Early evening summary
Kemi Badenoch has appointed Mel Stride shadow chancellor and Priti Patel shadow foreign secretary as she began to put together a Conservative frontbench team billed as uniting the party. And Robert Jenrick is becoming shadow justice secretary, Steven Swinford from the Times reports. He says:
Robert Jenrick has accepted the role of shadow justice secretary in Kemi Badenoch’s new shadow cabinet
Badenoch offered him the role after a bitterly fought leadership contest
An ally of Jenrick said: ‘Rob thinks the party needs to come together and take the fight to Labour. Unity could not be more important. He’s eager to expose Labour’s dreadful record on law and order’
University tuition fees in England are to go up next autumn for the first time in eight years, the government has said. The Conservatives have described this as a broken promised. Laura Trott, the new shadow education secretary, said:
With Keir Starmer elected to Labour leadership on a pledge to scrap tuition fees, no mention of the rise in the manifesto, and the education secretary saying in just July this year Labour had no plans to raise fees, students can be forgiven for feeling betrayed. This is another broken Labour promise to add to the long list.
Keir Starmer has said people smuggling should be seen as a global security threat similar to terrorism. (See 11.36am.)
Mel Stride, the new shadow chancellor, is on record as saying that he thinks parental benefits are too generous. Labour sources have been flagging up an article that Stride wrote for ConservativeHome in 2012, when he was a backbencher, saying maternity and paternity leave rights meant it was “not uncommon for an employee to take multiple breaks from work in relatively close proximity and for up to a year on each occasion”. This was unfair on employers, he argued. He went on:
The politics around this issue are tricky, with worldwide experience showing that changes in this area of employment law tend to ratchet in one direction alone – towards greater generosity to employees …
There have though been some notable examples of countries rowing back in this area in recent years, including Germany. If we want to provide a massive shot in the arm for British business and entrepreneurship I would hope that we could seriously consider following their example with at least a close look at relaxations in protected-employment
legislation for smaller businesses.
Kemi Badenoch, the new Tory leader, would almost certainly agree, based on what she said about maternity pay and business regulations during Tory conference.
The Russell Group, which represents leading, research-focused universities, has in a statement described the rise in tuition fees as “a welcome sign that government is engaging seriously with the financial difficulties facing universities and students”.
Minister hits back at Jeremy Clarkson as he defends inheritance tax extension to cover farms
Amazon prime star and Sunday Times columnist Jeremy Clarkson has been full throated in his opposition to Labour’s changes to agricultural property relief which will mean farms worth more than £1m will have to pay inheritance tax.
He has accused Keir Starmer of ‘shafting’ farmers. Clarkson previously admitted a perk of buying his farm, now famous on the show Clarkson’s Farm, was that he could avoid inheritance tax.
But Daniel Zeichner, the farming minister, hit back at Clarkson during the urgent question earlier. (See 3.48pm.) He said:
Not only do those people [critics of the policy] seem to relish finding ways of creatively running their accounts, some of them of course take money to write columns about it as well.
Many farmers have expressed genuine concerns about the changes, arguing the threshold has been set too low as people buying up farmland has artificially inflated the price, when the amount of money that can be made from farming it is very low. This means family farms which have been in the family for generations have rocketed in value, while their income has gone down, and now they are worried about being stung with a large tax bill when they pass it on to their families.
Clarkson wrote in his column in the Sunday Times this Sunday:
I was overcome with something not far removed from fury. Because, if the word on the rural grapevine about a farmer’s suicide is accurate, their policy, born of bitterness and envy, may already have tipped one man over the edge. And there they were grinning.
In the past five years agricultural land has become the must-have accessory for people in suits. And because investment bankers tend to be quite rich, the prices have gone berserk.
Round where I live, people have been paying £30,000 an acre. That means a 500-acre farm now goes for £15m. And that doesn’t include the house. Or the barns. Or the equipment. That’s just the price of the land.
But the University and College Union (UCU), which represents university staff, has criticised the tuition fees increase. Its general secretary, Jo Grady said:
Taking more money from debt ridden students and handing it to overpaid, underperforming vice-chancellors is ill-conceived and won’t come close to addressing the sector’s core issues.
