Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting a seven-acre field he bought into a trust, in a move which would have meant he did not pay inheritance tax.<\/p>\n
The UK prime minister bought the land behind his parents\u2019 house in 1996 to use as a donkey sanctuary, so his mother and father could care for the animals.<\/p>\n
The Sunday Times reported he gave the land to his parents through a structure which meant when they died, the field\u2019s value was excluded from their estate.<\/p>\n
Asked if he put the land into a trust, Mr Starmer replied: \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told the BBC\u2019s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: \u201cI bought a field for my mum and my dad because they loved donkeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mum was very ill and she couldn\u2019t move around anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe, by the end of her life, had her leg amputated and she could barely communicate.<\/p>\n
She loved her donkeys and I wanted her to be able to see her donkeys. I was a lawyer, I had quite a lot of money, I bought a field for \u00a320,000 at the back of their house<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer, speaking about her mother<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was very, very ill.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe loved her donkeys and I wanted her to be able to see her donkeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a lawyer, I had quite a lot of money, I bought a field for \u00a320,000 at the back of their house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018here\u2019s your field. It\u2019s yours for as long as you may live.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Starmer later added: \u201cThe idea of setting up some complicated trust for a \u00a320,000 agricultural field which then housed four donkeys?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so my mum, she was able to \u2013 they had a little outhouse at the edge of the field \u2013 and she was able, in the end, to see the donkeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad built a little sort of porchway so he could wheel the wheelchair out so she could touch the donkeys. That\u2019s what it was for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave it to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Starmer has previously told the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that he \u201cimmediately gifted the land\u201d to his parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I did not transfer the legal title \u2013 that remained with me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The prime minister sold the Oxted, Surrey, plot in 2022, he told the commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting a seven-acre field he bought into a trust, in a move which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175],"class_list":["post-61591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}