Council tax and stamp duty are “unfair and unpopular” English taxes that should be abolished, says the economist who devised the Covid furlough scheme.

Tim Leunig, who has advised a series of cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak during his prime ministership, said it was time for a new and radical approach that would axe the two taxes and replace them with proportional levies.

With figures across the political spectrum calling on the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to think radically about fairer tax as she contemplates which tax increases to implement as part of her autumn budget, Leunig said there was no justification for retaining council tax.

He said that under the existing system, it was the case that “a terraced house in Burnley pays more than a mansion in Kensington”.

Council tax has come in for heavy criticism from economists because it is based on property prices 33 years ago. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) ridiculed a system based on the value of homes ‘when Mikhail Gorbachev was president of the Soviet Union.’