Farmers have been told by Rachel Reeves that they must pay inheritance tax to fund the NHS, despite mass protests planned for Tuesday and warnings the tax’s impact has been massively underestimated. The Telegraph has more.
Rachel Reeves has refused to back down over her controversial plan to impose inheritance tax on farms in the face of warnings that it could threaten food security, end the tradition of family farms and create a mental health crisis.
Thousands of farmers are expected to descend on Westminster on Tuesday to protest against the changes, under which farms worth more than £1 million will be eligible for 20% inheritance tax, having previously been exempt.
The proposals are at the heart of a growing row over Ms. Reeves’s Budget, and on Monday a Labour Peer became the first to publicly criticise the Government over the plan. Baroness Mallalieu, a Labour Peer since 1991, said her party had become too “urban” to understand the impact of the tax raid.
But Ms. Reeves defended the policy on Monday, repeating that the Government had “taken difficult decisions” to fill funding gaps.
“The reforms to agricultural property relief ensure that wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services that farmers and families in rural communities rely on,” she said in a joint statement with Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary.
Rural Labour MPs, many at risk of losing their seats over the policy, will be lobbied by hundreds of farmers at a separate event organised by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in Parliament on Tuesday.
Mr. Reed met Tom Bradshaw, the head of the NFU, on Monday night as the Government seeks to calm farmers’ anger over the tax raid.
Mr. Bradshaw will tell farmers on Tuesday that the policy is “nothing short of a stab in the back”.
He will say: “To launch a policy this destructive without speaking to anyone involved in farming beggars belief. And let us remember that they promised not to do this when they were wooing the rural vote.”
Before the election, Mr. Reed repeatedly said the Government had no plans to change agricultural property relief, which was introduced in 1992.
On Monday, Keir Starmer repeated the Government’s claim that “the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected at all”, despite warnings that the Treasury has vastly underestimated the impact.
The NFU has warned that two-thirds of farms will be hit by the tax, compared to Government estimates that just 27% would be forced to pay.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Spectator, dairy farmer Jamie Blackett says the protests “have the potential to turn into a full French-style revolt“. “This is existential for many farmers, and they will go to any lengths to stop their farms being broken up when they die.”
Stop Press 2: Elon Musk has tweeted that the tax plans suggest “Britain is going full Stalin”, reacting to an Observer article claiming farmers had hoarded land for too long. Jeremy Clarkson thanked Musk in reply, accompanying it with an image of himself with a pitchfork.
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