Early evening summary
Keir Starmer has insisted that the “vast majority” of farmers will not be affected by the government’s decision to extend inheritance tax to cover some farms. Speaking at a press conference at the end of the G20 summit, he declined to directly criticise Jeremy Clarkson for spreading misinformation about the change, but he said “the facts speak of themselves”. He was speaking after thousands of farmers attended a protest in Westminster about the plans. (See 5.27pm.)
12 countries have signed up for UK-led 'clean power alliance', No 10 says
Twelve countries have signed up for the UK-led “clean power alliance”, as well as the African Union, Downing Street has announced.
Quite how much impact it will have on global climate policy remains to be seen. But Keir Starmer says it shows that “the UK is back in the business of climate leadership and that means working more closely with other countries to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster and unlock the rewards of cheap, secure and clean power at home and abroad”.
No 10 says the alliance is backed by the African Union, Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Morocco, Norway, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom, “with the support of” the United States and the European Union.
In a news release explaining what this will do, it says:
At the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the prime minister and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed the new partnership, saying that it will speed up the global drive for clean power by uniting developed and developing countries across the north and south.
The alliance of countries will work together and share expertise with the goal of meeting the COP28 commitments to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency.
The Global Clean Power Alliance will have ‘missions’ to address the most critical energy transition challenges. The first of these is the finance mission, which will be published today and co-chaired by Brazil, will harness the political leadership needed to unlock private finance on a huge scale, so that no developing country is left behind.
And Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said:
Brazil signing up to our finance mission is a huge vote of confidence ahead of the crucial COP30 summit in Belem next year, sending a strong message to the world that together we can accelerate the clean energy revolution.
Labour is using social media to defends its inheritance tax policy. It has posted this on X.
This is the truth about Labour's Budget and farmers. pic.twitter.com/YZTnty96Xt
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) November 19, 2024
Starmer rejects Clarkson's claim about most farmers being hit by inheritance tax extension, saying 'facts speak for themselves'
Q: Jeremy Clarkson says 96% of farmers will be affected by the tax change. Is that true? Or is he spreading misinformation? And, if so, are you worried about that?
Starmer says he is not going to get into what Clarkson said. But he says “the facts speak for themselves”. He says the “vast majority” of farmers will not be affected.
He says a BBC report has backed that up. He seems to be referring to this analysis by BBC Verify.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
I’m not going to get into the business of commenting on what Jeremy Clarkson says. I think the facts speak for themselves.
As I’ve said on a number of occasions, for a typical family wanting to pass on through the family which is … completely understood, then with all the allowances in place, if they pass onto a child, it’s a £3m threshold. All of you can check out what that means in terms of the impact. But it means that the vast majority of farms are unaffected by this.
Updated
Q: Peter Mandelson, who is tipped to be next ambassador to the US, says you should end your feud with Elon Musk and use Nigel Farage to build bridges with the Trump administration. Will you follow his advice?
Starmer says he will not comment on appointments. But he says he has made an effort to develop a good relationship with Donald Trump.
Q: How can you justify the winter fuel payments cut in the light of the latest figures from DWP? And is it embarrassing that Scottish Labour wants to take a different approach.
Starmer says the DWP figures (see 5.05pm) do not take into account the “considerable uptake in pension credit”. The figures also do not make allowance for the increase in the household support fund, and the warm homes discount, he says.
And he says pensions are going up because of the triple lock.
As for what the Scottish Labour party is saying (see 1.23pm), he argues that it is normal for different countries to take different approaches under devolution.
Q: Why is Steve Reed saying farmers can avoid inheritance tax?
Starmer says he is very confident of his analysis saying most farming families would not pay.
Starmer dismisses Russia's talk of using nuclear weapons as 'irresponsible rhetoric'
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: The final communique waters down previous commitments made on Ukraine. How do you feel about that?
Starmer says the G20 communique has to be agreed by many countries. But he says he has been clear about his support for Ukraine.
Q: Should Brits prepare for nuclear war?
That is a response to reports that Vladimir Putin has changed the rules that would decide when he might use nuclear weapons.
Starmer says “irresponsible rhetoric” is coming from Russia. That will not deter him from supporting Ukraine, he says.
Starmer says UK launching its 'global clean power alliance', as he holds press conference at end of G20 summit
The G20 summit has now wrapped up, and Keir Starmer has just started speaking at this end-of-summit press conference.
He says today the UK is launching its “global clean power alliance”, with Brazil and other countries.