As Keir Starmer himself said last year, the current fees system doesn’t work for students and doesn’t work for universities.
The model is broken; it has saddled students with decades of debt, turned universities from sites of learning into corporations obsessed with generating revenue, and continually degraded staff pay and working conditions.
Labour accepts the issues facing higher education are systemic yet has only applied a sticking plaster. Its principles are vague and could be exploited by vice-chancellors, while higher fees mean even more graduates will fail to pay back their loans, ultimately costing the exchequer.
The chancellor says ‘invest, invest, invest’: it is time to do that in higher education, especially if Labour is serious about delivering a decade of national renewal.
Universities UK, which represents the universities sector, has welcomed the rise in tuition fees. Its chief executive, Vivienne Stern said:
A decade-long freeze in England has seen inflation erode the real value of student fees and maintenance loans by around a third, which is completely unsustainable for both students and universities.
Keeping pace with inflation stops the value of fees going down year after year.
Importantly, this change will not see students paying more to study upfront; repayments are linked to earnings above a £25,000 threshold. The increase in maintenance loans is also very welcome and important.
Here is the Department for Education’s paper with details about the tuition fee increase.
Here is a DfE paper about the new arrangments for loans for living costs.
And here is a DfE paper about fees and loans for foundation years.
Phillipson accuses Tories of 'faux outrage' over tuition fees increase, after Laura Trott calls it broken promise
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said today’s announcement showed that the government was declaring war on students, just as it declared war on the private sector, on business and on farmers.
She said that Keir Starmer promised to get rid of tuition fees when he was standing for the Labour leadership.
And Phillipson herself said at the time of the king’s speech that she had no plans to raise tuition fees, Trott said. She said this was another example of broken promises.
In response, Phillipson accused Trott of “faux outrage”. And she said Trott had not said whether the Tories were opposing the increase or supporting it.
Phillipson also says she wants to see universities do more to contribute to local economies, and to promote social mobility. She says they should be helping more disadvantaged students to go university.
Phillipson says student tuition fee cap in England rising by £285 per year, to £9,535
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, says the last government left the university sector in a mess.
She says she is making two sets of announcements.
First, the government will secure the future of universities. From April 2025, the maximum cap for tuition fees will go up in line with inflation, from £9,250 to £9,535. That is an increase of £285 per year, she says.
(Most universities charge the maximum amount.)
She says graduates will not have to pay more each month after they graduate.
And she says the maximum maintenance payment will go up, meaning that in 2025-26 they will be worth an extra £414.
She also says there will be a lower fee limit of £5,760 for foundation years in classroom-based subjects.
Bridget Phillipson makes Commons statement on tuition fees increase
Before the tuition fees announcement, Linsday Hoyle, the Speaker, told Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, he was angry about the news being leaked to the media first. Phillipson said she would investigate the leak.
Mel Stride appointed shadow chancellor, and Priti Patel shadow foreign secretary
Mel Stride, the former work and pensions secretary, has been made shadow chancellor, the BBC is reporting.
And Priti Patel, the former home secretary, is shadow foreign secretary.
This suggests Kemi Badenoch is serious when she says she wants to unite the party. Stride is a senior figure on the left of the party, and Patel is a prominent rightwinger.
Stride and Patel were both also candidates in this year’s leadership contest.
Patel does have an interest in foreign policy. When she was international development secretary, she was sacked by Theresa May for in effect operating as a freelance foreign secretary – holding meetings with ministers in Israel without Downing Street’s approval.
Yesterday Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, posted a message on social media congratulating Badenoch on her election victory.
I send my heart felt congratulations to Kemi Badenoch. I am sure she will continue the great tradition of Israeli British partnership and friendship.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 3, 2024
Updated
Back to tuition fees, and Paul Lewis, the financial broadcaster, says putting up tuition fees will mean the government has a bit more headroom for borrowing.
There is little point in raising university tuition fees (in England) except of course that the govt now counts student debt as an asset to borrow against and this will make that bigger. It will reduce the chance of debts being repaid before the 40 year cancellation line.
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, claims Keir Starmer’s language about the threat posed by illegal migration this morning (see 9.13am) is similar to language his party has used.
