Finance Bill returns to Parliament: What you need to know
CLA continues to campaign against damaging inheritance tax changes
The Finance Bill returns to Parliament tomorrow for its report stage, again allowing for MPs to amend the legislation and vote on changes.
While this appears an opportunity to further lobby against the proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR), it will unfortunately have very limited results.
The Government climbdown before Christmas was extremely welcome but it is apparent this is as far as it is willing to concede and as far as Labour rebels are willing to stick their necks out. Meaning that although the amendments debated tomorrow are worthwhile and are necessary for debate, the Government has the parliamentary numbers to vote them all down.
Regardless, the CLA has continued to meet with MPs and Peers on the topic but we have to pragmatic about any chance of success on amendments. We have been busy briefing MPs ahead of the debate, on the devastating impact that the changes to APR and BPR will have on investment and growth in the rural economy.
We have also proposed several sensible amendments such as extending the amount of time before any tax is paid, from 6 months after the death to 18 months to allow for probate to come through.
What next?
Following the debate, the Bill will leave the House of Commons and enter the House of Lords for debate. Parliamentary procedure doesn’t allow the House of Lords to amend or change legislation relating to taxation. So tomorrow will be the last opportunity the Bill has to be changed before it is set to become law.
We are transitioning our lobbying on APR/BPR to a new longer-term phase, where we will prioritise getting this legislation overturned at the next general election. This will require working with the opposition parties now, and highlighting the real impacts that these changes will have on family businesses.
