Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms
Debate between Roz Savage and Sam Rushworth(1 week, 2 days ago)
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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.