Now Labour are calling the Channel crossings a ‘National Security Threat’.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) November 4, 2024
I wonder where they got that from? https://t.co/kRW8ek2mPy
'Vast majority' of farmers will still be able to pass farms on to children, despite inheritance tax extension, government says
The government has said that the “vast majority” of farmers will be able to pass their farm on to their children despite inheritance tax being extended to cover some farms. In a statement issued ahead of the urgent question, a government spokesperson said:
The government’s commitment to our farmers remains steadfast. It’s why we have committed £5bn to the farming budget over two years – more money than ever for sustainable food production.
We understand concerns about changes to agricultural property relief and the Defra secretary of state and exchequer secretary to the Treasury met with NFU president Tom Bradshaw today.
Ministers made clear that the vast majority of those claiming relief will not be affected by these changes. They will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done.
This is a fair and balanced approach that protects the family farm while also fixing the public services that we all rely on. We remain committed to working with the NFU and listening to farmers.
Updated
Andrew Mitchell, the shadow foreign secretary, has said he won’t be serving in Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet. That is not particularly surprising; he first served as a minister in the 1990s, Badenoch talks about wanting to look to the future, and Mitchell is not on her wing of the party anyway. In a statement on social media, Mitchell says it is time to “pass the baton'”.
It has been an honour to serve under Rishi Sunak as Deputy Foreign Secretary and Shadow Foreign Secretary. But it is time to pass the baton! I look forward to continue serving my constituents in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.
Kemi Badenoch will have my full support from the backbenches as she rebuilds the Conservative Party, exposes the terrible Labour government and sets us on a path to victory at the next general election.
The Treasury says that 73% of farms will not qualify for inheritance tax under the plans announced in the budget. (See 12.26pm.) But the NFU says only 34% of farms are worth less than £1m, which is the new threshold where inheritance tax will kick in.
In a news release, the NFU says the discrepancy is explained by the fact that the Treasury’s 73% figure is based on farms just claiming agricultural property relief. It does not include farms also claiming business property relief, the NFU says.
And the 73% figure also includes smallholdings.
Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president, said:
Far from protecting smaller family farms, which is what ministers say they’re doing, they’re actually protecting private houses in the country with a few acres let out for grazing whilst disproportionately hammering actual, food-producing farms which are, on paper, much more valuable. Even Defra’s own figures show this, which is why they’re so different to the Treasury data this policy is based on.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem chair of the Commons environment committee, tabled the urgent question.
He said farmers rely on longterm planning. And they trusted the assurances from Labour before the election that the inheritance tax rules for farmers would not change.
He says, although farms are valuable assets, that does not mean farmers are wealthy.
He challenged ministers to publish the data used to justify the Treasury’s claim that most farms will not be affected by the change.
In response, Daniel Zeichner, an environment minister, said that the current rules only came into force in 1992. Before that, the exemption defended by Carmichael did not exist, he said.
Updated
Enviroment minister defends inheritance tax farm extension, saying 7% richest farmers get 40% of benefit from current rule
Daniel Zeichner, an environment minister, is replying to the urgent question, tabled by the Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael.
Zeichner said the government’s commitment to farming was “unwavering”.
It has committed £5bn to the agricultural budget over the next two years, he said.
He said the Tories left a £22bn black hole in the national finances, and the government had to take tough decisions.
He said 20% of the value of the inheritance tax exemption for farmers was going to the wealthiest 2% of estates, and 40% of it was going to the wealthiest 7%.
He said the current rules were being used “by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax”.
He said that Steve Reed, the environment secretary, met the NFU this morning (see 12.26pm) and the government completely understood their concerns.
But he said people in rural areas needed a better NHS, better transport and better housing – measures funded by the budget – just as much as everyone else.
And he said that, under the plans, an individual would be able to leave a farm worth £2m to children without having to pay inheritance tax, and a couple could leave a farm worth £3m. (See 12.49pm.)
UPDATE: Zeichner said:
Currently, small farms can find themselves facing the same levels of tax bills as much larger farms, despite having a much smaller asset. 20% of inheritance tax is claimed by the top 2%, 40% is claimed by the top 7%, that’s not fair, it’s not sustainable, and sadly, it’s been used, in some cases by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax, and that’s why this government has announced plans to reform agricultural property relief.
