§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list by English county and by unitary authority in Wales and Scotland the number of landowners who receive conditional exemption from inheritance tax by virtue of an agreement to allow public access. [26523]
§ Dawn Primarolo[holding answer 30 January 1998]: The information requested is as follows:
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Number of owners1 England Cornwall 12 Cumbria 31 Devon 25 Dorset 27 Gloucestershire 36 Hampshire 7 Herefordshire 9 Kent 14 Lancashire 11 Norfolk 7 North Yorkshire 11 Northamptonshire 25 Northumberland 12 Oxfordshire 13 Shropshire 11 Suffolk 18
Number of owners1 Wiltshire 22 Wales2 Gwynedd 5 Powys 14 Scotland2 Argyll 7 Dumfries and Galloway 10 East Lothian 17 1 These figures reflect conditional exemptions from inheritance tax and capital transfer tax. Some properties are owned by more than one person. To protect taxpayer confidentiality, information is only given by counties where there are five or more conditional exemption designations. There is a total of 154 owners in counties where there are less than five designations. 2 The information is not held by new local government boundaries.
§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many landowners who have received conditional exemption from inheritance tax by virtue of public access to land have withdrawn from the scheme since its inception. [26490]
§ Dawn PrimaroloConditional exemption ceases to apply when the owner of an exempt asset fails to observe the relevant undertakings in a material respect. The failure could be due to a number of reasons including, for example, an owner voluntarily withdrawing from the scheme. Since 1983 (the earliest year for which information is available), there have been 23 cases where land has ceased to be conditionally exempt from inheritance tax, or its predecessor, capital transfer tax.