It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.
Many hundreds of family farmers in the constituency of Boston and Skegness are appalled at the family farm tax. Just last week, Richard and his son Jake came to see me. Their farm has been in the family for 120 years. They went through the cost increases recently: the fertiliser tax, the reduction in basic payment scheme payments, the carbon tax, and now the increase in national insurance. They say they will not be able to afford to pay the farm tax even with the 10-year payment timeframe, and will therefore have to sell upon death. This tax will bring the exact opposite of what the Government want—what we all want—which is growth.
One farmer told me that he has cancelled a £1 million expansion to his strawberry farm. Another said that he has cancelled an order for a £300,000 piece of equipment. This tax will do the exact opposite of what the Government want. There is a very simple solution: to increase the threshold on which it is payable and increase the qualifying period threshold at which people benefit from the tax relief. With that, the Government can achieve their aims and avoid the abuse, and family farmers can continue to invest.
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