73% of agricultural property relief claims are less than one million pounds, the vast majority of farmers will not be affected, they’ll be able to pass a family farm down to their children, just as previous generations have always done.
It’s a fair, balanced approach that protects family farms, while also fixing the public services those same families rely on.
Updated
In the Commons education question has now finished. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was not asked about tuition fees during the session, but she is delivering a statement about it later, at around 4.15pm.
First, there is an urgent question on the budget, farms and inheritance tax.
Sam Freedman, who worked as a policy adviser in the Department for Education when Michael Gove was eduction secretary and who now writes a popular Substack politics blog, has posted this on social media about tuition fees going up.
RPI increase in tuition fees is necessary as a holding policy to stop the HE sector falling over, but it’s not a solution to a funding model that is putting young professionals under too much pressure (alongside housing costs and lower income tax thresholds).
Nick Hillman, who runs the Higher Policy Education Institute, a thinktank, and who used to work as an adviser to David Willetts when he was a Tory universities minister, says the Tories will be tempted to oppose the tuition fees increase, but that it would be more responsible not to. He posted this on social media.
Big test this pm for the new Shadow Education Team. Will they oppose tuition fee rises, as new oppositions tend to do (before recanting years later as they get closer to power). Or will they be more statesmanlike?
Tuition fees should be scrapped, not increased, says Green party
The Green party says Labour should be abolishing tuition fees, not raising them. In a statement, the Green MP Ellie Chowns said:
Tuition fees have forced universities to prioritize profit over education and put many at risk of bankruptcy, while students face extortionate interest rates- except for those wealthy enough not to need a loan.
They have been a disaster and should be scrapped, not increased.
Martin Lewis, the consumer champion and founder of the MoneySavingExpert website, has put a useful explainer about the tuition fees increase on social media. Here is an extract.
1. Higher tuition fees WON’T change what most pay each year. For most, they’re paid for you by the student loans company and you repay afterwards only if you earn over the threshold. The amount you repay each year (9% over the threshold) solely depends on what you earn not on what you borrow.
2. Increasing tuition fees will only see those who clear the loan in full over the 40yrs pay more. That is generally mid-high to higher earning university leavers only, so the cost of increasing them will generally be born by the more affluent. Most lower and middle earning university leavers will simply pay 9% extra tax above the threshold for 40yrs (and higher tuition fees won’t change that)
3. The rise is tuition fees is likely to be trivial compared to the changes the last govt made for 2023 starters. 2023 starters had their repayment thresholds dropped to £25,000 (from £27,295/yr) and had the time they had to keep repaying for (unless cleared) extended to 40years from 30years.
So these higher annual repayments for longer, increased by over 50% the amount many graduates will eventually have to pay back for going to university. Yet they were almost stealth changes because people can’t intuitively feel the seismic impact.
Changing tuition fees is a more obvious rise, but in reality has far less of an impact on the amount most will repay (though combined with the 2023 changes it does certainly up the cost).
Former MP Beth Winter quits Labour party, saying it's not socialist and just committed to retaining 'neoliberal status quo'
Beth Winter, who was a leftwing Labour MP for Cynon Valley from 2019 to 2024, has left the party. In a statement reported by Left Foot Forward, she said:
It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve as the MP for my home, Cynon Valley, elected on the transformative Labour manifesto of 2019. As a proud socialist I have remained committed to that manifesto’s vision for a fairer, more equal, and greener society ‘for the many, not the few’.
Sadly, the Labour party no longer represents that socialist vision and I have, therefore, decided today to cease my membership.
Today’s Labour party is unrecognisable. I cannot in all conscience remain in a political party that is pursuing an authoritarian political agenda whose primary objective is to retain the neoliberal status quo, serve corporate interests and protect the ruling class.
The Social Market Foundation, a centrist thinktank, has said that it expects Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, to announce an increase in maintenance loans alongside the rise in tuition fees. In a statement Dani Payne, an SMF researcher, said:
The announcement this afternoon for a one-off inflationary rise to tuition fees and maintenance loans is a sensible and necessary step given the financial pressures facing institutions and students, but must come hand-in-hand with greater financial accountability from universities. With over a third of providers reporting deficits, and growing concerns about the potential of institutions collapsing entirely, it is right that the government has stepped in to stabilise the sector.
