§ Mr. Mike O'BrienTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many landowners nationally have been granted exemption from part of inheritance tax under agreements to allow access to land or other public benefits; and what was the total cost of that concession.
§ Mr. DorrellThere have been 126 designations of land for conditional exemption from inheritance tax or capital 759W transfer tax in England and Wales and 26 designations in Scotland. In addition, there have been 109 designations of historic buildings in England and Wales and 37 designations in Scotland. Some of the designations of historic buildings will have extended to surrounding land. Some designations of historic buildings have been for the purposes of the tax exemptions for maintenance funds rather than for exemption of the buildings themselves.
The annual average cost of inheritance tax conditional exemption for land and buildings is estimated to have been between £5 million and £10 million over the period 1983–84 to 1992–93.
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many landowners in north Warwickshire have been granted exemption from portions of inheritance tax under agreements to allow access to land and other public benefits; and what was the total value of that concession.
§ Mr. DorrellFigures are not available on a constituency basis, but, in Warwickshire, fewer than five properties benefited from exemption from inheritance tax or capital transfer tax. The normal rules of taxpayer confidentiality prevent me from giving more precise information.
The national estimates of the cost of conditional exemption represent a broad judgment of the overall cost and are subject to a large margin of error. Where exemption is given, it is not necessary to establish the value of individual properties and it is not possible to estimate the cost of the small number of exemptions in Warwickshire.