Small Farms and Family Businesses

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Leicester, for securing this debate. I join the torrent of tributes to the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, for her many decades of service. She taught me a great deal about working in your Lordships’ House when we were debating the now Medicines and Medical Devices Act. I often used her as an example of one of my favourite hashtags, #CampaigningWorks. I note that the existence of the Patient Safety Commissioner is just one of the contributions for which we should pay tribute to the noble Baroness.

On the topic of today’s debate, I am here to demonstrate the breadth of opposition to the Government’s current plans for inheritance tax on farms across the political spectrum. Some noble Lords have already noted this, but we particularly note the huge toll that the announcement and its subsequent concerns have had on the mental health of many farmers. As the Green Party, we strongly support the idea of cracking down on tax dodging where the purchase of land is being used by individuals who are companies to dodge tax and very often to take it out of farming production, but it should not be beyond the wit of the Government to make a distinction between that use of land and genuine farming businesses.

Taking the constituency of my honourable friend Adrian Ramsay, the MP for Waveney Valley, as an example, the typical farm there is about 320 acres and these holdings may be valued at between £3 million and £5 million. That is the value on paper but very often the income is very low. In the Green Party we believe we need more farmers and to create opportunities for the entry of new people into farming, leading to smaller farms and a bigger range of businesses, not even more consolidation which this tax change could well produce. We also need a great deal of support for the diversification of crops and cropping systems, agroecology and the growing of vegetables and fruit.

Given that many issues have been heavily canvassed in this debate, I will take this opportunity to look forward to the spending review. We have to look at the history of what has been done to Defra over the past 15 years or so. From 2009 to 2019, funding for Defra declined 35% in monetary terms and 45% in real terms. That compared to a cut across the whole of government of 20% on average. There was then an injection of funding as an enormous range of new roles came in with Brexit, but we are now again hearing talk—and talk that the Secretary of State is volunteering for this—of at least a 20% cut in Defra. That means big cuts in spending on nature and flood prevention, which has huge potential impacts on farmers as well as rural communities and broader communities in general.

I have limited time, but I want to throw into this debate the point that we need to rethink how we can ensure that farmers who are growing the food that we need have a secure life and business. We cannot keep relying on other people’s soil, water and labour to feed ourselves as we do so much now. We are seeing a very fast-growing campaign for a universal basic income for farmers and that is an area we should be looking at. We need a Defra department that is able to shape the right policies and a Government that acknowledge the importance of food to all of us and food security, which is, I am afraid, not what we are currently getting.