The budget may still be more than six weeks away, but rumours of U-turns and changes are already in full swing.

Over the last few days, there have been multiple reports that those inside Whitehall are considering tweaks to the controversial inheritance tax (IHT) reforms on farms announced this time last year.

Plans to introduce a 20% tax on estates worth more than £1m drew tens of thousands to protest in London, many fearing huge tax bills that would force small farms to sell up for good.

Now there are reports the tax threshold could be increased from £1m to £5m (£10m for a married couple) – a shift that would remove smaller farms from being liable to pay.

Senior figures in farming have long believed a rise could be the solution to save the smaller farms and it would satisfy most.

However under the proposals, the 50% relief on IHT would be removed for farms above the new threshold.

That means bigger farms, responsible for producing a large amount of produce in our supermarkets, could bear the brunt of the tax burden with the Treasury potentially increasing revenues.

Two senior farming figures told me today that while a threshold increase is welcome, it does nothing to solve an “insolvable” problem.

Read more: What’s the beef with farmers’ inheritance tax?

Big farms have more land to sell, but then they become smaller farms and either produce less, or even divide up, to avoid the tax entirely.

Richard Cornock runs a small dairy farm in south Gloucestershire, which has been in his family since 1822.

He hopes to pass it on to his son Harry, who is now 14 and training to become a farm manager.

“I’ve been under so much stress like most farmers worrying about this tax,” he said. “And I really hope they do push the boundaries on the thresholds, because the million pounds they propose at the moment is ridiculous.

“It’s been on my mind the whole time to be honest. I even looked into getting life insurance to insure my life and I can’t get it because I had a heart condition. And that was one way I thought I might be able to cover my kids…”

We paused our chat as he was too upset to continue – an illustration of the stress farmers like him have been under over the last 12 months.

The government says it won’t comment on “speculation” about any possible changes, but it has previously defended the IHT reform, saying most estates would not pay and that those who will be liable can spread payments over a decade.

Labour is under pressure to do something to appease the angry farmers, a rural vote that turned from the Conservatives at the last election.

I ask Richard whether any tweak or row back on IHT will restore faith in Labour?

“The damage has been done,” he says.

Israel says Hamas has handed over the first seven hostages to the Red Cross to be released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

The remaining Israeli hostages are being released by Hamas after being held in Gaza for more than two years, in exchange for over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The Red Cross will drive the hostages to Israeli security forces, who will take them into Israel, where they will be reunited with family and flown by helicopter to hospitals.

Follow the latest updates here

Tens of thousands of Israelis watched the transfers at public screenings across the country.

The families and friends of hostages broke out into cheers as Israeli TV channels announced the hostages were in the hands of the Red Cross.

Israel previously said that of the 251 initially taken captive in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, 20 of the hostages that remained in Gaza were thought to be alive, 26 were presumed dead, and the fate of two was unknown.

The 20 hostages are all men aged between 20 and 48, who have spent more than two years in captivity.

As part of the first phase of US President Donald Trump‘s ceasefire agreement, Hamas was given 72 hours to release all the Israeli hostages, alive and dead.

The agreed ceasefire started at midday local time (10am UK time) on Friday, with tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians moving back towards northern Gaza, which was mostly destroyed by Israel.

Read more:
Inside rooms where hostages will spend first nights of freedom
Britain has been playing a role behind scenes of Trump’s deal

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Who are the hostages to be freed?

Hamas has released a list of the 20 living hostages it will free. Tap on their pictures to read more about them:

Once all the hostages are released, Israel is expected to free 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 Gazans detained after the 7 October attacks.

A second phase of the plan, which all sides have yet to agree on, could see Israeli troops further withdrawing from Gaza.

Trump says ‘war is over’

Mr Trump boarded Air Force One in Washington on Sunday to fly to Israel.

“The war is over,” he said. Asked about prospects for the region, he added: “I think it’s going to normalise.”

The US president will receive a hero’s welcome when he addresses Israel’s parliament on Monday. He will be awarded Israel’s highest civilian honour later this year, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.

Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation, with airstrikes and ground assaults devastating much of the enclave, killing more than 67,000, according to its Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half of those killed were women and children.

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Sir Keir Starmer will join world leaders at a historic summit in Egypt today – to witness the signing of the Gaza peace plan to end two years of conflict, bloodshed and suffering that has cost tens of thousands of lives and turned Gaza into a wasteland.