The increase in maintenance loans is particularly welcome. The government has committed to supporting the aspiration of any person who is academically able to attend university. Unfortunately, for too long disadvantaged young people have either been priced out of higher education, or go to university but have a much thinner experience than their more affluent peers because they have to work hours incompatible with a full-time education.
And Torsten Bell, who until the general election was head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, has also defended the decision to impose inheritance tax on some farms as robustly as his IFS opposite number, Paul Johnson. (See 2pm.) Bell, who is now a Labour MP and parliamentary private secretary to Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, posted these on social media this morning.
Not news = those hugely benefitting from a tax exemption, despite never being the intended beneficiaries, are opposed to reform of that tax exemption
It takes a special kind of nonsense speak to claim the way to protect future generations of farmers is to provide a large tax incentive for non-farmers to buy up land, pricing actual would be farmers out. That is exactly what the status quo does
It’s also totally untrue that a farm worth ‘only £1m’ will be affected. A couple passing on a farm + farmhouse worth £3m will remain entirely exempt from inheritance tax
Defending the status quo means defending a system in which those with the very largest estates pay lower tax rates than many who are far less well off. We can’t afford that situation to continue if we’re to repair the public services (almost) everyone relies on
Choices matter. The Tories repeatedly raised income tax (via threshold freezes) in part because they wouldn’t address huge problems with our inheritance/capital gains taxes. Opposing these changes now means cuts to public services or tax rises for those on far lower incomes
I’ve heard several people (gentle nudge @RoryStewartUK) claim it’s the historic norm that all agricultural land is IHT exempt. This isn’t true - it’s a recent shift introduced by Lamont in 1992. Note he said it was meant to be for “working farmers”
It's hard to overstate the huge risks (economic, social & political) posed by continuing down the path of the last 14ys. The public are losing any faith that the state can deliver the most basic of public services. We're taking a new approach to start turning that around pic.twitter.com/5VPrIhkjkp
— Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) November 4, 2024
Commentators are already criticising the government’s decision to increase tuition fees in England.
This is from Sonia Sodha, the Observer’s chief leader writer.
This is why putting up university tuition fees without reforming the system isn’t fair on students.https://t.co/LBPZ8j6pv5
— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) November 4, 2024
This is from Jason Groves, political editor of the Daily Mail.
We've come a long way from Keir Starmer's 2020 leadership pledge to *abolish* university tuition fees... https://t.co/OVVdavmj5w
— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) November 4, 2024
And this is from James McEnaney, an education writer for the Herald.
Labour raising tuition fees by inflation looks like the worst of all worlds. It's nothing like enough to compensate universities for years of frozen funding, but it's a still a Labour govt increasing the cost of education.
— James McEnaney (@MrMcEnaney) November 4, 2024
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is taking questions in the Commons at 2.30pm. There are no questions on the order paper about tuition fees, but the topic is bound to come up at topical questions at 3.15pm. And Phillipson is due to give a formal Commons statement on the announcement at around 4.15pm.
There is also an urgent question, at 3.30pm, about inheritance tax and farming.
IFS chief dismisses criticism of inheritance tax farm extension as 'special pleading by extremely wealthy people'
Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, has dismissed criticism of the government’s decision to impose inheritance tax on some farms as
In an interview with Times Radio, he said he had “absolutely no sympathy” with people like Jeremy Clarkson and Sir James Dyson (see 10.34am), who have been leading the attack on the government on this. He said.
This is special pleading by some extremely wealthy people.
Very few farms will be affected by this, for example.
And in any case, if you think we should have an inheritance tax – and you may or may not think that – but if we have one, then really you do need to treat most things similarly.
There’s no other country in Europe, or hardly any others, that completely exempt business assets and agricultural assets from inheritance tax.
We never used to. [That] didn’t destroy family farms.
I’m disappointed, actually, to see such special pleading given such prominence.
“This is special pleading by some extremely wealthy people.”
