Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2025 on Question 25795 on Agriculture and Business: Inheritance Tax, how many of the 2,000 estates will contain woodlands.

Woodlands may be eligible for certain inheritance tax reliefs and exemptions, depending on the type of woodland and its purpose. Guidance is available at www.gov.uk/guidance/woodland-owners-tax-guidance.

It is estimated that a total of around 2,000 estates will pay more inheritance tax in 2026-27 following the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief. The previous answer outlined that around half of those estates are expected to only hold shares designated as not listed on recognised stock exchanges, such as the Alternative Investment Market. While estates include supporting documentation about the type of assets on which they claim these reliefs when submitting their claims, only the value of eligible assets is digitally captured in a format available for further analysis. As such, this level of detail is not available from historic claims to estimate how many future estates might contain woodland.