Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms

Roz Savage Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. Dwight Eisenhower said that

“farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”

Too often, this Government appear to be a thousand miles away from the cornfield. I urge them to review their changes to the agricultural property relief, listen to farmers and put their needs and the best interests of this country front and centre.

This subject has aroused strong emotions in my South Cotswolds constituency, where we have both ends of the spectrum, from the many small family farms to Dyson’s UK headquarters. Our 750 farm holdings employ more than 2,000 people—including Mike, who is in the Public Gallery today—who all demonstrably contribute to feeding our country and caring for our natural environment. These farmers are distraught. As we seek to reverse the destruction of nature in our severely nature-depleted country, it is clear that we need the participation of the sector that manages 70% of our land.

[Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)]

A small farmer with a farm near Frampton Cotterell, in my Thornbury and Yate constituency, highlighted the fact that, as well as high land costs, some of the machinery needed to farm that land costs upwards of £100,000. Does my hon. Friend agree that for farmers to have the confidence to invest in the modern, sustainable farming practices that are needed, we need a policy that recognises the high-capital, low-income nature of farming?

[Dr Savage]

I thank my hon. Friend for a good point well made.

From waking up before the crack of dawn in the lambing and calving seasons, to often finishing the working day beyond midnight during the harvest, it is not hard to recognise the long and draining hours that farmers put in, the huge financial pressures that they work under and the toll that the lifestyle takes on their mental and physical health.

Farmers have to be able to plan for the long term, with their meteorological, financial, logistical and agricultural predictions having impacts for generations to come. Being such forward planners, and having been promised by the current Government when in opposition that there would be no change to APR, it came as a great and not pleasant surprise in Labour’s autumn 2024 Budget to hear that they would indeed be subjected to a change in inheritance tax. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) for his point earlier about the injustice of retrospective legislation.

[Sam Rushworth]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, but some of the farmers in my constituents are concerned that the Liberal Democrats have talked about a land tax and a wealth tax. Will she tell us how that would affect the farmers in her constituency and mine?

[Dr Savage]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but that is not Liberal Democrat policy any more.

The Government claim they are targeting the big wealthy landowners, not family farmers, and they say that once inheritance tax allowances are taken into account, most farms will not be affected, but here is what I do not understand: on the one hand the Government are saying they need to raise money to fill a big black hole, but on the other hand they are saying most farms will not be affected by the change. They cannot have it both ways.

Likewise, the Government say that only 25% of farms will be affected, while the National Farmers Union says that 75% of farmers will be. We seem to have two parallel realities, and never the twain shall meet. Persisting with this policy is bad for our family farms, our food security, nature and future generations. I beg the Government to reconsider and have the good grace to back down on this disastrous miscalculation.

National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill

Roz Savage Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

The decision we are taking today to raise employer’s national insurance contributions is a difficult one, but ultimately, it is the right choice. The situation we inherited from the last Government was so dire that it means tough choices need to be made. Asking larger businesses to pay a little more so that we can fix our broken services is a fairer option than asking working people—who already face the highest tax burden since the second world war—to pay more.

My case today is not only a moral case, but an economic one. People who think public services are a drain on the economy fail to understand how those public services make our economy function. I am reminded of a 70-year-old woman I met on the doorstep in East Thanet who was told she would have to wait 16 weeks for an initial scan to find out whether she had cancer, or the mother who had to drive around east Kent in the dark before Christmas to get medical treatment for her child who was suspected of having meningitis, because she could not register her child at a GP practice. Healthcare in east Kent is on its knees. This year, East Kent hospitals trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother hospital in Margate, recorded the highest number of 12-hour waiting times in England. When polled, only 45% of its staff said that they would be happy for a loved one to be treated at that trust—what an indictment.

I am prepared to accept that problems like this have existed for longer than 14 years in coastal constituencies such as mine. The NHS crisis is particularly acute in coastal communities such as East Thanet, as highlighted by a 2021 report by Chris Whitty entitled “Health in Coastal Communities”. We have some of the worst healthcare outcomes in England, with a higher rate of major diseases and a lower life expectancy, so this funding is essential for healthcare outcomes in East Thanet and in coastal communities across the country. There is a real need for a coastal communities healthcare strategy, but I challenge the Opposition to say how they would fund our NHS and improve health outcomes in coastal communities. They want all the benefits of the Budget, but they will not back the measures to deliver those benefits. They need to take some responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in.

There are structural problems that we can put down to the last 14 years of Tory Government. Chronic mismanagement of the NHS and years of underfunding have left the health service crying out for help. Shifting public health responsibilities to local authorities makes sense and moving healthcare to where people live is an essential reform, but doing that while cutting real-terms funding for local authorities has been a disaster.

This is not just about making a moral argument for free healthcare at the point of use. I hope that argument has been won across most of society and in this place. This is an argument about people being able to contribute to the economy. We cannot have growth with a sick workforce and a failing healthcare system. This is about the people who are using savings to go private, or having to take time off work because they cannot afford to pay and are too sick to work. There are shift workers trying to earn money and waiting weeks for a doctor’s appointment, and small business owners working through healthcare issues when they should be getting treatment, because they cannot afford to take time off. Nobody says that this does not have an economic impact.

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

I know that difficult decisions have had to be made, but I have been talking to small business owners. I am particularly thinking of the owner of a chain of convenience stores in Lechlade, and the difficult decision he is having to make of which of his part-time workers he is going to lay off in the run-up to Christmas. Should not the difficult decisions be those of the big tech companies about whether they actually pay their fair share of corporation tax? Should they not be the really tough—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. If the hon. Lady wishes to speak later in the debate, she is very welcome to do so, but interventions have to be short, and we have a lot of people to get in.