This is an idea that Labour first proposed in opposition.
Cutting winter fuel payment set to push between 50,000 and 100,000 extra pensioners into poverty per year, DWP admits
The government estimates that its decision to stop most pensioners getting winter fuel payments this winter will push between 50,000 and 100,000 more pensioners into relative poverty every year for the rest of the decade.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, disclosed the figures in a letter to the Commons work and pensions committee published today.
But she stressed that the figures, which are based on modelling, do not take into account the impact of the rise in people applying for pension credit. Applications for pension credit have risen by 152%, because claimants continue to get the winter fuel payment and the government has been actively trying to increase uptake.
Kendall also said the modelling was subject to “a range of uncertainties”.
In her letter to the committee, Kendall said:
The latest modelling shows that compared to the numbers that would have been in poverty without this policy, it is estimated that in each year in question there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in relative poverty after housing costs in 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2027/28, instead. The modelling also shows that an additional 100,000 pensioners are estimated to be in relative poverty after housing costs in 2026/27, 2028/29 and 2029/30. For all other measures of poverty it is estimated that there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in poverty each year from 2024/25 to 2029/30.
Being in relative poverty is defined as having household income worth less than 60% of the median. Absolute poverty is defined as having household income worth less than 60% of what the median was in the baseline year (currently 2010-11).
Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey both stress their opposition to 'family farm tax'
The two main opposition parties, and their leaders, both supported the farmers at the rally today.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said the Tories would oppose “the family farm tax”. She said:
The Labour government clearly doesn’t understand, or care about rural communities, and now families are having to sell their farms, with knowledge that has been handed down through generations lost for ever.
Under my leadership the Conservative party will staunchly oppose the family farm tax, which threatens our vital rural economy and our food security, with increased costs and a greater reliance on imports.
And Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, used the same phrase when he said his party was also opposed the inheritance tax extension.
This family farm tax isn’t just cruel - it’s stupid too. What the government needs to understand is that if British farmers can’t make the sums add up, if you have to close down and sell up, how on earth are we going to feed ourselves as a country?
Who else will put healthy, nutritious food on our tables? Who else is going to care for our countryside or our environment, if we lose the families who have been doing it so passionately for generations?
Rest assured, Liberal Democrats will keep making your voices heard in parliament, fighting for more support for farmers and to stop the family farm tax.
Updated
Yvette Cooper says police forces will be compensated for employers' national insurance increase
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has said that police forces will be compensated for the rise in employers’ national insurance in the budget, Sky News reports. She said forces would get the money in addition to an extra £500m being allocated for neighbourhood policing. She made the announcement as she set out police reforms. In its summary the Home Office says the measures include:
-a new Police Performance Unit to track national data on local performance and drive up standards
-a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to get policing back to basics and rebuild trust between local forces and the communities they serve
-a new National Centre of Policing to harness new technology and forensics, making sure policing is better equipped to meet the changing nature of crime
The text of Cooper’s speech is here.
Sarah Bool (Con) asked why the government had chosen £1m as the threshold where farms will start to pay inheritance tax. She suggested it should be higher.
Reed said that, taking into account other allowances, a couple with farm could avoid inheritance tax on sales up to £3m. He said people might find it hard to justify people someone inheriting property worth more than £3m not paying inheritance tax.
The Commons environment committee had to suspend proceedings for a while, because there was a division in the chamber.
When proceedings resumed, in response to a question from the Lib Dem MP Sarah Dyke, the environment secretary Steve Reed said that last year more than half of farmland was sold to non-farmers. And he said the price of farmland was rising above inflation. He said this trend had been going on for a while. He went on:
I suspect a part of that is being driven by wealthy individuals who are buying up agricultural land potentially as a means to avoid inheritance tax liability.
And some of them will be very open about that. If you’re listening to tax advisers or tax consultants, some of them will freely give this opinion in public; one of the best ways to shield a large amount of money from inheritance tax is to buy agricultural land.
He said that when agricultural property relief was established (the inheritance tax exemption), it was not there to help people like this.
Updated
Health minister Stephen Kinnock says he will back assisted dying bill
Stephen Kinnock, the health secretary, has said he will vote in favour of the assisted dying bill next week, arguing that it is the “compassionate” thing to do and will not automatically place NHS palliative care services under extreme pressure. Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot have the story.
