Amid denials on his leadership ambitions, writing in The Telegraph, Rees-Mogg also criticised his party’s electoral campaign as “managerial” adding that the snap poll had lacked “inspiration”.
Rees-Mogg called for the abolition of weighty taxes on house moving, towers like Grenfell to be demolished and “scarcely competent monopolies” such as the energy market blown open.
He made a plea for tax cuts for homeowners, saying government “must go with the grain of what the people want”.
Ian Duncan Smith began the calls to reverse the 3% Stamp Duty hike followed by one of former chancellor George Osborne’s ex-housing policy advisers, Alex Morton, who despite bringing the move in has now branded the controversial increase “a mistake”.
Morton said a reversal would send the right signal to young and old voters and flagged the fact the Conservatives had never won a majority in an election without an offer on homeownership and called for a 2% Stamp Duty cut across the board.
The Stamp Duty surcharge has been credited with slowing the overall buy-to-let market by 23%, according to Nationwide last week.
Since 2010, there have been no less than six changes to the UK Stamp Duty structure, with no levy under £250,000 introduced in 2010 for first-time buyers, which lasted until January 2012, a five per cent rate for £1m properties and most lately the 3% second home surcharge in April 2016.
