Former NFU president Minette Batters says farmers affected by the inheritance tax changes cannot afford it, and that the “policy and rhetoric” don’t match.
Speaking on the BBC’s flagship’s political debate programme Question Time in Trowbridge she said that most family farms were “cash poor and asset rich” and could not afford it.
Mrs Batters, who runs a beef farm near Downton, said the Department for Food and Rural Affairs' own figures showed that 50 per cent of farm either made no profits or made profits of less than £23,000 a year.
“These businesses are getting handed down, so they are very cash poor… they are only asset rich if they sell.
“A 500-acre farm would be looking at a tax bill of £800,000 when they are making less than £50,000 themselves.”
The programme, hosted by BBC presenter Fiona Bruce, was recorded at Trowbridge Civic Centre on Thursday, November 21 and broadcast later in the evening.
The panel included cabinet office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Conservative Party’s shadow business minister Harriett Baldwin; Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader and treasury spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats; and former National Farmers’ Union and cross-bench peer Minette Batters.
Mrs Batters said the end result of the tax change would be to break up family farms all for the sake of going after people who are selling their business and using their assets to offset capital gains tax.
“That is driving land prices and when this land gets sold by these family farms then others will be buying it up so I don’t think the policy and the rhetoric match,” she said.
She was the first speaker to respond to the first question from Question Time audience member Vanessa Bradish who asked ‘why do some farmers believe they should not pay inheritance tax like everybody else?’
Vanessa said: “The reason I asked the question is that I would genuinely like to know the answer. I would like to be persuaded otherwise. I can’t think of a reason why they shouldn’t.”
The government says its tax change will only affect 526 farms per year – about 27 per cent of the total, a future that the NFU disputes.
The hour-long programme also covered questions on whether the long range missiles being supplied to the Ukraine in the war with Russia were taking the world “one step closer” to a Third World War, and what reforms were needed in adult social care to prevent patients from staying in NHS hospitals.
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