The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has declared that the “devastating impacts on food security from the family farm tax sit squarely on Government’s shoulders” following a meeting with the Treasury.
NFU presidents issued the warning after Exchequer Secretary James Murray and Food Security Minister Daniel Zeichner called in representatives from across the farming sector including the TFA (Tenant Farmers Association), CLA (Country Land and Business Association) and CAAV (Central Association of Agricultural Valuers), and the wider UK farming unions, “only to tell them the Government had no interest in compromise”.
Speaking after the meeting, NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “Disappointed doesn’t cover how I feel after this meeting. Today, we have repeated our concerns about the impact on farming families; they don’t care. On the impact on families who can’t afford vast tax bills coming their way on the death of a loved one; they don’t care. On the elderly – the most vulnerable people in our farming community – who feel they are now a burden on their family; they don’t care.
“This morally bankrupt position sits with this Government, and, without change, ministers will reap the consequences.
“For the 70 million people living on these islands, food security matters. It matters more given the ever-increasing geopolitical uncertainty. While this is shocking for me to say, the only conclusion I can come to is this Government doesn’t care about British food production. Is this the same Government which in its manifesto said food security is national security?
“We went into this meeting fully understanding the fiscal hole this Government must plug, and we went into this meeting to offer a solution, a solution which has been suggested by other tax experts where the inheritance tax policy is based on a claw-back mechanism.
“Put simply, farmers don’t get money when they inherit, they get the farm, the business asset, and often the debt. Any money they do get, they get when they sell. So, our suggestion is based on that premise. Our suggestion, which is almost revenue neutral, meaning the Chancellor gets her planned income, is that if an inherited farm is sold then inheritance tax gets paid. Crucially, this would allow family farms that want to continue to produce the nation’s food to do so, while giving the Treasury what it wants.”
“Heads in the sand, fingers in ears, zero empathy. What a way for a government to behave.”
Tom Bradshaw, NFU
Bradshaw continued: “We also need to be clear, the current talk that the £500 million this generates, which will be raised on the backs of hard-working and hard-pressed farmers, will rescue the NHS is nonsense. This amount will fund the NHS for a day. It’s disingenuous for ministers to repeat this untruth.
“Despite the Chancellor calling for alternatives, and today the UK food sector went collectively to share those, I am hugely disappointed there was no response from Treasury today, no acknowledgement that this could be done better. This is the same Treasury department which admits it has not yet carried out impact assessments on its current policy. Let’s remember, this policy has now been challenged by farming unions and agriculture representatives from across the UK, it has been challenged by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, by the Efra Select Committee, by tax advisors to the Government, and recently the National Preparedness Committee has reminded us that UK food security is in a precarious state.
“And every single major food retailer in the UK has also called for change. Why? Because they can see what this will do to the security of the supply of their products.
“This is a mess, but there is still time for Treasury to review. I urge them to look at the proposal put to them by all the major farming organisations today. It will raise the money needed. It is a way forward which is fair, removes the huge risk to British agriculture, including significant emotional and financial pressures, and delivers for UK food security, something the Government continues to insist is a priority.
“I want to thank NFU members for their continued support and I thank the public who continue to stand by British farming, with 275,000 people signing our petition. Thank you to those back-benchers who have come out to support their rural constituencies and thank you to those political parties that have pledged to dump this awful policy if they’re elected. From what we are told, the Chancellor has refused even to meet with her own worried MPs on this issue.
“Heads in the sand, fingers in ears, zero empathy. What a way for a government to behave.”
Meeting was “a tick-box exercise”
NFU Scotland said the meeting was “fruitless” and felt like little more than a “pointless tick-box exercise”.
NFU Scotland president Andrew Connon, who attended on behalf of Scottish farmers and crofters, said: “The dismissive attitude of Ministers and Treasury officials made this a deeply frustrating day and one that has left all involved very, very disappointed.
“Sticking to its own flawed evidence, the UK Government and Treasury officials have grossly underestimated the number of hard-working family farms and crofts that will be undermined by its damaging taxation proposals. The fact that they choose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the growing number of independent studies that highlight the real number of family farms and crofts that will be hit by their proposals is bewildering.
“The fight goes on. Without change, this Government’s proposals for inheritance tax (IHT) reforms will put growth and employment in the agricultural sector into reverse; Scotland’s wider rural economy will stall and fail and the contribution of farmers and crofters to the nation’s food security will be placed in jeopardy.
“Worse still, the UK Government and Treasury unwillingness to engage and blank refusal to consider any compromise will continue to inflict mental anguish and turmoil on thousands of hard-working farming families up and down the country. The blame for that sits squarely on the UK Government’s shoulders and, on today’s evidence, they do not seem to care.”
