“As long as Mum dies before 2026, we’ll be okay?”
This was the profoundly sad message I received from a farmer this week, when I asked farmers to tell me how Labour’s family farm tax will affect them and their farms.
Farmers are the keystone of rural communities. They feed us and they are the custodians of our countryside. When they struggle, our rural economy is weakened and our food security is put at risk. Labour have doubled down on their cruel and illogical plans for our farming sector. In response, thousands of farmers from across the United Kingdom will descend on London on Tuesday to force this city-dwelling government to listen to them.
As the proud MP of an agricultural seat in Lincolnshire for nearly a decade, I have never known an issue that has united rural communities like this. As well as meeting many farmers, I have been inundated with messages from farming families who are deeply distressed that Labour’s budget is targeting them. In a sign of our commitment to our farming industry, Kemi Badenoch joined farmers, the local MP Greg Smith and me in Buckinghamshire last week to make clear our commitment to scrap the Family Farm Tax – the first policy commitment Kemi has made since being elected Leader.
The tax reliefs of Agricultural and Business Property Relief have meant that families can pass on their farms and businesses to the next generation. The removal of these reliefs will be devastating. The Country Land and Business Association have provided analysis which says that a typical 250-acre arable farm will be forced to sell twenty percent of its land to cover the inheritance tax bill. This is land that may well have been farmed by generations of the same family. If these farms close down, we will quickly feel the rise in food prices and the fall in food security. Before the General Election, Keir Starmer said “food security is national security”; he should be eating his own words in shame following his Budget.
Steve Reed, the DEFRA Secretary, and the Cabinet represent city and urban constituencies.
This disconnect with the countryside means that they seem to have a skewed view of farmers. They don’t seem to appreciate that many farmers work all year round for very little profit. Any livestock farmer will tell you that they work 365 days a year – their animals need feeding on Christmas Day and bank holidays just as we do. They certainly don’t work a four-day week, as some Defra civil servants seem to want for themselves.
Of course, abuse of the tax system must be tackled, but those British families who are asset rich and cash poor are the ones that Labour is targeting. The wealthiest landowners will be able to afford lawyers to litigate and plan their way out of Labour’s tax raid. The ones who will struggle are tenant farmers and those in the middle.
The future of tenant farming is particularly worrying. One Welsh landowner contacted me to say that Labour’s plans mean he must tell six multi-generational farming families on his land that he will have to sell their farms. In his words, ‘they will lose their homes, their businesses and their children’s future’.
Another family has been custodians of their five hundred acre farm for four generations. They earn some £45,000 per year but face an inheritance tax bill of almost £900,000. How does Labour think these farmers will pay the Family Farm Tax without selling the farm?
Labour’s figures which they are using to try and justify this nonsense simply don’t add up. While the Treasury claims that “only” a quarter of farms will be affected, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ figures contradict this, showing it to be around two thirds of farms. I am fighting to get clarity on those figures. It is deeply concerning that the Chancellor has announced this Budget measure without seeming to check whether the figures used by the Treasury are indeed accurate. Is the Chancellor sure of the other figures used in her Budget?
In recent days, we have seen ministers give conflicting answers when pushed on these numbers – and even anonymous briefing suggesting an ongoing row between the two departments. Whilst they continue to argue in the Westminster bubble, farmers are having to make immediate decisions about whether they continue to build barns, buy new machinery and invest in their farm businesses for fear that any such investment will push them over the cliff edge of this tax raid. For a government that claims to want growth, this single decision is ant-growth and will set the sun on the rural economy.
The truth is that Labour don’t understand the countryside.
They are not part of our rural communities and worse, many don’t care about them. This is perfectly summed up by a Labour MSP last week. She was asked about the case of a farmer who is recovering from cancer. He has invested in a dairy, and she was asked how his son would pay the inheritance tax bill if he died. Her response? He should “put his affairs in order”.
Perhaps this MSP has been taking lessons from former Labour adviser John McTernan, who stated on national television that farming is an industry “we can do without… we do not need small farmers.” Rural communities fear that these comments reveal a disdain within the Labour movement for the rural way of life and the people within it.
Once these family farms are gone, they are gone – and we will feel the consequences a long time after this Labour Government is removed from office. That is why thousands of farmers are leaving their farms on Tuesday, from all corners of the country, to try and force Labour to listen. This policy risks family farms, our food security and our countryside.
We Conservatives will be pulling on our wellies to stand alongside them.
