Stamp Duty could be cut on homes where energy improvements have been carried out.

Energy minister Claire Perry told the BBC that the cut could be an incentive to “encourage home owners” to implement energy-saving measures.

As things stand, it is of course buyers who would benefit, as they are the ones who pay Stamp Duty and not sellers.

Either the minister did not know this, or her belief that a cut in Stamp Duty would incentivise home owners could be an early if currently unlikely indication that responsibility for paying tax will be swapped from purchaser to vendor.

The likelihood is, however, that the message to vendors will be that if they have not put eco-measures in place, their home will be harder to sell. The Government would have to persuade them of the pay-off of doing what could be expensive improvements are the point of sale – especially when it will not be sellers who benefit from lower energy bills.

While the incentive to purchasers would be less tax to pay on their purchase, the purchase itself could cost them more.

Perry said: “It’s more likely that a home where insulation has been put in would attract a higher value, because the running cost of that home over the lifetime of ownership would be lower.”

She said the Government wants all of the UK’s housing stock to have at least a band C energy rating by 2035.

The application of Stamp Duty is devolved around the UK, so any Stamp Duty cut would only apply to energy efficient homes in England.