Just Stop Oil joins NFU rally, but says crisis in farming 'about so much more than inheritance tax'
Farmers have managed to get an unlikely coalition of people supporting them. It is no surprise that rightwing parties like the Conservatives and Reform UK and on their side, along with Jeremy Clarkson. But they have also got Greenpeace in their corner (see 11.35am) – and Just Stop Oil. In a column two years ago Clarkson referred to them as “eco-herberts” and “halfwits”. Today they joined him at the NFU rally.
Today, Just Stop Oil Supporters joined the Farmers’ March in solidarity with agricultural workers demanding a future.
— Just Stop Oil (@JustStop_Oil) November 19, 2024
Farmers are being failed by government policies, cheap imports and supermarket greed, while the climate crisis threatens to destroy food production entirely.… pic.twitter.com/gxoIYdghYF
Today, Just Stop Oil Supporters joined the Farmers’ March in solidarity with agricultural workers demanding a future.
Farmers are being failed by government policies, cheap imports and supermarket greed, while the climate crisis threatens to destroy food production entirely.
If we want a future worth inheriting, we must end fossil fuel extraction by 2030.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the group said farming was facing a crisis that went beyond inheritance tax.
Food production, the rural and urban economies, our health, education and transport systems have been designed for a climate that no longer exists. There is no evidence that farming can survive the 2C of heating that is now predicted for the 2030’s. That’s everyone’s inheritance down the pan. That’s why there are 24 people in prison who stood up to demand a decent future for all of us.
Just Stop Oil recognises that UK farmers are going to be on the sharp end as we enter this era of consequences. Farmers and farming cannot adapt to a future in which the weather will be either too hot, too dry, too wet or too cold to grow food. The crisis in farming is about so much more than inheritance tax, it’s about political elites betraying ordinary people.
Many farmers 'wrong' to think they will be affected by inheritance tax extension, Reed tells MPs
Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Commons environment committee, and he is currently being asked about the Treasury figures saying Defra figures about the value of farms overstates the number of people affected by the extension of inheritance tax. (See 12.20pm and 2.39pm.)
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem MP who chairs the committee, put it to Reed that most of the farmers who turned up at the rally today think they will be affected. He asked: “Are they wrong?”
Reed replied:
Assuming these projections from HMRC, validated by the OBR and the IFS are correct, then many of them, probably happily, are wrong.
He said that there were things that people can do to manage their tax affairs to reduce or avoid an inheritance tax liability. Farmers who thought they would be affected by the tax should get “adequate advice”, he said.
He said that he accepted figures that were being bandied around about how many farmers would be affected were “very, very frightening”. But he said it was wrong just to look at figures showing the value of farms and then “draw a straight line to an inheritance tax liability”. He went on:
You can’t do that because ownership is much more complex than one person, one farm, and when you take into account these other factors, as the Treasury has done, as the OBR has done, as the IFS have done, they all say that less than 500 [estates] would be affected a year.
UPDATE: Asked what farmers should do if they thought they might be liable for inheritance tax under the new rules, Reed replied:
I am not going to give tax advice, the circumstances change from individual to individual. There are many options available.
Updated
The Labour MP Torsten Bell, former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, has objected to the use of the word “claims” in the headline on the post at 12.20pm. He has posted this on Bluesky.
It’s not a claim - it’s a fact. We can see from actual inheritance tax claims the numbers who would previously have been affected. Trying to distract from that by pointing to data on something else (farm values NOT who owns/passes on what) makes sense for lobbyists but is nonsense
Starmer restates his desire for ministers to stay neutral in assisted dying debate, in implied rebuke to Streeting
Keir Starmer has restated his desire for the government to stay neutral on the assisted dying bill.
In an interview with Sky News, asked about comments from Wes Streeting that have been seen as a breach of the instruction that cabinet ministers should not be trying to sway the debate in parliament, Starmer said:
I don’t think pressure should be put on MPs … I think we need to stay neutral.
Asked if Streeting went to far, Starmer said he would not talk about individual ministers. Asked if he had spoken to Streeting about this issue, he said he spoke to “all of the cabinet all of the time, as you would expect”.
Starmer took a similar line in an interview with ITV. In both interviews his comments sounded like an implied rebuke to Streeting – albeit not a particularly strong one.
The PM says he won't put 'pressure on any MP to vote one way or the other' on assisted dying@Peston: 'Why is Wes Streeting allowed to put pressure?'@Keir_Starmer: 'Nobody should be putting pressure on MPs' pic.twitter.com/HkZ8bTpT1z
— ITVPolitics (@ITVNewsPolitics) November 19, 2024
In another interview, Starmer said he had set out his views on this previously (he voted in favour of assisted dying in 2015 and he has said more recently he is still in favour, subject to proper safeguards) and he said people would see how he voted in the debate on Friday week.
