Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of changes to business property relief on (a) plant hire companies and (b) the ability of those companies to help meet housebuilding targets.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms.

It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR in 2026-27.

In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.

The Budget set out a series of new investments to kickstart the biggest increase to social and affordable housebuilding in a generation. This is an important step to providing the conditions needed for the market to deliver 1.5 million homes - homes that are desperately needed.

To deliver on the commitment to get Britain building the government added £500 million to the Affordable Homes Programme in 2025-26, increasing it to £3.1 billion, the biggest annual budget for affordable housing in over a decade. This is part of over £5 billion total housing investment in 2025-26 to boost supply.

This package helps provide certainty for investors ahead of the government’s long-term housing strategy which will be published alongside Phase 2 of the Spending Review.