On Monday 20 July 2026, Andy Burnham became the UK's seventh Prime Minister in a decade, taking over from Keir Starmer in a transition that played out entirely within the Labour Party. No election, no manifesto, no contest – just a coronation.
A new party leader on Friday, a new Prime Minister by Monday and, by teatime, a new Cabinet.
If you are a homeowner, landlord, or a prospective buyer, it is perhaps the new cabinet that we should pay more attention to overall. There is, as yet, no clear new housing policy from this government, but the individuals taking the top jobs can help us paint a picture of what to expect.
All we have really had so far is a maiden speech, a new top table and a couple of early policy announcements.
What all that gives us, however, is plenty of material to help us read between the lines.
Burnham's first speech as Prime Minister was delivered outside that famous black front door in Downing Street. It didn’t tell us a huge amount in detail, but it revealed two distinct and clear themes. The first was devolution; shifting power, budgets and decision-making away from Westminster and out to regional authorities – talk of wanting to "take power out of [Westminster] and carry it into every postcode in the land."
From another politician that might be just another soundbite, but from Andy Burnham, a man who spent seven years as Mayor of Greater Manchester, and who is known to be a strong proponent of unitary authorities, this felt a lot more like stated intent.
With Oxfordshire and West Berkshire restructuring from seven local authority areas to three unitary councils, including a ‘Greater Oxford Council’, this is a policy direction we can expect to feel the impact of in a very real way; the how of that, of course, is yet to be seen. Might it mean more housebuilding on green belt surrounding Oxford to meet the city’s housing need? Might villages such as Berinsfield and Radley, and small towns such as Kidlington, find their quota of housebuilding increase in order to provide homes for people who work in Oxford, now that they find themselves part of the Greater Oxford Council having previously fallen under South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and Cherwell District?
The second item that came up in that maiden speech signalled more than just intent; it was a pledge: to end rough sleeping in the UK.
It would be his first instruction to his government, and within hours an extra £340 million had been earmarked for it.
This is not something that directly affects housing – not in a market-moving way. It's a values statement, more than it is a housing one.
Nevertheless, it tells us where his instincts lie. More preventative, more interventionist, and comfortable with the state doing more, not less.
Burnham’s first cabinet meeting then took place on Tuesday 21 July 2026 and a striking thread ran through it, as he asked his ministers to ask themselves the question: what can we do as a government every day to make people’s lives just a little easier? How can we bring the cost of living down? How can we bring back hope?
By the end of that meeting we knew that VAT on household electricity bills was being removed in order to do just that. By the end of the day, we also knew it was unfunded! A little embarrassing for him, maybe – but probably forgivable by most, in these very early days.
In any case, it allows us to put these few things together to begin to determine a direction of travel, even if wider housing policy currently lacks any extra detail.
We are seeing a government that talks about consensus and local voice a lot more, while leaning further left on spending and intervention.
We can also see, funding questions aside, that he clearly wants to hit the ground running and, perhaps more to the point, he wants to be seen to be doing so.
So how could this play out in the new Greater Oxford, Northern Oxfordshire and Ridgeway Council areas?
Given their composition, could we see infrastructure policies geared towards green transport? Might we see a push for more sustainable or even zero-carbon housing developments? Will priority be given to social and council housing within the city, with private developers doing more in the wider area?
It is something that we at WEST-The Property Consultancy, as local Oxfordshire estate agents, will be paying very close attention to.
We might have expected Burnham to start off with a clean slate – but that’s not what we got.
Fresh from an HMRC investigation which didn’t quite exonerate but did clear her of deliberate wrongdoing, Angela Rayner is back in the role of Housing Secretary, having stepped down from this position due to that infamous investigation into unpaid stamp duty. It is an appointment that will certainly raise a few eyebrows, as well as ruffling a few feathers.
Matthew Pennycook stays on as Housing Minister, the position he's held since July 2024, which offers some continuity for anyone dealing with the department on planning reform or the Renters' Rights Act.
The commitment to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament currently remains. But the clock is running down – and the shortfall is significant.
We think that the emphasis on new building may tilt toward social housing and even new council housing rather than general market housebuilding, as they attempt to close this gap. Why do we think so? Because Burnham has form here. He repeatedly pushed council house delivery as Mayor of Greater Manchester.