Starmer declines to say if Ukraine will get approval to use Storm Shadow missiles to hit Russia
Keir Starmer has refused to say if Ukraine will be allowed to use Storm Shadow missiles supplied by the UK to hit targets in Russia. As the Guardian reported this morning, Ukraine is expected to get approval to fire these missiles into Russia now that Joe Biden, has agreed to do the same for the similar American long-range Atacms weapon.
But, when asked about this in an interview at the G20, Starmer sidestepped the question. He said:
My position has always been that Ukraine must have what it needs for as long as it needs. [Vladimir] Putin must not win this war. But look, forgive me, I’m not going to go into operational matters, because there’s only one winner if I do that, and that is Putin and it would undermine Ukrainian efforts.
Starmer rejects claim inheritance tax plan amounts to class war, and says 'vast majority' of farmers won't be affected
Keir Starmer has said he is “very confident” that the “vast majority” of farmers will not be affected by the extension of inheritance tax. In an interview in Brazil, where he is attending the G20 summit, he told the BBC:
If you take a typical case, which is parents who want to pass on their farm to one of their children … by the time you’ve built in the other income tax thresholds, it’s only those with assets over £3m that would begin to pay inheritance tax, and that’s why I’m very confident that the vast majority of farms will be totally unaffected.
He also said rural communities needed the extra investment the budget would fund.
I also say this; I know that in rural communities – I grew up in one – we also need really good schools, really good hospitals, and we need houses that people could afford to live in, and they were the measures that we invested heavily in the budget.
In an interview with Sky News, asked if he was waging “class war” on wealthy landowners, Starmer replied
Look, It isn’t at all what we’re doing. It’s a balanced approach. We have to fill a black hole which was left by the last government.
Updated
Labour would bring back winter fuel payments in Scotland, says Anas Sarwar, but tapered so wealthy get less
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has pledged to reinstate universal winter fuel payments in Scotland should his party win the 2026 Holyrood election.
In a move that piles pressure on Rachel Reeves’ controversial policy, Sarwar said his plan would mean “a fairer system” for Scotland and show the public that “we have listened”.
The pledge comes days before another set of council byelections in Glasgow and after polling suggesting the unpopularity of UK government policies is harming Scottish Labour’s vote. At the general election Scottish Labour was well ahead of the SNP, but now that lead has collapsed.
Sarwar said he had been “clear from the outset” that he thought Reeve’s pension credit threshold was too low and that he planned to reintroduce a universal payment for all pensioners, but tapered like child benefit is so that wealthier people receive less.
Winter fuel payment was set to be devolved to Scotland this year but, after Reeves’ announcement, the Scottish government said it had no option but to delay as it created a shortfall of £150m.
Sarwar denied that he was trying to distance himself from UK Labour policy, saying:
This is about recognizing that we have got to find a Scottish solution to this problem.
I’ve always been clear that we will take a different approach where I think it’s appropriate.
In Scotland, we took a different approach, for example, on how we supported our trade union movement on picket lines. We obviously took a much earlier and strong view on the conflict in the Middle East, a position supported now by our colleagues across the UK, and we have a different view around the threshold for this payment.
Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland, who both work with Jeremy Clarkson on his farm and who both star alongside him in Amazon Prime’s Clarkson’s Farm, have also been attending the rally. Cooper is the farm manager, and Ireland is the land agent. Both of them are competent professionals who have to manage Clarkson’s chaotic uselessness (or at least that is the way they all present on TV), which is why the show fits so well into the British master/servant comedy genre.
Cooper said the inheritance tax changes were unfair on farmers who wanted to leave something to their families. He told PA Media:
We want our younger ones to take on our farms, our heritage.
And for example, for me, I haven’t got a farm to pass down but I have got a business that I’ve grown since I was 16 years old, so to pass that on to my child now I’m going to get taxed on that.
And actually, can he afford to take that business on? And if he has to then sell two tractors, for example, to pay that tax bill, is that going to be unprofitable to actually then make sure you have a livelihood off that business?
And Ireland said the government did not understand farmers.
The government have been in place for three or four months and come out and basically said this is how we want to deal with the farming in the countryside.
The strength of feeling comes from, gosh they’ve missed that by a country mile. They’re so far removed from actually the business of farming and the day to day operation.
