The president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has strongly criticised Labour’s Budget, particularly the changes to Inheritance Tax affecting farmers.
Victoria Vyvyan, representing 28,000 farms, said that the policy is “absolute rot from top to bottom”.
Family farms are to be hit with inheritance tax after the Chancellor announced plans earlier this week to scale back agricultural relief on land up to £1million.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed defended the policy in The Telegraph. He stated he’s “sick and tired of seeing our public services crumble while the rich and wealthy buy up huge estates, robbing young farmers of their dreams just to avoid paying their taxes”.
Victoria Vyvyan blasted it as “absolute rot”
GB News
Reed insisted the changes would only affect “very rich estates” rather than small family farms. He described the current situation as a “scandal”.
Vivian told GB News: “It’s absolute rot from top to bottom. There’s almost no statistical proof of this large scale purchasing of land to conceal wealth.
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“They could increase the active farmer status that you would need to claim the relief.
“It would be a very small farm indeed if it was less than £1 million in value. Farmland is at about averaging £10,000 an acre.
“So that’s a hundred acre farm. It’s not going to punish the people he clearly wants to punish, nor is it going to protect the family farms, which are obviously going to be far bigger than, than 100 acres.”
She added: “I’m 62. It’s a bit late for me to start paying into a life insurance project. You’d have to start very early for that to be worthwhile.
“I don’t know where they’re getting figures for this extra million pounds of relief.
“They have a Ladybird book of farming in their minds, which has a family which has a two, a spouse and a primary farm owner who are going to conflate their the income tax allowance.
“That will help with this bill. Of course, that presumes that the farm and the assets are all being passed to one person. It’s deliberately muddying the water.
“This is a problem for farming as a as an investment for the food security of this nation not just about people.”
Farmers across the UK are being encouraged to plant trees on farming land as Britain imports its food
The inheritance tax changes have sparked concerns across the farming community
GB News
The inheritance tax changes have sparked concerns across the farming community.
Andrew RT Davies, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, accused Labour of lying about their promise to “champion British farming”.
He warned that the new “20 per cent death tax” could force many small and medium-sized family farms to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds before passing on their land.
The National Farmers’ Union echoed these concerns, with President Tom Bradshaw emphasising the potential impact on food production costs.
