It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing the debate. I declare an interest as a tenant farmer.
Farmers in Wales feel threatened by the approach that this Government are taking to inheritance tax. It concerns me that that approach threatens the viability of working family farms. The UK Treasury data used to calculate the impact of the Government’s approach includes smallholdings and non-working farms, distorting the number of Welsh farms affected by inheritance tax thresholds. The Farmers Union of Wales says that had the Treasury focused its estimates specifically on the mainstream farms responsible for the bulk of agricultural outputs, the proportion affected by the changes to agricultural property relief would be revealed to be far higher than it claims.
The FUW estimates that farms responsible for nearly 90% of Welsh food production could be in scope to pay inheritance tax. That would be devastating for farmers in Wales, as the average income of different types of farms is much lower than the potential inheritance tax charge. Livestock farms predominate in Wales, making up 70% to 80% of Welsh farm holdings, and inheritance
tax bills could be many times the annual income of such farms. The changes will also impact tenant farmers. With around 30% of Welsh agricultural land rented, reduced availability of rented land could lead to business closures, homelessness and a decline in new people entering the workforce.
It is clear that Wales’s needs have been ignored so far by the Treasury. Will the Government listen to the likes to the FUW and NFU Cymru, which are calling for a Wales-specific analysis of the impact of the changes to APR?
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