Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting a seven-acre field he bought for his parents into a trust structure to avoid inheritance tax. The Prime Minister flatly rejected the allegation when asked directly, responding: "No, I didn't."
The Labour leader bought the land behind his parents' house in Surrey in 1996 for £20,000 to create a donkey sanctuary. His motivation was deeply personal - his mother was seriously ill and could no longer move around easily, but she loved donkeys and he wanted her to continue seeing them.
Personal motivation behind purchase
Starmer described his mother's deteriorating condition in emotional terms during a BBC interview. "My mum was very ill and she couldn't move around anymore," he said. "She, by the end of her life, had her leg amputated and she could barely communicate. She was very, very ill."
The field purchase was designed to bring comfort to his dying mother. "She loved her donkeys and I wanted her to be able to see her donkeys," Starmer explained. "I was a lawyer, I had quite a lot of money, I bought a field for £20,000 at the back of their house."
His father built special access for his wheelchair-bound wife. "My dad built a little sort of porchway so he could wheel the wheelchair out so she could touch the donkeys," Starmer recalled. "That's what it was for."
Trust allegations dismissed
The Sunday Times had reported that Starmer gave the land to his parents through a structure that would exclude the field's value from their estate when they died. The Prime Minister dismissed this as absurd given the modest sum involved.
"The idea of setting up some complicated trust for a £20,000 agricultural field which then housed four donkeys?" he said. He told his parents: "Here's your field. It's yours for as long as you may live."
Legal technicalities explained
Starmer has previously told the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that he "immediately gifted the land" to his parents. However, he clarified an important legal distinction: "But I did not transfer the legal title - that remained with me."
The Prime Minister sold the Oxted, Surrey plot in 2022, according to his statement to the commissioner. The field had served its purpose after his parents' deaths, providing comfort to his mother in her final years.
Sources used: "BBC", "The Sunday Times", "Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