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) November 4, 2024
Paul Johnson says he has “absolutely no sympathy” with business leaders complaining about the budget.@PJTheEconomist | @HugoRifkind pic.twitter.com/YAlYpoOW41
Bridget Phillipson to announce rise in student tuition fees for England
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is going to announce a rise in tuition fees for England in the Commons this afternoon.
University tuition fees in England are to go up next autumn for the first time in eight years, the government will announce this afternoon.
If linked to inflation, it could take fees up to a record £9,500 in October 2025, providing some respite for universities who have been struggling with a deepening financial crisis.
Domestic undergraduate tuition fees in England have been capped at £9,250 since 2017 but have been eroded in value by high inflation, forcing universities to rely on uncapped tuition fees from international students to balance their books.
While any increase would be welcomed by vice-chancellors, it is likely to be deeply unpopular with current and future students, who were once told by the Labour party that tuition fees would be scrapped.
Updated
Cooper says government will consider changing law so under-16s can be considered as victims of domestic abuse
The age at which victims of domestic abuse are recognised as such by law is to be looked at by the government after a teenager was killed by her ex-boyfriend, PA Media reports.
Holly Newton was 15 when she was murdered in Hexham, Northumberland, by her stalker ex-boyfriend in January 2023. In an interview on the Today programme, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, was asked about calls from Holly’s parents to change the law so that under-16s can be considered victims of domestic abuse.
Cooper said:
We will particularly, specifically look at this, because we need to make sure that we have got the right ways of recording this kind of violence in teenage relationships …
I have all sympathy with Holly’s family. I can’t imagine what they will have gone through. This was a truly awful case.
Of course, there is domestic abuse in teenage relationships. There is violence within teenage relationships that we have seen increasing, and it really troubles me that we have seen it increasing.
Downing Street has criticised the tweet describing Kemi Badenoch as a white supremacist that was reposted, but then deleted, by the Labour MP Dawn Butler. (See 9.52am.) At the morning lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said Keir Starmer thought this comment was “clearly wrong”.
Anas Sarwar, Scotland’s Labour leader, has said that, in electing Kemi Badenoch as the new Conservative party leader, the Tories do not “recognise the damages done” over the past 14 years. He said:
It’s not recognised the dire consequence of pushing to the right and the politics of division and decline.
Sarwar also said he didn’t think people in Scotland or the UK would “warm” to Badenoch and that electing her was “bad for the country”. He told the Guardian:
Having an opposition party that gets more and more extreme that seeks to divide our communities further and further, is not a good force for positive outcome from politics.
Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has described Kemi Badenoch as “a woman of great integrity” as he revealed he had voted for her in the recent Tory leadership contest.
Findlay, himself newly elected as the leader of the party in Scotland, told BBC Radio Scotland:
I really admire the fact she isn’t afraid to say it how she sees it, and if that sometimes upsets people, so be it.
He said it was “healthy” that Badenoch had recognised the mistakes of Partygate and Brexit.
She has very quickly identified where things have gone wrong and how we have a responsibility and a golden opportunity in [the 2026 Scottish parliament elections] to put them right.
Asked about recent polling which suggested that the Scottish Tories were on track to lose their position as the official opposition in Holyrood at the 2026 election Findlay denied it was a “fait accompli”.
It’s my job, and it’s my colleagues’ job to persuade the people of Scotland that we are on their side and fight for every single vote.
After Badenoch was highly critical of devolution in a speech at Conservative party. Findlay said:
When I look around at Holyrood, I do wonder why so much time is spent on fringe issues, when what really matters to people is jobs, the economy, housing, the NHS, education. All of these things in a quarter of a century of devolution have got worse by any measure.
Jasper Jolly and Peter Walker published a good explainer on farms and inheritance tax last week. They pointed out that, although the rules are changing so that inheritance tax will kick in after £1m, taking other tax allowances into account, farming families could pass on a home worth £3m without being liable for inheritance tax. They explain:
Pre-budget analysis by the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax) suggested that only 200 estates out of 1,300 a year between 2018 and 2020 claimed more than £1m in relief each year. Those 200 estates – by definition among the wealthiest in Britain – reaped 64% of all the agricultural relief.
The updated relief can in fact be even more generous for true family farms than the £1m headline. A married couple owning a farm together can split it in two, meaning it qualifies for £2m of agricultural property relief, plus another £500,000 for each partner if a property is involved. That means a farm worth £3m might pay zero inheritance tax, said Arun Advani, associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick and a director of CenTax.
