Labour MP Rachel Blake warns against cutting mansion tax threshold to £1.5m as homes hit would DOUBLE to 272,000

From the Newshound archive · first published 23 September 2026.

Rachel Blake, the Labour MP for Cities of London and Westminster and a former Treasury minister, has publicly broken with her own government over plans to lower the mansion tax threshold from £2m to £1.5m, warning it could have 'unintended consequences' for ordinary family homes. Analysis from estate agents Hamptons shows the cut would drag 272,000 properties into scope — double the current number — with one in four detached London homes suddenly liable. Chancellor John Healey is reportedly weighing the move to boost Treasury coffers ahead of a Budget announcement.

Almost 80 per cent of the properties newly caught by the lower threshold are in London and the South East, hitting family homes rather than trophy mansions.

Blake told the BBC's Politics Live the tax was designed for £30m or £40m properties where 'you might not even have people living in them', not two- or three-bedroom family homes.

The mansion tax is reportedly already distorting the housing market even before the threshold cut is made, with a Hamptons chart showing prices clustering just below the £2m mark.