Londoners who aren't rich face paying mansion tax due to housing crisis, says Labour by-election candidate

Londoners who do not feel rich face having to pay mansion tax because of the capital’s “housing crisis”, Labour’s candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election has said. But there have been reports Mr Healey is contemplating bringing this down to £1.5 million. All but one of the top 20 constituencies that would be most affected by the tax are in London, according to analysis by estate agency Hamptons, including Holborn and St Pancras, where one in five homes is valued at £1.5 million or more. Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali told the Standard: “I understand that there are some homes here that are a certain level of price where people don't necessarily feel rich and there would be a pressure on them. “And I definitely want to make sure those people are listened to and supported. “But I also think we do live in, we are living through a housing crisis, and anything that can alleviate the pressure for the vast majority of people in this situation and improve the housing crisis is really important to look at.”The mansion tax has become a campaigning issue in the hotly contested by-election, where Green Party leader Zack Polanski is seeking to oust Labour in the seat vacated by Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Polanski has suggested he is against the move and would prefer a “wealth tax” placed on the richest Britons over the mansion levy, which Labour has said is being introduced to make Britain’s council tax system fairer and raise up to £430 million a year for the Treasury.The Conservatives on Tuesday vowed to scrap the tax if the party wins the next election. Shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, said: “Labour have already come for the family farm and the family business. Now they are coming for the family home. “People who have worked hard to buy their home and have lived in it for years will face huge tax bills, and many will have no way to pay. “Labour’s own figures say it will knock value off people’s homes, and will raise less than 1 per cent of what council tax brings in.”Read MoreIn Kensington and Bayswater, the most impacted constituency in the country, an extra 3,000 households would be dragged into paying the new tax if the threshold were brought down to £1.5 million from £2 million. Hampstead and Highgate had the second highest number of homes that would be hit, followed by Chelsea and Fulham. London MPs are “quietly confident” he will roll back plans to expand the levy to all homes worth more than £1.5 million after their appeals to the Treasury. “We are quietly confident it will not be brought down to £1.5 million,” a London Labour source told the Standard. “That would hit almost all family homes in Zones One to Three. It makes no sense in London.”