Travelling over to Egypt, flanked by his national security adviser Jonathan Powell, the prime minister told me it was a “massive moment” and one that is genuinely historic.

US President Donald Trump moved decisively last week to end this bloody war, pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas into a ceasefire as part of his 20-point peace plan.

In the flurry of the following 48 hours, Sir Keir and another 20 or so leaders were invited to Egypt to bear witness to the signing of this deal, with many of them deserving some credit for the effort they made to bring this deal around – not least the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who pressed Hamas to sign up to this deal.

Today, the remaining 20 living hostages are finally set to be released, along with the bodies of another 28 who were either killed or died in captivity, and aid is due to flow back into a starving Gaza.

Some 1,200 Israelis were killed on 7 October 2023, with another 250 taken hostage. In the subsequent war, most of Gaza’s two million population has been displaced. More than 67,000 Gazans have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.

Then, the signing ceremony is due to take place this afternoon in Sharm el Sheikh. It will be a momentous moment after a long and bloody war.

But it is only just the beginning of a long process to rebuild Gaza and try to secure a lasting peace in the region.

The immediate focus for the UK and other nations will be to get aid into Gaza, with the UK committing £20m for water, sanitation and hygiene services for Gazans.

But the focus for the UK and other European allies is what happens after the hostages are released and Israel withdraws its troops.

What happens next is a much bigger and more complicated task: rebuilding Gaza; turning it into a terrorist-free zone; governing Gaza – the current plan is for a temporary apolitical committee; creating an international stabilisation force and all the tensions that could bring about – which troops each side would allow in; a commitment for Israel not to occupy or annex Gaza, even as Netanyahu makes plain his opposition to that plan.

The scale of the challenge is matched by the scale of devastation caused by this brutal war.

The prime minister will set out his ambition for the UK to play a leading role in the next phase of the peace plan.

Back home, the UK is hosting a three-day conference on Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction.

Last week, France hosted European diplomats and key figures from Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – and later this week, the German chancellor is hoping to organise a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza with the Egyptians.

But in reality, European leaders know the key to phase two remains the key to phase one, and that’s Donald Trump.

As one UK figure put it to me over the weekend: “There is lots of praise, rightly, for the US president, who got this over the line, but the big challenge for us post-war is implementing the plan. Clearly, Arab partners are concerned the US will lose focus.”

The prime minister knows this and has made a point, at every point, to praise Mr Trump.

His cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson learned that diplomatic lesson the hard way yesterday when she was publicly lambasted by the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for suggesting to my colleague Trevor Phillips that the UK “had played a key role behind the scenes” and failed to mention Mr Trump by name.

“I assure you she is delusional,” tweeted Governor Huckabee. “She can thank @realDonaldTrump anytime just to set the record straight”.

Today, leaders will rightly be praising Mr Trump for securing the breakthrough to stop the fighting and get the remaining hostages home.

But this is only the beginning of a very long journey ahead to push through the rest of the 19-point plan and stop the region from falling back into conflict.

Britain has, I am told, been playing a role behind the scenes. The PM’s national security adviser Mr Powell was in Egypt last week and has been in daily touch with his US counterpart Steve Witkoff, according to government sources. Next week the King of Jordan will come to the UK.

Part of the UK’s task will be to get more involved, with the government and European partners keen to get further European representation on Trump’s temporary governance committee for Gaza, which Tony Blair (who was not recommended or endorsed by the UK) is on and Mr Trump will chair.

The committee will include other heads of states and members, including qualified Palestinians and international experts.

As for the former prime minister’s involvement, there hasn’t been an overt ringing endorsement from the UK government.

It’s helpful to have Mr Blair at the table because he can communicate back to the current government, but equally, as one diplomatic source put it to me: “While a lot of people in the Middle East acknowledge his experience, expertise and contact book, they don’t like him and we need – sooner rather than later – other names included that Gulf partners can get behind.”

Today it will be the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that sign off on the peace plan they directly negotiated, as other Middle Eastern and European leaders, who have flown into Sharm el Sheikh to bear witness, look on.

But in the coming days and weeks, there will need to be a big international effort, led by Mr Trump, not just to secure the peace, but to keep it.