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, and especially if you are thinking about moving home, it is perhaps the new cabinet that we should pay more attention to overall. There is, as yet, no housing policy from this government, but the individuals taking the top jobs can help us paint a picture of what to expect.
What we have had so far is a maiden speech, a reshuffled top table, and plenty of material that helps us read between the lines.
Here is our attempt to make sense of it all, from where we’re sitting.
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 surfaced two distinct themes. The first was devolution; shifting power, budgets and decision-making away from Westminster and out to regional authorities. He talked of wanting to "take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land."
From another politician this might be another soundbite, but coming from Andy Burnham, a man who spent seven years as Mayor of Greater Manchester, and who is a strong proponent for unitary authorities, this felt a lot more like stated intent.
The second item was more than just intent; it was a pledge: to end rough sleeping in the UK.
He told us all that he was heading inside Number 10, and this 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 all something about 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. A common thread ran through it: 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 about a removal of VAT on household electricity bills to do just that. By the end of the day, we also knew it was unfunded!
We can put all these things together and start to determine a direction of travel, even if wider housing policy currently lacks 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, lack of funding set to one side, that he seems to wish to hit the ground running, and be seen to do so.
How this plays out in Lambeth and Southwark, within the wider Greater London Authority, is something that remains to be seen – but as these are the two local authority areas that cover Herne Hill, it is something that we at Petermans, as local SE24 estate agents, will be paying close attention to.
We might have expected Burnham to start off with a clean slate. That’s not what we’ve got.
Fresh from an HMRC investigation which cleared her of deliberate wrongdoing, Angela Rayner is back as Housing Secretary, the role she held before stepping down due to an investigation into unpaid stamp duty affair. Matthew Pennycook stays on as Housing Minister, the position he's held since July 2024, which at least 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 remains. But the clock is running down – and the shortfall is significant.
Our reading is that the emphasis may tilt further toward social housing and even new council housing rather than general market housebuilding as they attempt to close this gap. Why? Because Burnham has form here, having repeatedly pushed council house delivery as Mayor of Greater Manchester. You also have to wonder if this could lead to more compulsory purchase orders to acquire sites, given the end user, in an effort to speed things up.
John Healey has been appointed as the new Chancellor, which may be significant.
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's almost always voted for increasing income tax over the past 15 years, backed higher capital gains tax on the handful of occasions it's come to a vote, and voted against raising VAT.
He also backed a one-off "mansion tax" style levy on high-value homes back in 2013. That's a single episode rather than a recurring theme, so perhaps it's more indicative than definitive.
He's previously served as a housing minister and, as shadow housing minister, argued that stamp duty was unfair on first-time buyers, particularly those buying through shared ownership.
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 are under 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.
Given the average house price in Herne Hill, you can imagine the impact of this here would be a lot more keenly felt – and by people who are not necessarily cash-rich.
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, the effect would be regionally uneven. Homeowners in London and the South East, where values are highest, would likely 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 upfront 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.
That is the case here in Herne Hill; our average property sale price over the past 12 months has been £754,052; that is therefore an average of £27,702.60 stamp duty.
If stamp duty is removed, it could definitely loosen up the market – not least here in Herne Hill.
There are a few other threads worth keeping an eye on 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.
At the same time, the base rate has held at 3.75% for several months and there are positive signs it might hold again at the next MPC meeting on July 30, with inflation just announced to have 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 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 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.
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