Budget: Implications for Farming Communities Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Harriet Cross
Main Page: Harriet Cross (Conservative - Gordon and Buchan)Department Debates - View all Harriet Cross's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Budget: Implications for Farming Communities
Harriet Cross Excerpts(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Daniel Zeichner
The hon. Gentleman well knows the financial state of the country that we inherited. Difficult decisions had to be made.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
The average farm in Aberdeenshire is 490 acres, and average values are about £5,000 an acre for bare land. Once the farmhouse, building machinery and livestock are added, that is suddenly well over the inheritance tax threshold and have a huge IHT bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds coming your way. DEFRA figures show that 19% of farms do not make a profit and 24% make less than £25,000, so does the Minister suggest that farmers sell the land they use to grow the food, sell the machinery they use to harvest the food or sell the buildings they use to store the food, in order to pay this bill?
Daniel Zeichner
The hon. Lady will know that farming policy is different in Scotland, but on the tax issues, which are UK-wide, that is absolutely right, but I would suggest that she gets her farmers to look in detail at these proposals, and what they will find is the vast majority—[Interruption.] When they look at them in detail, they will find that the vast majority will be absolutely fine.