Why is the Government imposing a family farm tax when it will only raise a relatively trifling sum for the Treasury while damaging Yorkshire’s rural economy? - Andrew Vine
They are fighting for the future of farming families who deserve heartfelt thanks for putting food on our tables and maintaining Yorkshire’s glorious landscapes, but instead face ruin because of a wrong-headed policy.
Farms that have been handed down through generations by families who are stewards of the countryside and central to the prosperity of rural communities will without doubt be lost unless the government backtracks on its ill-thought-out changes to inheritance tax.
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Hide AdPunitive bills for passing on farms to the next generation will make them unviable by forcing families to sell off the land they need to make a living.


This policy, announced by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her first budget, is wrong at every level.
By its own calculations, the government will raise a relatively trifling sum from the measure, yet it will cause immense damage to the rural economy that matters so greatly to Yorkshire.
It seems to have escaped the notice of the government that farmers are already facing severe difficulties.
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Hide AdWe’ve just had the second-worst harvest on record due to extremely wet weather earlier in the year, feed, fuel and fertiliser costs have soared, and there is the looming prospect of British farms being undercut by imported beef and lamb from Australia and New Zealand due to badly-negotiated post-Brexit trade deals.
To then impose hefty new bills on family farms amounts to giving the industry a kicking that can only make its problems worse. It demonstrates either a profound lack of understanding of agriculture, or an indifference to the harm it will cause to farming.
Whichever of those it is, this is not the action of a responsible government that ought to be supporting farmers rather than jeopardising their livelihoods.
If farmers are driven out of business, we all suffer. Less British food means higher prices in the shops and greater reliance on imports from volatile international markets.
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Hide AdJust how volatile they can be – and how it is all of us who are saddled with the cost – was illustrated when the price of bread shot up two years ago after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted wheat supplies, and by the shortage of salads in the shops last year because of unseasonably cold weather in southern Europe.
Fewer British farms will also mean less traceable food and meat from abroad produced to lower welfare standards.
At a point when Britain should be going all out to produce as much food as possible to keep prices stable for consumers and ensure continuity of supply, the government is instead undermining one of the country’s most vital industries.
Presumably, Labour had this tax hike planned for some time before it took office in July. If so, it makes Sir Keir Starmer’s declaration to the National Farmers Union last year that he intended to establish a new relationship with farming at best disingenuous, and at worst, cynical.
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Hide AdWhat does he think will happen to the countryside without farmers? About 70 per cent of its land is in their care, and if it is made uneconomic for them to earn a living, what will become of it?
Instead of a living, working environment in harmony with nature, there is the real prospect that agricultural land will be snapped up by absentee investors with no stake or interest in rural communities who just hold on to it until it's worth rises and then sell it on for a profit.
Let’s hope next week’s demonstration in London piles pressure on the government to backtrack on inheritance tax.
Though the NFU has to maintain a polite working relationship with the government, there are voices within the rural community who are urging more direct action, and who can blame them?
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Hide AdOnline farming influencers whose posts attract millions of views have floated the idea of farmers effectively going on strike, holding back produce from supply chains for a few days to cause shortages in the shops, such as we saw during the Covid pandemic.
Such action would break no law, but wake up consumers to both the fragility of our food supply and how much we depend upon farmers.
That would certainly be very awkward for the government, which could not possibly blame empty shelves on the legacy of the Conservatives, as it persists in doing so on almost every problem it faces.
The threat to farming, and its knock-on effects for the countryside, is of Labour’s making. It has blundered badly on this, and should have the honesty to admit it.
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