Jeremy Hunt has promised to voluntarily pay more capital gains tax on his properties so that he does not benefit from a tax cut he introduced.

The chancellor refused to disclose how many houses he owned but said he would pay a higher tax rate on any proceeds from selling his property.

Asked on ITV’s Peston programme on Wednesday night how many houses he had, Hunt said: “These are personal questions.”

When announcing a capital gains tax cut in the budget on Wednesday, Hunt aimed a jibe at Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, who has faced questions about the sale of her former council house. “I see the deputy leader of the Labour party paying close attention, given her multiple dwellings,” he said.

Hunt cut the rate of capital gains tax paid by higher-rate taxpayers when selling second homes from 28% to 24%.

Asked whether he himself would benefit from this, Hunt told Peston: “In fact I won’t benefit from the CGT change because I took that decision and I have decided that, when it comes to the properties I own, it would be wrong to benefit from a direct decision like that, so I will pay tax at the previous rate.” He confirmed that he would voluntarily pay 28% capital gains tax if he sold one of his properties.

Pressed on why he wouldn’t say how many houses he had when he had joked about the sale of Rayner’s home in the Commons, Hunt said: “I was teasing Angela Rayner. We declare all these things.”

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According to the ministerial register of interests, Hunt and his wife own Mare Pond Properties Limited, a property holding company. His parliamentary interests say this includes seven apartments in Southampton.

The chancellor also owns a half share of a holiday house in Italy and a half share of an office building in London, according to his declarations. His ministerial register states that some proceeds from his “residential investment property” are donated to charity.

It comes after Downing Street revealed that the prime minister was recused from policy talks on the scrapping of the non-dom tax status to avoid any conflict of interest.

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, who owns shares in Infosys, the Indian IT company founded by her father, is a non-domiciled UK resident, which means she does not have to pay UK taxes on her overseas income.

After her non-dom tax status was revealed while Sunak was chancellor, Murty announced she would voluntarily pay UK tax on all her worldwide income.

• Budget 2024 (spring)
• Jeremy Hunt
• Capital gains tax
• Conservatives
• news