Updated
Clarkson addresses rally, saying budget delivered 'hammer blow' to farmers and urging ministers to back down
Jeremy Clarkson is now speaking at the rally.
He says he was unsympathetic to farmers when he lived in London. But since he started farming himself, he has learned how “unbelievably difficult” it is, he says.
(His speech is interrupted by someone saying a person at the rally needs medical attention.)
He says the costs for farmers are huge. A tractor can cost £200,000, he says.
You get people saying, well, I shouldn’t pay that. I can get a chicken from abroad. Yes, you can … it’s full of chlorine, it tastes like a swimming pool with a beak.
And he says the budget hit farmers really hard.
I know a lot of people all across the country and all walks of life took a bit of a kick on the shin with that budget. You lot got a knee in the nuts and a hammer blow to the back of the head.
Clarkson mentions other costs imposed on farmers in the budget – such as pickup trucks being classified as company cars, which he claims amounts to a 211% tax rise – and then he turns to the claim that only 73% of farms will be affected. (See 12.20pm.) He asks people in the crowd to put their hands up. And then he asks anyone unaffected by the change to lower their hand. It looks as if all the hands stay up.
After joking about being “off my tits on codeine and paracetamol” (he’s not feeling well), Clarkson ends with a message to the government. He does not want to make it a “shouty” one, he says.
For the sake of everybody here, and for all the farmers stuck at home paralysed by a fog of despair over what’s been foisted on them, I beg of the government to be big and accept this was rushed through, it wasn’t thought out and it was a mistake. That’s the big thing to do – admit it and back down.
Updated
Clarkson denies buying farm primarily to avoid inheritance tax – despite having said in past he did
Jeremy Clarkson has denied buying a farm primarily to avoid inheritance tax.
Even though in the past he has publicly given this as a key reason for his decision to buy his Diddly Squat farm in Oxfordshire (named after the amount of profit the farm supposedly produces – not the inheritance tax he intended to pay), Clarkson claimed today that he only wrote about buying a farm for tax reasons (see 11.20am) because he did not want to admit the real reason.
Asked about the past comment, he told PA Media:
That’s actually quite funny because the real reason I bought the farm was because I wanted to shoot, so I thought if I told a bunch of people that I bought a farm so I could shoot pheasants it might look bad.
So, I thought I better come up with another excuse, so I said inheritance tax. I actually didn’t know about inheritance tax until after I bought it. I didn’t mind, obviously, but the real reason I bought it is because I wanted to shoot.
Clarkson also accused the government of using a “blunderbuss’ to try to get money out of people using farms as a tax dodge and he urged the government to think again. He told PA Media:
If [Rachel Reeves] would have wanted to take out the likes of James Dyson and investment bankers and so on, she would have used a sniper’s rifle, but she’s used a blunderbuss and she’s hit all this lot.
It was – as I understand it – it was a very rushed last-minute decision and I think we all make mistakes in life, and I think it’s time for them to say ‘you know what, we’ve cocked this one up a bit’ and back down.
Updated
Reeves says Defra data about farm values overstates how many families would have to pay inheritance tax
There has been confusion about how many farmers will be affected by decision to subject some farms to inheritance tax because two government departments have produced figures implying quite different answers.
The Treasury claims only 27% of farms would be affected. It justifies this using figures showing that in 2021-22 73% of estates applying for agricultural property relief had assets worth less than £1m.
But the NFU has focused on figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs saying 66% of the UK’s 209,000 farms are worth more than £1m.
In a letter to the Commons Treasury committee, published on its website yesterday, Rachel Reeves says the Treasury figures are a better guide to how many families will be affected by her tax rise. She explains:
HMRC [HM Revenue and Customs] and Defra data are consistent, because they describe different things. The Defra data shows the asset value of farms in England. However, it is not possible to accurately infer a future inheritance tax liability from data on farm asset values. HMRC data relates to estates making claims for agricultural property relief. Claims data is the correct way to understand an inheritance tax liability. The number of affected estates, meaning how many estates making relief claims that would be impacted by this change, and their value, is affected by who owns the business, the nature of that ownership, how many owners there are, any borrowing the business has, and how they plan their affairs. For example, a farm worth £5m but owned by five relatives in equal shares could have no inheritance tax liability.
HMRC figures are based on inheritance tax administrative data relating to previous years, which is robust and based on observable outturn information, and illustrates the distribution of claims values where 100% relief has been available on agricultural and business property. We anticipate a significant behavioural response to grow over time to the reforms set out at autumn budget, which is accounted for in the published costings as certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. We expect people to respond to this measure in a number of ways, including by changing ownership structures, and for land prices to become more affordable for farmers due to a reduction in tax-motivated investment in agricultural land.
