Voters have said no to a death tax four times. If PM thinks they have changed their mind, he must call an election: ROBERT JENRICK

Published: 23:00, 27 July 2026 | Updated: 00:47, 28 July 2026 Like Andy Burnham, I know what it's like to care for an elderly loved one. When I was growing up, my grandmother Dorothy was diagnosed with a terminal case of the lung condition emphysema. Defying the odds, she lived for another nine years and, throughout that time, Nana Dorothy lived with my mum, dad, sister and me. They weren't easy years. There was the oxygen tank, the prescriptions to collect, the hospital appointments to drive her to. Essentially, my mother was Nana's full-time carer, and my father, my sister and I did what we could to help. But many older people won't be lucky enough to have a relative as loving or caring as my mother. So I don't doubt that Andy Burnham – whose own father has Alzheimer's and lives in a care home – is sincere in wanting to ensure all elderly people have access to the appropriate level of care. But his proposals aren't going to work in practice and they're going to hurt the very people he wants to help. In short, the Prime Minister, who has not won a general election, wants Westminster to seize the job of providing social care from councils. He'll then massively expand the sector, and to pay for this, he'll introduce a new death tax. To pay for massively expanding the social care sector, Burnham is likely to introduce a new death tax Plenty of older people are far from wealthy. My grandmother, for one, grew up in Liverpool, left school aged 13 and served as a volunteer fire warden during the Blitz around St Paul's Cathedral. When she died, her estate wouldn't have reached the £325,000 inheritance tax threshold. Despite her modest means, she saved what she could. Not for herself but so that she could fulfil what she saw as her duty: to pass on a little to her family. Under Andy Burnham's proposals, the sum of all the elements of her estate – her savings account, the jar of coins she kept in her room, her jewellery – would be taxed at 10 per cent. Currently, less than one in 20 estates pays inheritance tax –but Burnham's regressive levy would be paid by everyone. According to Reform's calculations, some 650,000 families per year would be dragged into paying a tax when the homeowner dies. This measure – Burnham's poll tax – would hit the tiny bungalow and the ex-council flat just as hard as a great country pile. It's every pensioner's worst nightmare. Of course, it's not hard to see why Burnham is reaching for this lever: Labour MPs have repeatedly shown themselves incapable of cutting wasteful spending. Reform UK has set out how we would make £45billion of savings by cutting the spiralling benefits bill, ending ridiculous Net Zero subsidies, slashing foreign aid for rich countries and tackling the illegal migrant crisis. But Burnham knows that if he tries to enact any of these obvious savings, his backbenchers will turn against him. Just as they did with Starmer. So he's trapped. Unable to borrow more because of spiralling interest charges. Unable to cut spending because of his own MPs. The path of least resistance is to raise tax. Again. The care budget is already around £34.5 billion. The Health Foundation estimates the universal provision of social care he is proposing would add another £18 billion by 2035. There is no money to pay for this. The Resolution Foundation, a Labour-leaning think-tank, reckons the pledges of the Prime Minister's first week have cut the Government's fiscal headroom – the buffer the Chancellor has before he breaches spending rules – from £23.6 billion to £8 billion. I don't fault Burnham for trying to improve social care. It's a noble goal. But having moved himself into Downing Street without an election, he has no right to help himself to the nest eggs that my grandmother, and millions like her, spent a lifetime saving. Nothing was as important as family to my Nana. What she had, she gave to us. As her health failed, the thought that her grandchildren would inherit something – no matter how small – gave her great joy. But this tax would have robbed her of that consolation. As it would hundreds of thousands of pensioners each year. Perhaps that's why every time this idea – death taxes to pay for social care – has been put to the country, it has been rejected. As health secretary, Burnham proposed the same levy on estates in 2010: Labour lost the election. He pressed for it again before the 2015 election and Labour lost. Theresa May floated her own version, the so-called 'dementia tax' of 2017, and – despite reversing it four days later – she lost her majority. Labour had a third go with proposals for a National Care Service in 2019; it suffered its worst defeat since 1935. Four times this idea has gone before the British people. Four times they have said no. If Burnham thinks they've changed their mind, he should ask. Call an election – and let the country answer the question for a fifth time. Robert Jenrick is Reform UK's Treasury spokesman. DAILY MAIL COMMENT: King of the North is rapidly turning into a robber baron