Even farms worth £5m might in practice only pay inheritance tax of less than 1% a year, because they will be allowed to spread the cost over 10 years.
The full article is here.
Laura Trott appointed new shadow education secretary
Laura Trott is the new shadow education secretary, in the first policy-based frontbench appointment under Kemi Badenoch.
While the bulk of her appointments will be made later, before tomorrow morning’s shadow cabinet meeting, Trott will appear for the Tories at education questions in the Commons at 2.30pm.
Joining her on the front bench will be Neil O’Brien, who will be number two in the education team.
Trott replaces Damian Hinds, who has been shadow education secretary since the general election. Hinds was education secretary between 2018 and 2019, and later served in government in more junior ministerial roles.
Badenoch has already announced her chief whip, Rebecca Harris, and two party co-chairs, Nigel Huddlestone and Dominic Johnson. (See 9.38am.)
Farmers have never been as angry as they are about inheritance tax change, and many 'want to be militant', says NFU leader
Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, has said that he has never known farmers to be as angry as they are about the changes to inheritance tax rules announced in the budget. And many “want to be militant”, he said.
He also said he does not accept government figures about the number of farming families that will be affected by the decision to apply inheritance tax to some farms.
He was speaking after a meeting with Steve Reed, the environment secretary, and James Murray, a Treasury minister, about the issue.
Last week the Treasury published a paper with figures purporting to show that 73% of farms would not be covered by the decision to apply inheritance tax to farms worth more than £1m.
But, speaking to PA Media after his meeting, Bradshaw said:
So, the Treasury is saying only 27% of farms will be within scope of these changes. [Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’] own figures suggest that two-thirds of farms will be in scope.
How they can have that wide a discrepancy within government is quite unbelievable.
Bradshaw said Reed ruled out a change to the inheritance tax rules for farms before the election, and he said the decision was “completely unfair”. He went on:
I have never seen the weight of support, the strength of feeling and anger that there is in this industry today. Many of them want to be militant.
Now we are not encouraging that in any way shape or form but government need to understand that there is a real strength of feeling behind what this change means for the future of family farming in this country.
Bradshaw also said today’s meeting did not resolve the issue. “We’ll wait to hear from government and Treasury and see if we can get to a resolution,” he added.
Badenoch reportedly tells CCHQ staff they can win next election and they should try innovating with new ways of working
Kemi Badenoch has told staff at the Conservative party’s HQ that they should experiment with doing things in new ways, according to the Guido Fawkes website. The website, which has good links with CCHQ, says Badenoch told staff that they could win the next election, that they should focus on principles, not policies (“freedom of speech, freedom of association, free enterprise, personal responsibility – what distinguishes us from all the parties of the left who think more government is the answer to everything”) and that they should be willing to innovate.
Don’t have to do things they way they’ve always been done. Time to try something different. Let your creative juices flow.
Keir Starmer ended his speech to the Interpol general assembly by saying that, if together they could tackle the problem of people smuggling, that would be as important as what was achived at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. He said:
It’s your collective efforts that bring organised criminals to justice wherever they seek to hide, and it’s your leadership today that can help make a decisive breakthrough against this vile trade in human life.
Because if together we could win this war against the people smugglers, then this gathering will have achieved a victory for humanity every bit as significant as the Glasgow climate pact, because you will have helped to smash the gangs, secure our borders and save countless lives.
Starmer explains how government intends to 'treat people smugglers like terrorists'
Starmer went on to say the government was “going to treat people smugglers like terrorists”. And he explained what that meant.
So we’re taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and apply it to the gangs with our new Border Security Command.
We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies, recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators, the best of the best, from our National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and our intelligence agencies, all working together.
We are making border protection an elite Border Force, and not just within our country. We’re also working together with international partners, sharing intelligence and tactics.
Earlier this year, I visited the headquarters of our National Crime Agency. I saw first hand the ways we are already collaborating and what it takes to intercept, to disrupt and destroy these networks.
