Editor’s View: Farmers Weekly backs calls for Budget changes
© Jordan Pettitt/PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo An additional week’s perspective does not make the Budget any more palatable.
With each day that passes, it becomes clearer that the Treasury’s assumptions that only a small number of genuine farming businesses would be within the scope of the inheritance tax changes are wrong.
By including a significant number of agricultural property relief (APR) claims from smallholdings in the data from previous years, they inferred that the average value of a typical commercial farming operation is lower than the reality.
See also: Inheritance tax reforms ‘fair and balanced’, insists Zeichner
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This means they have underestimated how many genuine farmers will have to pay the death tax, and the amount they will have to pay. This is the crux of the matter.
Our industry is not disputing there are wealthy individuals in the shires finding a way to claim APR when their actual business is stocks and shares, not livestock and deadstock.
But if the government’s objective was to close that loophole without harming actual food producers, they have failed.
Defra’s own figures show that 66% of farms have a net value above £1m.
This tax bombshell is compounded by the other measures that are a net negative for our sector’s cashflow, such as the sharper-than-expected tail-off in delinked payments for those farmers in England that are still eligible.
Defra secretary Steve Reed was unrepentant this week, ducking an opportunity to apologise to farmers for telling them last November that Labour had “no intention of changing APR”.
He should reflect on the fact that he has he failed at the first opportunity to be a man of his word.
Moreover, these measures in the round mean his party has failed to live up to its election pledge to offer the farming sector stability, and to make agriculture part of its broader economic growth agenda.
See also: Analysis: Where does the Budget leave farming?
It is for this reason that Farmers Weekly supports the campaigns by the NFU and the CLA to try and see these measures reversed, as you will note from the back cover of this week’s Farmers Weekly magazine [PDF].
So, can they succeed? Labour will be loathe to give in to external pressure from placard-wielding campaigners as party leaders will see it as an early test of its authority.
That is why lobbyists are putting their energy into getting farmers in front of their constituency MPs.
Win the argument with them, the theory goes, and pressure can be exerted on the Treasury and Defra from within the party. You are always more likely to listen to an ally.
And if they fail to get change? It will undoubtedly pile more pressure on many businesses with an awful lot already on their shoulders.
But as bad as it is, this is still a debate with nuance. Some social media shrieking would have been better left unsaid.
And while many have a lot to lose, even some within our sector do stand to gain.
It is right that they are given a fair hearing too, as we have done in the Opinion section this week.
On this side of the Atlantic at least, I hope debates can still be conducted with facts rather than fury.