Fact check: The window tax was abolished in 1851

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A widely spread social media post has claimed that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning a new window tax.

The post claimed that privately owned homes would have to pay £3.70 per window every month from August 2025.

Evaluation

There is zero evidence that the Chancellor is planning to bring in a window tax.

The facts

The PA news agency performed several searches trying to identify any reliable source which said the Government was introducing a window tax.

The searches yielded no results.

The last time Rachel Reeves mentioned the word “window” in a speech in Parliament was in March 2023, when she was still in opposition. At that time she said: “The roof is leaking, the windows are rotten and the foundations are suffering from subsidence. The Tories are totally incapable of building the country and economy that we need.”

She has mentioned the word window on another four occasions during speeches in Parliament. None of them were about a window tax.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones has said the word “window” twice in speeches in Parliament. Once was about a “window of opportunity” and another was “keeping windows and doors closed during hot weather”.

PA checked the speeches for all five of the other ministers in the Treasury and none of them had mentioned a window tax in any of their speeches – either before or after becoming ministers.

In fact the last time that the window tax was mentioned in Parliament was in July 2020 during a discussion about stamp duty – a tax paid on house purchases.

That discussion in 2020 was not about re-introducing a window tax.

A window tax was first imposed in England in 1696 where households would have to pay a tax if they had more than a certain number of windows – initially 10. The window tax was repealed in 1851.

The Treasury said: “This is fake news and misinformation being shared on social media. We are not going to introduce a window tax.”