Reeves sent the letter to the committee as a follow-up to her oral evidence session, where she gave information about the budget.
UPDATE: In response to Labour lobbying on Bluesky (see 2.39pm), I replaced “changed” in the headline with “say”. While the argument that only 27% of estates would be affected is contestable and not proven (in part because it does not take into account business property relief), I think it is reasonable to argue that the farm value figures inevitably to some extent overstate the number of farms where, in practice, inheritance tax would be applied.
Updated
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is also at the rally this morning. Eight years ago many farmers took his advice and voted for Brexit. Now a lot of them seem to think they would have been better off ignoring him. “Increased red tape, a worsening economic situation, damaging free-trade deals, a trail of broken promises – it seems that farmers and those working in the ancillary industries are far from satisfied with Brexit,” the Farmers Weekly said last year, in a report summarising the findings of a survey. But this has not stopped Farage speaking out as an advocate for the farming sector.
Updated
Farmers attending the rally in London today have backed the NFU’s claim that the government is massively underestimating the number of families that will be affected by the inheritance tax change. (See 9.35am.) A group of farmers from Wales and Wiltshire told the Guardian said they believed all of their farms would fall into the remit of inheritance tax under the budget measures.
Sarah Godwin, a dairy and egg farmer from Wiltshire, said her 78-year-old parents-in-law are still actively involved in the business, which has been in the family for a century, and felt “horrendous” about the inheritance tax changes.
Philip Greenhill, a beef and arable farmer from North Wiltshire said there was “no correlation” between the earnings from a farm business and its asset value. He said:
You could have £5m of assets, but make £50,000 a year profit, depending on how you farm that. If you have got that you are looking at maybe £600,000 inheritance tax off a £50,000 income.
Holding a sign reading “farmer harmer Starmer”, Devon dairy farmer Sue Hosegood and her husband William said they were worried for their three sons who are involved in the business. “There is no future if we have to pay tax every generation,” William said.
Greenpeace urges ministers to protect farmers, using revenue from higher taxes on supermarkets and agribusiness
Greenpeace UK is also supporting the farmers. Its head of politics, Ami McCarthy, released this statement about today’s protests.
Farmers have a vital job to do in growing good-quality food and looking after the countryside, but that job is getting harder. Extreme weather, competition from industrial farms and supermarkets denying them a fair price for their food - all this is putting farmers’ livelihoods under huge strain. They have reasons to be angry.
So whilst it is right that the richest landowners pay their fair share of tax, the government must look again at their wider offer to support UK farmers. Ministers should double the budget for nature-friendly farming and land management to at least £6bn a year, with no delay to the roll-out of new farm payment systems delivering on the principle of public money for public goods.
Money for investment in public services, nature protection and action on climate change is urgently needed. Supermarkets and industrial farming corporations have been making huge profits, while driving down standards, damaging the environment and impacting our health. The government could usefully look at the profits from these sectors as it seeks further ways of raising much-needed revenue.
Updated
The Resolution Foundation, a thinktank focusing on policy that would help low or middle-income families and one of the best sources of independent analysis on budget issues, has announced that it has appointed a new chief executive. She is Ruth Curtice, currently director of fiscal policy at the Treasury. She will replace Torsten Bell, who left to become a Labour MP at the election.
Here is a picture giving a sense of the size of the farmers’ protest in Whitehall this morning.
Jeremy Clarkson cheered as he joins farmers' protest
Jeremy Clarkson is attending the farmers’ protest in London this morning. In some respects, he is not the ideal person to be there because he is probably the best example of why the Treasury has decided to get rid of the blanket exemption from inheritance tax that applied to farmland until the budget. He may not be the wealthiest man to have bought a farm wholly or partly for tax reasons, but he is the most famous and he may be the only one who has been willing to go public about his tax-dodging motives.
This is what he wrote explaining his motives for buying his farm in Oxfordshire.
I have bought a farm. There are many sensible reasons for this,” he wrote.
Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The government doesn’t get any of my money when I die.
But Clarkson is also a hero to farmers, partly because he champions their cause with gusto, but mostly because they believe his Amazon Prime hit series, Clarkson’s Farm, has done more than almost anything else to present a positive and realistic view of what farmers do.
