Farmers Must Pay Up for the NHS, Says Rachel Reeves
Farmers have been told by Rachel Reeves that they must pay inheritance tax to fund the NHS, despite mass protests planned for Tuesday and warnings the tax’s impact has been massively underestimated. The Telegraph has more.
Rachel Reeves has refused to back down over her controversial plan to impose inheritance tax on farms in the face of warnings that it could threaten food security, end the tradition of family farms and create a mental health crisis.
Thousands of farmers are expected to descend on Westminster on Tuesday to protest against the changes, under which farms worth more than £1 million will be eligible for 20% inheritance tax, having previously been exempt.
The proposals are at the heart of a growing row over Ms. Reeves’s Budget, and on Monday a Labour Peer became the first to publicly criticise the Government over the plan. Baroness Mallalieu, a Labour Peer since 1991, said her party had become too “urban” to understand the impact of the tax raid.
But Ms. Reeves defended the policy on Monday, repeating that the Government had “taken difficult decisions” to fill funding gaps.
“The reforms to agricultural property relief ensure that wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services that farmers and families in rural communities rely on,” she said in a joint statement with Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary.
Rural Labour MPs, many at risk of losing their seats over the policy, will be lobbied by hundreds of farmers at a separate event organised by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in Parliament on Tuesday.
Mr. Reed met Tom Bradshaw, the head of the NFU, on Monday night as the Government seeks to calm farmers’ anger over the tax raid.
Mr. Bradshaw will tell farmers on Tuesday that the policy is “nothing short of a stab in the back”.
He will say: “To launch a policy this destructive without speaking to anyone involved in farming beggars belief. And let us remember that they promised not to do this when they were wooing the rural vote.”
Before the election, Mr. Reed repeatedly said the Government had no plans to change agricultural property relief, which was introduced in 1992.
On Monday, Keir Starmer repeated the Government’s claim that “the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected at all”, despite warnings that the Treasury has vastly underestimated the impact.
The NFU has warned that two-thirds of farms will be hit by the tax, compared to Government estimates that just 27% would be forced to pay.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: In the Spectator, dairy farmer Jamie Blackett says the protests “have the potential to turn into a full French-style revolt“. “This is existential for many farmers, and they will go to any lengths to stop their farms being broken up when they die.”
Stop Press 2: Elon Musk has tweeted that the tax plans suggest “Britain is going full Stalin”, reacting to an Observer article claiming farmers had hoarded land for too long. Jeremy Clarkson thanked Musk in reply, accompanying it with an image of himself with a pitchfork.
Stop Press 3: Clarkson criticises Victoria Derbyshire for “trotting out” Rachel Reeves’ claim that her changes to inheritance tax won’t affect farmers, accusing the BBC of being a “mouthpiece of this infernal government”.
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Can protest reverse the Labour Governments’ intent? I don’t expect it can on its own. Massive protest didn’t reverse the anti fox hunting bill.
Another case of Labour Town vs Country. I detect a theme.
Protests alone might not do it but food shortages certainly will have a very sobering effect on the public
Notwithstanding farmers’ actions, no electricity and fertiliser taxes will produce food shortages thereby driving prices up.
Moving from this police state soon.
You are right. Protests will fail. One only has to look at the pictures. No diversity, no Palestinian flags, no community leaders and no kneeling.
Starmer the farmer harmer!
🙂
Starmerführer making us poorer.
The idea that land prices and rents will fall as a result of this tax is. in my view, poppycock. As a result of quantitative easing and other such economic stuff there is far too much money swimming around in hedge funds etc. and the result of this tax change will, in my opinion, be more likely to push up land prices and see the Blackrocks and Bill Gates of this world acquire more land. The idea that it will be an opportunity for young farmers is naive in the extreme.
What they are doing is extending the very extreme political line of taxing unrealised assets. It was taxing unrealised assets that lead to the stately homes of England being passed to the National Trust. It is taxing the unrealised assets of farmland that will see that farmland pass to the corporate investment and hedge fund sector, who will then have a tight control over food production.
Almost by design some might say.
Socialist bollocks. They seem to think we still consider the NHS to be the envy of the world and an untouchable icon.
If they need extra funds for the NHS they should stop treating the world and his extended family “for free.”
Presumably “the NHS” doesn’t want to eat.
After a couple of weeks of no food, it’ll certainly reduce the waiting lists… but not in a good way
34 Billion on T&T. Ukraine & CC. I rest my case.
The problem we have is that this pile of socialist scumbags know that they were only supported by 20% of the voting public and that everything they do will not be accepted by the country at large, taxes, immigration, laws, you name it. They will ignore protesters wherever they see them and maybe crack a few heads and lock some noisier ones away, while they desperately get their policies through in the first five years. By then the change to our country will be complete so nothing will be reversible.
They have to keep up a pretence of competence while being nothing of the sort.
“Nothing will be reversible.”
I don’t agree. One of our leading public figures – Clarkson, Farage (meh) needs to issue a statement warning that all those involved in this destruction of our country will be tried for treason. Of course Bliar’s removal of capital punishment will have to be overturned but desperate times require desperate measures.
