Responding to disruptive protests in Buckinghamshire today and the Prime Minister's subsequent comments about the government's inheritance tax policy1, NFU President Tom Bradshaw said: "However high feelings are running in the farming community, today's actions by a group which deliberately disrupted a major speech by the Prime Minister were misjudged and have been massively counter-productive.
"This was not an NFU event. Since last October, the NFU has been leading a campaign to mitigate the damaging and inhumane impacts of the proposed changes to inheritance tax on farms, building independent evidence, huge public support, and political backing across Parliament.
"Whilst we understand, and share, the Prime Minister's frustrations today, he is not right to say that Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) are "a tax break for farmers". He knows they are policies designed to ensure family farms can stay in business and enable them to deliver for the nation. It's also not reasonable to suggest that raising between nothing and £500 million – the varying estimates of what the new tax will bring in – will determine the future of the NHS or UK schools.
"The NFU has spent months trying to meet the Chancellor, more recently to share and discuss what we believe is a revenue-neutral change to the family farm tax which helps the government in its aim of raising money, but also protects family farms and removes the elderly from the eye of this storm. We have meetings with the Exchequer Secretary next week and we hope that, despite today's events, he will welcome and consider these proposals properly.
"Events like today's are not the way to achieve policy change. The NFU represents 44,000 farming businesses in England and Wales and we will speak with their voices next week – calmly and constructively."
For more information:
Jo Rector
NFU
Tel: +44 02476 858 686
Email: [email protected]
www.nfuonline.com