On Tuesday Rebecca Smith MP met with and supported local farmers at the National Farmers’ Union’s (NFU) mass lobby, listening to their genuine concerns that the Government’s family farm tax would force them to sell up and prevent them from passing on their life’s work to their children. The event quickly reached full capacity of 1,800, demonstrating farmers’ strength of feeling up and down the country, and has been described as “just start of the fight”.
The NFU President described the Budget as a “blow” for British farmers who are already “down to the bone and gristle”. Those who oppose the policy argue that hard-working farmers deserve better from a government which is already asking them to dish out more for Employers’ NIC and the National Living Wage.
Speaking at the event, Rebecca stated:
“My farmers have my full support, and I will continue to support them in their fight.
“The Government must understand that food doesn’t grow on shelves. If it doesn’t care about Britain’s 70,000 farms, it should consider the impact that its cruel policy will have on the food bills of families across the nation.
“There’s no way of spinning it; this policy simply has to change. The Chancellor must sit down with farmers, as she was quick to do with public sector trade unions, and find a solution that gives family farms a future.”
Left unchecked, Rebecca warns that Labour’s family farm tax will tear apart rural communities like South West Devon. Taxing farmers 20% on assets with over £1m (a threshold which any viable farm meets) “sounds a death knell for the family farm”.
Rebecca has met with her local NFU branch at the Moorland Hotel, spent a Saturday morning tramping through farmland and joined local farmers at NFU’s widely reported mass lobby in Westminster. Each farmer shared with her their deep worry that they won’t be able to pass on their farms to their children because of Labour’s family farm tax.
Farmers run on extremely thin margins, often left with less than 1% of profit on food they produce. When the Country and Land Business Association crunched the numbers, it found that the typical family farm would be required to spend 159% of its profits for a decade to pay inheritance tax, risking 70,000 family farms across the UK.
This policy also threatens to damage the UK’s food security. At a time of global insecurity, we will become fully dependent on foreign imports to feed the nation. Rebecca has repeatedly argued that this will leave the UK vulnerable and hit the pockets of every British citizen, whether you live in urban Plympton and Plymstock or rural Wotter. The Food Standard Authority reports that lower-income households now spent more than 16% of their weekly budget on in-home food, compared with just 5% for the highest-income households. These rising food prices will hit the poorest hardest and widen inequalities in our communities.
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