650 twitchy bottoms should focus minds.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union had never been happy with private agriculture and saw collectivization as the best remedy for the problem. Lenin claimed, “Small-scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, with elemental force, and in vast proportions.
This has nothing to do with funding the NHS or anything else for that matter, its a modern day land clearance! Who else would needs millions of acres of land apart from the farmers to grow food on? Answer- big Farm (communism)
And it would come in very handy for the bandit of land Miliband for his massive and insane wet dreams of net zero, just think how many bird/bat choppers and Chinese wealth creators (solar panels) you could build if the farmers weren’t ‘hoarding’ all the land
The NHS can use the money extracted from farmers to hire even more DIE (Diversity, Inclusion and Equality) waste-of-skins.
“Good farming must be destroyed to fund crap health care,” said the Minister.
The public sector is turning into some voracious Dr Who monster, consuming everything around it in its insatiable desire to grow. Private wealth and private business are seen as its enemy. What is this, if not communism? (And not even by the back door!)
Interesting how the fallout from the Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget toppled them both, but Reeves and Starmer seem quite secure. Could it possibly be that the left-leaning MSM hated the former but love the latter? Surely not!
Thieves and Kneel are being propped up by the Bank of England, the big banks and the likes of Blackrock etc al.
Good UKC interview in Bank of England & City of London etc, if you haven’t already seen it:https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/the-treasury-letter-with-justin-walker
Thanks 👍
I didn’t know Hux, that Blackrock, is the world’s biggest company!
It’s valued assets are 11.5 TRILLION dollars!!
Vanguard and State Street is another.
Whoops. Sorry.
Closely followed by the likes of Vanguard and State Street.
Rachel Reeves, ““The reforms to agricultural property relief ensure that wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services that farmers and families in rural communities rely on.”
First of all in spite of this repeated false claim it is not simply the most valuable farms that will be affected.
Beyond that I didn’t realise that farmers were exempt from income tax, national insurance, VAT etc hence currently make no contribution to public services.
Oh wait…
The Anti-white Party has claimed “The reforms to agricultural property relief ensure that wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services that farmers and families in rural communities rely on,”
Then tax on profits, not assets. A tax on the assets of farmers will ultimately destroy the revenue the government replies on.
It’s like a parasite or virus that kills the host it needs to survive.
Destroying the revenue the government relies on is irrelevant. The point of the IHT grab is to destroy the farming community and farming in this country.
Whoever controls the food controls the people.
The tax revenue won’t go for schools, NHS. It will go to service the fabulous debt the Labour Wrecking Crew are racking up.
Don’t forget we must send to Ukraine and all the climate projects abroad.
Yes but Labour is/are Socialists which means they have zero understanding of economics, if they did they wouldn’t be Socialists.
Trying to pull on what they think are peoples heartstrings there – reality is if schools and NHS was so important we would be pissing away billions on net zero bollox…
It’s a bit economical with the truth to claim that changes to the tax regime is intended to fund the NHS, or anything else specific, isn’t it? Once cash is in the Treasury, it’s cash. They can dish it out for whatever.
To be fair to the old Beeb (unusually) they did mention the issue on the world propaganda this morning, along the lines that it was hard to work out the real consequence of it. There appeared to be a lot of uncertainty re the effect on APR & BPR, business structure etc. Plenty of work for accountants, no doubt. Does anyone know if Reeves has shares in an accountancy firm? Don’t know if accountancy is on her CV, though!
Haha! I certainly wouldn’t rely on anything on her CV. But she does know all about economy (with the truth, that is).
If “the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected at all” (Starmer) I can’t see it raising much revenue. Hardly worth the aggro, IWHT.
The whole argument from the government has more holes in it than our border security.
“Prices and rents will fall under Rachel Reeves’ [sic] plans, enabling a younger generation with new ideas to enter the field”. What new ideas would these be? Could this Observer ‘journalist’ mean new ideas for the use of the farm land? e.g. wind turbines, solar panels, house building.
I would guess that farmers and those in the countryside use the NHS less than anyone else, given they are outside most of the time and thus healthier than the average person. As Sontol has mentioned in the comments, farmers pay other taxes anyway, including IHT on things that aren’t farm related, so do contribute to the general pot of money that the government has to pour into the NHS. How about reducing or stopping foreign aid or financing wars that have nothing to do with us or paying for empty hotel rooms in case even more boats come across the channel than expected or stopping the boats altogether – that would raise the money needed.
And who, knowing the asset they acquire, will be taxed when passed on to the next generation perhaps impoverishing them or bankrupting them will want to buy the asset?
Indeed….We are a Nation of property owners, but have allowed the long march and the Robert Lindsay’s are now in charge.
Labour just literally couldn’t give a toss, as Rupert Lowe demonstrates here;
”Labour’s assault on family farms is estimated to raise £520 million a year.
At the same time, we’re spending £3 billion a year on hotels for illegal migrants.
I put this to the Labour minister. Her response will stun you.