Here is some video of Clarkson being cheered at the protest this morning.
Well done @JeremyClarkson
— Alan D Miller (@alanvibe) November 19, 2024
Brilliant we all stand Together with our farmers #FarmerProtests #together pic.twitter.com/4GdhdxzvEo
Tories claim inheritance tax plan shows Labour 'does not understand countryside'
Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary, told BBC News this morning that the Tories were opposed to the inheritance tax changes because they would have a huge impact on farming families. And she claimed the proposal showed that Labour did not understand the countryside.
Atkins, who is MP for Louth and Horncastle, a largely rural constituency in Lincolnshire, said she referred to the environment secretary, Steve Reed, as “city Steve”. Reed is MP for Streatham and Croydon North in London. Atkins said he had told farmers before the election that inheritance tax rules would not change, and that, when the Conservatives had suggested Labour was likely to apply inheritance tax to farms, Reed had called that “desperate nonsense”.
She went on:
This Labour government, which is a city-dwelling, socialist government that does not understand the countryside, must now listen to farmers, because I’ve never known farmers this angry … The fact they’re coming to London today in so many numbers from all over the country shows just how worried they are.
The Green party is siding with the farmers. This is from Emily O’Brien, a councillor on Lewes district council and the Greens’ agricultural and rural welfare spokesperson.
Farmers are feeling abandoned. They have suffered badly from Brexit, both via detrimental trade conditions and reduced subsidies. And tax breaks for agricultural land have inflated land values, making it harder for both new entrants and existing farmers.
It is right to clamp down on those who buy farmland to avoid tax and the Green party strongly supports wealth taxes.
But we also need the government to take action to ensure that hard working farmers can earn a decent income. In particular, in the face of our climate and nature crises, we need subsidies to focus on encouraging farmers to shift to nature-friendly farming. This will protect our food security and support the rural economy while allowing wildlife to recover.
Steve Reed says, if farmers feel betrayed, they should blame Tories for state public finances were in after election
In an interview with the BBC, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, defended imposing inheritance tax on some farms when Labour said in opposition that it was not planning to do that. Asked why the government changed its mind, he replied:
After we won the election, we discovered that the Conservatives have left a £22bn black hole in the public finances. And if we want to fix our National Health Service, rebuild all schools, provide the affordable housing that rural communities and across the country rely on, then we’ve had to ask those with the broader shoulders to pay a little bit more.
Asked if he understood why farmers felt betrayed, he said:
I’m sure we all feel betrayed because of the state that the Conservatives left the economy in. A £22bn pound black hole isn’t a small problem. It’s massive, and fixing that is necessary if we want to stabilise the economy and rebuild our public services.
Reed also restated the government’s claim that only around 500 estates would be affected by the changes every year. He said he was “very confident” in its figures, which he said had been endorsed by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
As Helena Horton explains here, the 500 estates figure only covers farms using agricultural property relief. But farmers also use business property relief to avoid inheritance tax, and the rules about this are also being tightened under budget plans. That’s why farmers say the real number of families affected every year is higher.
Keir Starmer is still at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where they are three hours behind UK time and so the day is just getting going. Yesterday Starmer had a series of bilateral meeting, including with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and with Narendra Modi, the Indian PM. Relations with both those countries are not straightforward. Starmer probably had a much easier time talking to Justin Trudeau, the Canadian PM. Here is a photo of when they met for a beer last night.
These are from my colleague Joanna Partridge, who is at the NFU rally at Church House.
Room full of farmers in London attending @NFUtweets mass lobby event to protest against government budget changes to inheritance tax.
— Joanna Partridge (@JoannaPartridge) November 19, 2024
NFU President Tom Bradshaw called it a “extraordinary” betrayal pic.twitter.com/kQsDk49lJO
NFU President Tom Bradshaw welled up just a couple of minutes into his speech to farmers and paused as overcome with emotion. “Good for you” came a shout from a farmer in the audience. pic.twitter.com/q9cSvZzpnt
— Joanna Partridge (@JoannaPartridge) November 19, 2024
Sue and William Hosegood, dairy farmers from Devon with 3 sons working on the farm, have come to London to protests against budget changes to inheritance tax. pic.twitter.com/bTxrBB8leA
— Joanna Partridge (@JoannaPartridge) November 19, 2024
Rupert Harrison, chief of staff to George Osborne when Osborne was chancellor, reckons that the Treasury could find a more effective way of raising money from the mega-wealthy who are buying farms to dodge inheritance tax. The NFU says it thinks a better policy could be devised. (See 9.35am.) Harrison posted these on social media yesterday with an example of how this could be done.
