Andy Burnham has been warned to axe the inheritance tax raid on farmers if he wants to win back their trust. The Prime Minister admitted over the weekend that Labour has a “long way to go to build back trust” with farmers.
Pressure mounts over farm tax
His predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, faced months of furious protests over new inheritance tax laws, which came into force in April. His Government had planned to slap an inheritance tax on farms worth over £1 million, but raised the threshold to £2.5 million in a partial U-turn.
But the Tories insisted that the so-called family farm tax, which was announced by Rachel Reeves in her first Budget, should be ditched altogether. Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “Andy Burnham has finally admitted what the Conservatives were saying for years. Starmer and Reeves destroyed trust and caused irreparable damage to our farming communities, who are the backbone of our nation. To rebuild trust with farmers, they don’t need warm words from the Prime Minister, they need him to scrap the family farm tax.”
Farmer calls for reversal
Farmer Andrew Ward, who was one of the organisers of a major protest in London against the inheritance tax raid, insisted that the changes should be reversed. The arable farmer, from Lincolnshire, said: "Definitely because that is the one thing, yes, they've watered it down a bit, but it's still there, and it's still hanging over people, and people will still have to sell land to pay for it. I would say it's the biggest thing that's causing the grief without a shadow of a doubt."
He also highlighted a series of other measures the Government has brought in that are "hitting farmers hard" including the hike in National Insurance contributions for employers and the minimum wage increase. On whether farmers would trust Labour again, Mr Ward added: "It won't just happen overnight, and no matter what Andy Burnham says, it's action, not words."
PM's funding package
Mr Burnham visited a family-run potato farm near Truro, Cornwall, on Saturday as he unveiled a £65 million funding package for farmers who have been hit by a scorching summer of heatwaves that has left most of the country in drought, sparking fears of rising food prices. The PM said: “I realise we’ve got a long way to go to build back trust with the farming community across the country. I think it’s probably been the hardest summer for British farming in a generation.”
He added: “I see food and farming as part of national resilience, national infrastructure. We need to be able to guarantee our own food production going forward.” The Daily Express has campaigned against the inheritance tax policy with our Save Britain's Family Farms crusade.
