Labour’s dangerous farming tax will raise food prices this Christmas
Mims Davies – Shadow Welsh Secretary
“Labour’s latest tax on farming is an existential threat to their livelihoods” – these dire words and heartbreaking conversations reverberated across Westminster this afternoon.
This coupled with a clear reflection on prices and other misguided decisions in Labour’s Budget of broken promises will hike food costs and threatens family Christmases.
Farmers from the Welsh hills and mountains joined thousands of others this week in descending on the British capital to voice their desperation and pleas for the Labour UK government to drop its latest tax raid which will affect 66% of British farms in just two years’ time.
‘Clobbered’
Under the plan, any family member who inherits a farm worth more than £1 million will be clobbered with a 20% inheritance tax bill. Past Conservative governments had prevented this from happening because we know just how important farmers are to our national security.
During this week’s protest, farmers from across the length and breadth of Britain warned of an impending exodus, if the tax goes ahead.
But according to Sir Keir Starmer – the new Prime Minister who is not known for his accuracy or for sticking to commitments – continues to say the move will not impact “the vast majority” of Welsh farmers – We know this is not true.
And, to add further insult, the Labour First Minister, Baroness Elunedd Morgan, has patronised worried farmers, calling on them to “calm down a bit”.
Whim
A cloth-eared reaction to a key sector for Wales. Belittling the work 24/365 days a year our dedicated farming families put into to feeding the nation.
Farmers would like to know how she would react if her livelihood, home and life’s work were being put at risk with no notice, consultation and frankly on a whim.
It really angers me to see how badly Labour is treating our farmers and damaging Wales. We are now in a situation where both Labour governments on either side of the M4 are actively working in tandem to hold Wales back from its true potential.
Many may not have noticed but last week marked 100 days since Elunedd Morgan
became first minister. And what has happened to Wales since then?
Her government is supporting Starmer’s move to raid family-run farms, the overall Welsh NHS waiting-list has increased by almost 10,000, unemployment is growing by the hour, and countless post offices are now throwing in the towel.
Battered
It’s clear both Labour governments have run out of ideas, and they are destroying experiences and opportunities for the people of Wales by the day. Farmers say: Enough is enough. We Conservatives stand with them.
The planned tax raid on our farmers needs to be ditched immediately. We must
oppose it because, if farms in Wales and beyond start disappearing, our rural economy will take a battering and there will be no coming back.
And let’s not forget: without farmers, we will have no food, no food security, no future custodians of our landscapes – it’s as simple as that.
Mims Davies is the Shadow Secretary of State for Wales and Shadow Minister for
Women.
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“…any family member who inherits a farm worth more than £1 million will be clobbered with a 20% inheritance tax bill…”
I think you need to go and check your figures.
As far as I’m aware, total exemptions can add up to £3m: £1m in land value and a further 500k, in other exemptions (buildings and equipment) from each parent.
And you might add to that the fact that only half the inheritance tax that others have to pay will be levied on them, and, also unlike anyone else liable, they get ten years to pay it off without any interest being levied.
I might, or could, have added lots of things, but some of it wouldn’t have got past the mods!
On your point: how does the tax liability, on bequests over £3m spread over 10 years, compare to the land rent of landless tenant farmers over their entire careers? Are they not being “clobbered” all the time?
You have a point there.
And another curiosity of this story, to judge from what I’ve read, is that the total exemption of agricultural land from inheritance tax was only introduced in the Thatcher era, and that previously those farmers who became liable paid it at exactly the same rate as everybody else similarly liable.
I don’t recall that relaxation of liability back in the ’80s myself, but I also don’t recall any stories about farms being sold off or going under as a consequence of being liable before the change was made.
Correction – I relied on what I’d heard a few days ago because I’ve no specific personal memory of this change in the law back in the day.
But I’ve done a bit of delving and it now appears that the exemption of agricultural land from liability for inheritance tax was legislated even more recently than the Thatcher era; in 1992, in the John Major’s time.
But surely the point still stands?
Would family farmer Clarkson still have bought a farm under these new rules? 🤔
Obviously not a family farmer.
shhhh, don’t mention b b b b b b b r e x i t…….. (careful with “not sticking to commitments” comment, Tory party has sacks full of commitments they never delivered on). Homelessness, Tax, NHS, 40 new hospitals, child poverty etc. pretty much broke Britain which is why money is needed. Problem is I hear well regarded people saying your position is wrong and I hear positions that say you are right. I get the ideological stance from the cons, its all they have at the moment but its driving fear without a fact check? I don’t know why… Read more »
We don’t need MPs representing English Constituencies telling us what to do in Cymru. Especially one who’s representing three different Constituencies in nine years. Cut out the colonialism and start representing people who aren’t rich, you might find that working and lower middle class voters want to vote for you again then. Utter nonsense from the party that persuaded voters to vote against their own best interests in a referendum and then claim there were benefits from it. If you’re not rich you don’t benefit. You have nothing to do with Cymru! A Plaid Cymru or Lib Dem MP should… Read more »
The new inheritance tax rules don’t come into force until… and hold this thought… April 2026.
Trying to claim food prices will be higher this Christmas because of these changes is horse sh*t of such a high grade that Mims should write an article every day and sell it to the farmers as fertiliser.
Brexit, Australian Free Trade Deal, previously uncontrolled inflation. That’s why food prices will be higher. All courtesy of Mims’ party.
Any qualified and cautious sympathy which I had for farmers – and yes, initially I did have some – was dissipated when the NFU chose Jeremy Clarkson, of all people, to front their recent demonstration at Westminster.
Picking a clown to speak for the team was not the smartest move as he presents a prize example of the “landowner”, as opposed to working farmer, who should not have benefitted from the reliefs which currently exist. And there are hundreds if not thousands of this type who have been in it simply to avail themselves of a neat tax dodge.
Particularly as he’d previously acknowledged, on live TV, that he’d invested lavishly in agricultural land specifically with the intention of avoiding liability to inheritance tax.
Did they pick him or did he impose himself?
My hunch is that he offered himself; after all, he could hardly have imposed himself upon the NFU against their will, could he?
But then, presumably, they said ‘Thank you, and welcome’?
At the same time as farmers not wanting to pay any IHT they demand subsidies, hence the demonstrations outside the Senedd a few short months ago.
“Asset rich, cash poor”. Try being asset poor and cash poor like the rest of us.
Excellent
How is selling agricultural land (to whom?) going to make that better?
Mimms Davies is a useless tory waste of a skin.
The Shadow Secretary of State can’t spell the name of her counterpart??