Labour’s family farm tax problem should be really easy to fix, and they could probably even do it in a revenue neutral way - eg instead of 20% above £1m go to 30% above £5 million.
They’ve got it wrong, and if you’re going to have to do a U-turn then best to get on with it.
This would also actually raise more from the people they’re really trying to target who are using the relief for tax avoidance.
UK retailers warn Reeves of £7bn hit from budget tax rises
Large UK retailers including Tesco, Boots, Marks & Spencer and Next have written to Rachel Reeves to say that a £7bn increase in annual costs after last month’s budget would lead to job cuts and higher prices, Mark Sweney reports.
NFU president says farmers willing to work with ministers on alternative policy to 'stop people using land as tax dodge'
In an interview with BBC News, Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said that farmers felt particularly aggrieved because last year, when Steve Reed was shadow environment secretary, he said Labour was not planning to change agricultural property relief (the inheritance tax exemption). He said farmers only started hearing rumours that the government was going to go back on this about a week before the budget.
He said he did not accept the government’s claims that most farms will not be affected by the change. Instead, he said, “75% of the commerical farms in the United Kingdom will be within the scope of this policy change.”
Bradshaw also said farmers were willing to work with the government to produce a better version of the policy. He explained:
This policy is ill thought through. There’s still a 20% benefit for the uber-wealthy to invest in agricultural land, and with the changes they’ve made to pensions, they’ve now incentivised people to rip money out of pensions and invest in up to £1m of agricultural land. That is not going to deliver for food security. It’s absolutely nonsensical. It’s not joined up. There’s no thought about the impact on food production or the families that produce this country’s food …
Let’s sit down [with the government]. Give us the question. Tell us what the exam question is. We will work with you. If you want to stop people using land as a tax dodge, let’s work out the policy that does that. But this policy is not the answer.
Updated
Some farmers have been driving tractors into Parliament Square to publicise the protest.
Here is a story from Jamie Grierson this morning about the protests.
Farmers arrive in Whitehall for protest about inheritance tax plan
Good morning. There is an old Westminster adage that says governments should never pick fights with professions that feature as characters in childrens’ books. Voters are happy to see people like bankers, managers and property developers get hammered, the theory goes, but they are inclined to sympathise with postmen (note to the Guardian style guide editors – it is Postman Pat, not Postal worker Pat), doctors, train drivers – and of course farmers. As the last two years have shown, governments have not always been guided by this rule, but it has some merit nevertheless.
Which is why today’s protests in Westminster will be so interesting. It is the first big, public showdown between the farming lobby and the Labour government and, with both sides digging in, it probably won’t be the last.
Farmers are angry because they believe plans in the budget applying inheritance tax to bigger farms will result in families who have been farming the same land for generations having to sell up to pay the inheritance tax bill. The government claims most proper farmers won’t be affected, and that it is entirely right to close a loophole that increasingly is being exploited by very rich people who do not have a clue how to drive a tractor but who want to pass on vast wealth to their children tax free.
Helena Horton has written a good explainer testing the arguments on both sides.
Steve Reed, the environment minister, has defended the tax changes. This morning he posted this on social media.
Half of farmland sold last year went to non-farmers including wealthy individuals trying to avoid inheritance tax.
It’s right that tax changes will ensure everyone pays their fair share - and young farmers can realise their dream of buying their own farm.
And the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been publicising this joint statement from Reed and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.
Ahead of the farming protests today, read Secretary of State @SteveReedMP's joint statement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. pic.twitter.com/GqyICFbdjf
— Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) November 19, 2024
But Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, says that farmers would keep going until they got the government to change its mind. He told Sky News this morning.
[Protests] will carry on. They cannot have a policy in place which has such disastrous human impacts and think we’re going to go quiet.
We don’t know what’s next, but I know the membership have never been so united in trying to overturn something in the time that I’ve been farming.
Asked if farmers could carry on until the government backed down, Bradshaw replied: “Absolutely.”
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The National Farmers Union holds a rally at Church House in Westminster.
11am: Farmers hold a separate protest in Whitehall.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.45am: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, gives a speech on policing reform at the National Police Chiefs’ Council conference.
Late morning (UK time): Keir Starmer is doing interviews with broadcasters at the G20 summit in Brazil.
2.30pm: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the environment committee about the work of his department.
5pm (UK time): Starmer holds a press conference in Brazil.
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