A deregulation package put forward by the Conservative Party — described by Kemi Badenoch's team as the broadest such effort in roughly a generation, with commitments aimed at reducing costs across housing, food, and commerce — has drawn commentary from some observers noting overlap with policy positions held by Reform UK, raising questions about whether the two parties are moving toward shared ground.
At the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith put forward a set of proposals aimed at cutting red tape and lowering administrative burdens on businesses, contending that easing those costs is a prerequisite for economic recovery. Among the plan's provisions are a move to eliminate the packaging levy commonly referred to as the "polluter pays" charge, the removal of various housebuilding rules, and the winding up of both Natural England and the Environment Agency — with their respective duties folded into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Under the plan, scrapping stamp duty on primary residences would run alongside the removal of the Future Homes Standard and its associated construction requirements — a pairing the party puts forward as capable of cutting as much as £50,000 from the cost of a newly built home.
The proposal, as Griffith described it, was designed to ease pressure on businesses and households while offering investors a more predictable environment. In remarks delivered before his conference address, he outlined an intention to reduce the burden on taxpayers and leave more money in their pockets.
Among their commitments, the Conservatives have put forward plans to untangle what Griffith characterised as a deeply convoluted tax framework, alongside support for expanding Heathrow and a package of measures aimed at speeding up the delivery of large-scale infrastructure.
The party led by Nigel Farage outlined a distinctly more permissive stance on tax and regulatory matters, drawing a clearer line between its own policy platform and that of the Conservatives through a set of newly announced proposals. Richard Tice, who serves as Reform's deputy leader, pointed out that the Conservative Party now appeared to be adopting positions on cost regulations and taxes — pledging to undo measures its own members had put in place during their time in office — that Reform had laid out first.
Reform's Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick, in a separate statement, contended that the Conservatives had borrowed policies from his party's platform, while also setting out a proposal to lift the income-tax personal allowance from its current level of £12,570 to £15,000 — a threshold he positioned as going beyond what the Conservatives had put forward.
Griffith put forward the argument that the Conservative Party has undergone a genuine transformation under Badenoch's leadership, with the party now working to build out a substantive policy platform rather than merely positioning itself in response to what its rivals do.
Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats pushed back against the proposals, raising doubts about the Conservatives' track record on the economy and whether their outlined plans hold up to scrutiny. Labour chair Bridget Phillipson argued that the party's platform risked repeating an approach to governance that had failed much of the public over four decades, while Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper maintained the proposals did not hold up to financial scrutiny.
Party members contend that the volume of accumulated regulatory requirements — rather than any gap in oversight — has driven up the cost and pace of building, investment, and infrastructure delivery. Deregulation sits at the heart of the economic case Badenoch has been building for the party.
Griffith's stated agenda spans four areas: reducing housing costs, cutting expenses for businesses, streamlining the tax system, and accelerating the delivery of infrastructure. Disagreements about the framework governing Britain's economy have pulled both parties into a wider contest, each seeking to establish itself as the more credible advocate for lower taxes, a trimmer state, and faster economic expansion. The question of whether Conservative policymakers are staking out a new economic direction or moving onto terrain that Farage's party has already claimed as its own has emerged as a point of contention between the two parties.
