Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made on the number of family owned businesses who will be impacted by the proposed changes to (a) Business Property Relief and (b) Agricultural Property Relief in Paisley and Renfrewshire North constituency.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms. The Chancellor also recently wrote to the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee about the reforms to Agricultural Property Relief: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/45691/documents/226235/default/.

It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates across the UK will be affected by the changes to APR and BPR in 2026-27, with around half of those being claims that involve AIM shares. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) are expected to be unaffected by these reforms.

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

The number of affected estates, meaning how many estates making relief claims that would pay more inheritance tax as a result of the change, is affected by who the owners of any businesses are, how many owners there are, any borrowing they have, and how they plan their affairs. Without such information, which the Government does not hold at the UK Parliamentary Constituency level, area level assessments cannot be made.