Charlotte Cane
Main Page: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)Department Debates - View all Charlotte Cane's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. Labour’s family farm tax will be a disaster for hard-working farmers in Ely and East Cambridgeshire, and throughout the country, and they are farmers who have already suffered under years of Conservative cuts. This new tax policy threatens to devastate farms nationwide, potentially forcing families to sell the land that they have farmed for generations.
As we have heard, farming is not just a job but a way of life: it is a legacy passed down through generations. By imposing this tax change, we risk breaking that cycle and undermining the very foundation of our agriculture industry. I have met farmers across Ely and East Cambridgeshire and they feel angry and dismayed. More than that, they are hurt because they feel their voices are not being heard and their concerns are being ignored.
The impact of this tax was brought home to me when I visited a family farm in my constituency and sat around the kitchen table with three generations. The third generation had handed the farm to the fourth generation, who were now unsure whether they could hand it on to the fifth generation without inheritance tax and a tax bill that could not be paid from the farm’s income. They showed me around the developments that various generations had made to the farm, including hedgerows, ponds and a horse-riding facility for the local community. Many of those could be lost to raise funds to pay the inheritance tax, or lost if the land was sold on.
Remember, these people feed us and care for vast areas of our green and pleasant land, yet we allow wholesale food prices to be kept low, make them compete with foreign food imports that are produced to lower standards, and reduce agricultural support grants. We stand by while climate change delays their planting, reduces their harvests and increases pests and disease. Making farmers pay inheritance tax could be the final straw for British farms. The Government need to restore the inheritance tax exemptions to save our family farms.