Badenoch Pledges £1m Inheritance Tax Exemption for Couples and Family Homes

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged that couples would be able to leave £1 million, including the family home, exempt from inheritance tax under a future Conservative government, according to a live politics blog from the Guardian covering the party's conference.

The pledge formed part of a wide-ranging conference speech in which Badenoch also took aim at rivals including Labour leader Keir Starmer, Reform leader Nigel Farage and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, according to the Guardian's coverage.

Earlier in the conference programme, shadow home secretary Chris Philp addressed delegates on crime and justice policy, referencing the party's pledge to build 50,000 new prison places and comparing colleague Nick Timothy to the children's television character Bob the Builder in connection with that commitment. Philp criticised the record of the current government, citing figures including reduced police numbers, limits on the use of stop and search, and a high proportion of unsolved crime, while arguing that public institutions had, in his view, been affected by what he described as "radical identity politics."

Philp also said illegal immigrants and foreign nationals convicted of crimes were, in his assessment, not being deported at a sufficient rate, framing the Conservative platform as a corrective to what he characterised as failures under the current government.

The conference speeches came as the Conservative Party continues to position itself against Labour, Reform UK and other parties ahead of future electoral contests, with inheritance tax, crime policy and immigration enforcement emerging as central themes of this year's gathering.