Watch for yourselves…”
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1858810223852458216
They’ve got their priorities. Top comment. And that 3 billion is only accommodation for immigrants, I believe. It doesn’t include all the government handouts they automatically get;
ӣ3 billion to Ukraine
£3 billion illegal immigrants
£11.6 billion overseas climate aid
£22 billion Miliband’s carbon capture
versus
£0.52 billion IHT grab from farmers
This is our money Labour are spanking down the drain.”
But Ms. Reeves defended the policy on Monday, repeating that the Government had “taken difficult decisions” to fill funding gaps.
Difficult decisions? Locating a group of people who cannot possibly just relocate their operations overseas and who are thus incapable of escaping from punitive taxation and neither unionized nor much inclined to vote Labour to begin with, whose by far overwhelming majority also belongs to the ‘evil’ ethnic group of born-racist far rightists, probably also sporting – more grave points against them – an above average number of churchgoers and families with children was certainly not “difficult”, Ms Reeves. It looks more like the first hairbrained idea a career state employee without knowledge or qualifications in anything but civil service procedures would come up with.
Re: the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected at all
According to the Evening Standard, this claim rests on Treasury estimates which suggest that only ¼ (25%) of the farmers will be affected. Critics point out that data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggests that it will be ⅔ (66%) instead. If this is true (I have no idea), it would mean that Charmless and Thieves designed this scheme without even bothering to consult the government department responsible for farming to get some real numbers about its likely effects. Or – this is obviously possible – did consult it and then, let treasury data specialists do some modelling to come up with numbers which would look better in a press release.
I think it highly probable that one government department hasn’t spoken with another. I have had some experience of working with different departments over the same issue and they definitely didn’t talk to each other – I was the intermediary.
Ah yes… the sacred NHS.
To save the NHS:
Pass the humbugs, mother.
Asset rich invariably means cash poor – property assets need maintenance. Farmers are custodians of the land for future generations of farmers and for the benefit of future consumers. To pay the inheritance tax, farmers have several options. They can liquidate the asset in whole or part – this takes land out of productive use, or by reducing farm size, reduces efficiency. (See France.) It also reduces farmers’ incomes meaning they provide less tax revenue. They can use the ten year instalment arrangement which likely means some kind of commercial loan or line of credit which means repayment out of income. Such repayments may be tax deductible, meaning less tax remitted. This latter option has an unseen cost, an opportunity cost. The money borrowed is not being used to invest or fund an economic activity yielding a return on the capital. This will further reduce farmers’ output and income, and thereby reduce tax remitted. The term ‘everyone’s a loser’ comes to mind: consumers lose, farmers lose, the Treasury loses. I suppose not entirely a complete loss – the banks will certainly profit, so that’s all right then. There is a problem with plundering assets. Eventually the assets are all gone.… Read more »
Not quite fair – only 20% voted for them, which is less than the percentage of farms they claim will be affected.
Not voting ie “voting” to stay at home is de facto a vote – none of the above. 20% did vote for them and the remaining who did not vote for Reform UK in effect voted for them.
“…the banks profit” – its almost like that is the main intention 😉
I find this so disgusting I have to try harder than normal to self-censor.
If we have to have taxes they must follow the following rules:
If we have to have tax I’d favour slimming it down to only VAT and income tax. If it was 40% (flat across goods) and 40% (flat across income) if and until state finances were sorted out then so be it.
I sympathise. Nothing to argue with there but it isn’t what the electorate voted for in 1945 and since – lots of free stuff. The cradle-to-grave, womb-to-tomb, sperm-to-worm welfare state, socialises the cost of social and public services transferring responsibility, reliance, and independence from the individual to the collective via the State, and is now so ingrained (indoctrinated) in the popular consciousness that people believe they have a right to live off each other. Universal suffrage + Government’s unlimited tax raising powers + redistribution via the tax system = huge slush fund available to politicians with which to bribe voters to vote for them, pay-off cronies, and a willing population eager to jostle with each other on election days, to claw back as much of the plunder taken from them so they can delude themselves they are getting at least as much or more out as was taken from them. Nothing now undertaken by the State was not formerly undertaken in the competitive private sector. For example, until the 1911 National Insurance Act – which the general population didn’t want – 75% of the population had private health cover with some opting for sickness and unemployment cover – not “the… Read more »
https://off-guardian.org/2024/11/18/explained-how-uk-inheritance-tax-is-part-of-the-war-on-food/
Kit Knightly making the same points I have been making since the IHT land grab was announced.
What kind of moron thinks that farmers ‘hoard land’?
Arun Advani, director of CenTax, aided by co-director Andy Summers has written a report pushing for higher taxes across the board. The Treasury has admitted to Guido last week that Advani’s research was the intellectual basis of the farm tax… Advani wants the cap for Agricultural and Business Relief to be set at £500K, state ownership of land, state control of agricultural production, the removal of IHT relief for funeral expenses as well as the abolition of relief on bequests to charities. The Treasury has already admitted Advani’s research has guided it on the farm tax as it currently exists. This information comes from Wonk Watch.
Yikes it is all coming true. The WEF puppets are doing what they have been paid to do. Destroy the Uk.