UK Parliament / Open data

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Proceeding contribution from Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 4 December 2024. It occurred during Opposition day on Farming and Inheritance Tax.

There is something in that, and I will come to that in a moment when I talk about poverty in our countryside, when it just does not look the way people in urban communities think it ought to look.

There is no doubt that family farms are under attack, but this did not start on 4 July, and I want to go through why we have ended up where we are now. The botched transition from the old farm payment scheme to the new one is the principal source of hardship among our farmers. Let us start with the fact that the environmental land management scheme—ELMS—budget saw a £350 million underspend under the last Government, and that was not an accident. It was blindingly obvious that that was going to happen. One hill farmer I spoke to just last month told me that, as a consequence of the transition, he will lose £40,000 a year in basic payment. To replace it, he will gain £14,000 under the sustainable farming incentive. By the way, it cost him £6,000 to go through a land agent in order to get in in the first place.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
758 cc325-6 
Session
2024-25
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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