Starmer accused of betraying farmers again
Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, said: “After slapping an unjust and disastrous inheritance tax on British farms, it comes as no surprise that Labour are continuing their betrayal of UK food producers. It’s almost as if they are trying to wipe the sector out entirely.”
Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, said: “This is another blow to the rural community, who Labour have already hit with their vindictive family farm tax.
“With record farm closures and farmers warning that this year could be their worst-ever harvest, they need a government that has their backs, not one quietly shelving every promise it made to rural Britain.
“Only the Conservatives will stand up for the countryside by protecting family farms, backing local produce and delivering real food security. As food prices rise under their watch, Labour simply can’t be trusted to support our countryside.”
Gareth Wyn Jones, a sheep farmer and campaigner from Llanfairfechan, in Conwy, said: “It’s a total disaster what’s happening to farming.
“It’s unbelievable that the Government has betrayed farmers again. This will affect all of us. We are sleepwalking into food shortages in the UK if we carry on as we are.”
Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, said: “After slapping an unjust and disastrous inheritance tax on British farms, it comes as no surprise that Labour are continuing their betrayal of UK food producers. It’s almost as if they are trying to wipe the sector out entirely.”
Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, said: “This is another blow to the rural community, who Labour have already hit with their vindictive family farm tax.
“With record farm closures and farmers warning that this year could be their worst-ever harvest, they need a government that has their backs, not one quietly shelving every promise it made to rural Britain.
“Only the Conservatives will stand up for the countryside by protecting family farms, backing local produce and delivering real food security. As food prices rise under their watch, Labour simply can’t be trusted to support our countryside.”
Gareth Wyn Jones, a sheep farmer and campaigner from Llanfairfechan, in Conwy, said: “It’s a total disaster what’s happening to farming.
“It’s unbelievable that the Government has betrayed farmers again. This will affect all of us. We are sleepwalking into food shortages in the UK if we carry on as we are.”
Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, said: “After slapping an unjust and disastrous inheritance tax on British farms, it comes as no surprise that Labour are continuing their betrayal of UK food producers. It’s almost as if they are trying to wipe the sector out entirely.”
Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, said: “This is another blow to the rural community, who Labour have already hit with their vindictive family farm tax.
“With record farm closures and farmers warning that this year could be their worst-ever harvest, they need a government that has their backs, not one quietly shelving every promise it made to rural Britain.
“Only the Conservatives will stand up for the countryside by protecting family farms, backing local produce and delivering real food security. As food prices rise under their watch, Labour simply can’t be trusted to support our countryside.”
Gareth Wyn Jones, a sheep farmer and campaigner from Llanfairfechan, in Conwy, said: “It’s a total disaster what’s happening to farming.
“It’s unbelievable that the Government has betrayed farmers again. This will affect all of us. We are sleepwalking into food shortages in the UK if we carry on as we are.”
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of a new “betrayal” of farmers over Labour’s failure to deliver a manifesto pledge to back British-grown food.
Before the general election, Labour vowed to aim for half of all food purchased by the public sector to be “locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards”.
The promise represented a potential multi-billion-pound windfall for hard-pressed farmers, with public sector organisations spending £5bn a year on food.
But the target is not yet being met and only two Government departments source a majority of their food from Britain, according to a report by the Countryside Alliance.
Farmers have already been hit by Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid in last year’s Budget.
The policy, which slashed relief available to family farms and prompted a record 3,175 farm closures, had been ruled out by Steve Reed, now the Environment Secretary, in the month before the general election.
He tried to quell farmers’ anger during tractor protests that brought Westminster to a standstill in February by reiterating the manifesto pledge to back British-grown food – but only two Government departments, not including his own, are delivering on the promise.
Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader, said: “After slapping an unjust and disastrous inheritance tax on British farms, it comes as no surprise that Labour are continuing their betrayal of UK food producers. It’s almost as if they are trying to wipe the sector out entirely.”
Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, said: “This is another blow to the rural community, who Labour have already hit with their vindictive family farm tax.
“With record farm closures and farmers warning that this year could be their worst-ever harvest, they need a government that has their backs, not one quietly shelving every promise it made to rural Britain.
…
“It’s unbelievable that the Government has betrayed farmers again. This will affect all of us. We are sleepwalking into food shortages in the UK if we carry on as we are.”
The Telegraph: continue reading
See Related Article Below
Labour’s tax raid on family businesses and farms is an assault on the pillars of our free society
This Government is much more comfortable with large multi-nationals than smaller enterprises that are the building blocks of our prosperity
This would not mean that the farmer and his family would then be dirt poor. If they sold up, they would have something to live on. But it would mean that their business model would be shot to bits. Something constructed to last and grow, rather like a sapling planted, protected and then gradually becoming a mature tree, would have been blasted.
That in turn means that the expectation which has driven the owners of the business to work pretty much 365 days a year is disappearing. They have been trying to ensure their work is built to last. In future, it will just sit there waiting to be confiscated.
The Telegraph: continue reading
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In a way, it is a pity that support for farmers threatened by Rachel Reeves’s abolition of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) tends to be presented chiefly in “heritage” terms.
This is not surprising. The future of the land and those who work it is bound to arouse strong emotions, in which nostalgia plays a part. Having been brought up on a farm without ever having been a farmer, I am susceptible to Rudyard Kipling’s support for the obstinate Saxon “when he stands like an ox in his furrow”.
The new taxes become payable in April next year. As I watch the current (poor) harvest on farms round us, I grieve at the thought that, for some, it will be the last.
These emotions are justified, but they tend to distract from something wider that the Government’s changes intend, which is to attack a particular way of doing business. This will damage property and prosperity.
As well as abolishing APR, the Chancellor is also abolishing Business Property Relief (BPR). Not only farms, but family businesses generally, and other private businesses, will now have to pay inheritance tax when an owner of the business dies.
Farmers get both APR and BPR (the latter for livestock, machinery and crops in store, rather than the land and buildings). But nowadays they get BPR for other things too. In the not very distant past, many farming families just farmed. In the post-war era of being paid by production, that made sense. In more recent times, however, as automatic subsidy has (rightly) diminished, farmers have diversified.
One I know, a big farmer in southern England, claims APR on the land being actively farmed. He claims BPR on his trading businesses – letting his large, old, main house for corporate stays, renting out 70 bed spaces in holiday cottages, offering long lets, going in for renewable energy (solar and biomass), running a campsite and selling storage. The annual turnover of his family partnership is about £1.5m. Over more than 30 years, the business has gone from overall loss to a profit and, as he puts it, “The place is no longer falling down.”
The capital value of his assets – overwhelmingly, land – is very high, but the annual return on the businesses is well below one per cent. (It is worth adding that, according to Defra’s own figures, the average return on capital of British farms today is minus 0.8 per cent.) So when this farmer/entrepreneur inherits on his mother’s death, the 20 per cent inheritance tax (IHT) to be imposed by Ms Reeves will either have to be paid out of income over a long period – income which would itself be taxed at 45 per cent – or it would force a sale. As well as IHT, capital gains tax would be payable on anything sold.