You would also have to wonder if this could lead to more compulsory purchase orders to acquire sites, given who the stakeholders end-users would be – purely as part of an effort to speed things up.
John Healey has been appointed as the new Chancellor, which feels significant in itself when it comes to property and the way it might be taxed.
Healey is the former Defence Secretary who resigned from Starmer's Cabinet, pushing for higher defence spending – which many might see as a euphemism for higher taxes.
His voting record tells a story, too. He has almost always voted for increasing income tax over the past 15 years and has backed higher capital gains tax on the handful of occasions it's come to a vote, although we should note that he voted against raising VAT.
He also backed a one-off "mansion tax" style levy on high-value homes back in 2013. Indicative perhaps, more than definitive – but nevertheless, it is something that many Oxfordshire homeowners might be a little concerned about; the average property value across the South East of England has been £374,462 over the 12 months to May 2026, according to Land Registry data. In Oxford, that average rises to £490,739; but in North Oxford, along the Banbury and Woodstock Roads and the roads that come off them, through Park Town, Summertown, Walton and Kingston Manor and Jericho, the average house sale came in at just over £1 million. The top 10% of house sales averaged £3,384,121.
Properties in these postcodes are far more likely to be caught up in any widening of the so-called Mansion Tax.
This is a Chancellor with known reservations about stamp duty in its current form, who has shown an inclination to tax wealth as well as income. He arrives with a Treasury under pressure to find money without touching income tax, VAT or National Insurance, all of which Burnham has ruled out raising. That leaves wealth, capital gains and property as those areas likely to come under the closest scrutiny.
Two ideas seem to be already in play.
The government is reportedly progressing a High Value Council Tax Surcharge – an additional annual charge on the most expensive homes in England, layered on top of the existing system rather than replacing it.
Separately, and more radically, Burnham is understood to favour scrapping stamp duty and council tax altogether in favour of a single annual property tax based on value. One version we’ve seen floated is 0.48% of a property’s value, which equates to roughly £1,440 a year on a £300,000 home. In Oxford, based on local house prices, that will be closer to an average of £2,350 per year. In those OX1 and OX2 postcode areas mentioned above, it could look more like an average of £4,800 per year – or, for those top 10% properties, almost £16,000 per year.
These are two different proposals: a surcharge on top of the current system versus a wholesale replacement of it. We should avoid conflating the two as the story develops.
If something like the annual property tax model does land, many local homeowners are likely to face bigger annual bills than they are used to under council tax.
But the flip side of this tax policy matters just as much for anyone reading this who is thinking about moving home: removing stamp duty eliminates the single biggest barrier to moving, particularly for people trading up in the very areas where five- and sometimes even six-figure stamp duty bills currently deter people from moving at all.
When our average sale price over the past 12 months has been around that £490,000 here in Oxford, that has meant £14,500.00 stamp duty to most normal buyers (i.e. not second home buyers nor first-time buyers). At £1,000,000, as we can see much of North Oxford falls under, that average stamp duty rises to £41,250 for a normal residential buyer – and at £3,300,000, it comes in at £361,250.
If stamp duty is scrapped, even if it is to be brought under an annual property tax as detailed above, it could definitely loosen up the market – not least here in Oxford.
We think there are four issues worth watching over the coming weeks.
None of this changes what we'd tell you today: if you have a genuine reason to move, the fundamentals of that decision – your budget, your timeline, what is available to move to within the local market – haven't transformed overnight because of a change of Prime Minister. Any changes this government wishes to legislate for will involve some transition, and it is unlikely we will know much of anything before Healey’s first Budget address in the autumn at the earliest.
At the same time, the base rate has held at 3.75% for several months, and there are positive signs it will hold again at the next MPC meeting on July 30, with the news this week that inflation dropped from 2.8% to 2.6% in June – ever closer to the Bank of England’s 2% target.
Analysts still expect at least one base rate hike this year, due to pressures from the continued conflict in Iran, but most see it as more likely to come in September (see Forbes article here).
Nevertheless, just as it is sensible to keep an eye on what interest rates, mortgage rates and inflation do, it is equally sensible to watch for the patterns of policy direction, and – as mentioned – to keep a focus on the Autumn Budget in particular.
If stamp duty reform is coming, the difference between buying before and after any change could run into thousands of pounds.
We will keep you posted as soon as any further details arrive.
