the £100,000 childcare “cliff edge” with a guarantee of 30 hours of free care, and block non-UK nationals from accessing student loans. Critics have previously warned that deep welfare cuts will hit disabled people and low-income families hardest, an argument Labour is expected to repeat at the next election.
“Battle for the Soul of the Nation”
Much of the speech was pitched as a contest of ideas with Labour. “This is a battle for the soul of this nation,” Badenoch said. “A battle of ideas. Labour wants to tax and spend. Your taxes will be higher. Your bills will go up. You will find it harder and harder to make ends meet.”
She contrasted that with what she called the Conservative creed: “the belief that what people earn belongs to them”. Economic growth was placed at the heart of the plan, alongside promises of a smaller state, lower taxes and a tougher approach to crime and immigration.
Badenoch also addressed her party’s bruising recent history. She told delegates that the infighting that consumed the Conservatives before their 2024 election defeat was over, describing the Tories as the “no drama party”. New candidates, she said, would have to sign up to shared values of “integrity, duty and discipline”, and accept that “common sense is non-negotiable”.
In one of the speech’s lighter moments, she compared the party to retailer Marks & Spencer, whose first London Fashion Week catwalk show she had attended the previous month. “Not so long ago critics said they were a bit stuffy and stuck in the past. Some were even questioning whether the brand would survive,” she said. “Just like M&S we must learn from our mistakes, win back trust, and make people feel good about our party again.”
Shutting the Door on Farage
Badenoch had a sharp message for those urging the Conservatives to join forces with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Calls to “unite the right” have grown among senior figures on both sides, but she rejected any electoral pact outright.
“To those who say ‘unite the right’, we are not uniting with that,” she said. “People deserve better than that and we are going to give them better than that.”
She turned her fire on Reform directly, calling it a “circular firing squad” and listing what she described as its “greatest hits”: the party’s Welsh leader going to prison for taking bribes from Russia, Farage’s £5 million donation, and “a convicted fraudster who calls himself ‘Posh George’ and calls Nigel Farage ‘Daddy’”. She insisted: “I don’t want to live in a country run by people who threaten journalists, who call veterans ‘traitors’ and debate whether my mixed-race children are English.”
Her message to Reform voters was conciliatory in tone but clear in intent: “Many of them are our people. We let them down and we want them to come back home.” Party strategists believe the Conservatives must win back voters lost to Reform in 2024 if they are to compete with Labour at the next election.
What This Means
The speech marks the clearest attempt yet to define what the Conservatives stand for under Badenoch. After months of accusations that the party lacked a big idea, she has now attached her leadership to a concrete tax promise that touches millions of middle-class families — and drawn the sharpest possible dividing line with both Labour and Reform.
The inheritance tax pledge will be tested quickly. Labour is expected to attack it as a giveaway funded by cuts to the poorest, and economists will scrutinise whether £36 billion of welfare savings can be delivered without deep pain. But politically, the promise does what the Tories need most: it gives voters a simple, memorable reason to listen.
The attacks on Reform signal something else. By refusing a pact while courting Reform’s voters directly, Badenoch is betting the Conservatives can win back defectors on policy and tone rather than deals and mergers. It is a gamble — Reform’s polling strength shows no sign of fading — but it leaves her free to attack Farage without being tied to him.
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| The Houses of Parliament in London, where a general election must be held by 2029. |
What Happens Next
Attention now turns to the Budget and Labour’s response. Chancellor’s allies have already begun briefing against the £71 billion savings plan, and the next few weeks will bring detailed costings arguments from both sides.
The Conservatives also face questions about delivery. Pledges made at opposition conferences are easy; implementing £36 billion of welfare cuts while halving employer taxes for young workers would be one of the toughest fiscal programmes in modern British history.
What is not in doubt is the choice Badenoch has put before the country. Between Labour’s tax-and-spend approach and Reform’s protest politics, she is asking voters to see the Conservatives as the serious, low-tax alternative — “fashionable again”, in her M&S-inspired phrase, and ready to fight what she called the battle for Britain’s future.
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