There are so many tools at our disposal. We could seize their phones at the border, identifying and tracing smugglers wiring payments. We’ve already trained sniffer dogs to detect the smell of dinghy rubber and, working with Bulgaria, stopped more than 100 small boats upstream long before they made it to the Channel.
And as we understand how these gangs work, we can invest in new capabilities and enhance powers to smash them.
So we’re giving our new Border Security Command an additional £75m pounds of new funding, on top of the £75m pounds we have already committed. This will support a new organized Immigration Crime Intelligence Unit, hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers, backed by state of the art technology.
We are also investing a further £58m pounds in our National Crime Agency, including strengthening its data analysis and intelligence capabilities. And we’ll also legislate to give those fighting these gangs enhanced powers too.
Starmer said this approach worked with counter-terrorism operations.
We have the powers to trace suspects’ movements using information from the intelligence services.
We can shut down their bank accounts, cut off their internet access, and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place.
We don’t wait for them to act. We stop them before they act.
And we need to stop people smuggling gangs before they act, too.
Updated
Starmer says people smuggling should be seen as 'global security threat similar to terrorism'
Starmer said the world needs to wake up to the severity of the threat posed by illegal migration. (See 9.13am.)
And he says he would work with “anyone serious” to address the problem.
I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away.
And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice.
And that, in a sense, is my message here today; people smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism.
We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes. We do that with terrorism.
When I was the director of public prosecutions, it was my personal mission to smash the terrorist gangs, and we worked across borders to ensure the safety of citizens across Europe and across the world.
Now, as the UK’s prime minister, it is my personal mission to smash the people smuggling gangs.
Starmer said that the new government was adopting this approach. Instead of “gimmicks” and “gesture politics”, it was “approaching this issue with humanity and with profound respect for international law”.
And it would not withdraw from the European convention on human rights, he said.
Updated
Starmer told the Interpol general assembly that that UK increasing its funding for Interpol projects by £6m this year.
He said this would include “support for improved data sharing and faster communications capabilities, the first ever global fraud threat assessment and new regional networks, from strengthening cooperation across the Pacific to tackling drug and gun smuggling networks in the Caribbean”.
Keir Starmer is speaking now at the Interpol conference in Glasgow.
He started from stressing the importance of international cooperation in the fight against crime. He knew this from his time as director of public prosecutions, he said.
Crime is global. Criminals do not respect borders.
Lammy says reparations for colonies affected by slavery should not be about cash payments
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has said the concept of reparations for former British colonies affected by slavery should not be about cash payments.
Speaking to the BBC in Nigeria, where he is starting a tour of African countries, he said the reparations concept “is not about the transfer of cash”.
At the recent Commonwealth summit, Keir Starmer’s reluctance to talk about reparations led to complaints from other leaders who said the UK should be doing more to address the ongoing problems linked to the legacy of slavery. No 10 has ruled out cash reparations, even though when Lammy was a backbench MP he did express support for the idea.
Lammy told the BBC in Nigera that reparations were not about money, “particularly at a time of a cost of living crisis”.
Instead, the government is interested in other forms of reparatory justice.
Cooper rejects James Dyson's attack on 'spiteful' budget and his claim Labour 'detests private sector'
Sir James Dyson, the entrepreneur, has written an article for the Times today accusing the government of “spiteful” changes to inheritance tax rules.
Farmers are furious because farms used to be exempt from inheritance tax, but under changes announced in the budget the 100% agricultural property relief (the exemption) will no longer apply on farms worth more than £1m. The government is also changing the rules on business property relief, which means that some shares in family businesses will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax.
In his article, Dyson condemns this as a “20% family death tax” and he claims this will lead to “the very fabric of our economy” being ripped apart. Pointing out that there are almost five million family firms in the UK, he says:
It beggars belief that Labour proudly boasts of trying to attract foreign investment, while at the same time eviscerating homegrown businesses. [Chancellor Rachel] Reeves killing off business property relief (originally introduced by a Labour government in 1976 and reinforced by the Brown government with entrepreneurs’ relief) means that British families are landed with an unpayable tax bill every time an owner dies.
Yet companies operating here but owned by overseas families won’t have to pay Labour’s tax. Private equity-owned firms won’t pay. Public companies listed on stock markets won’t pay. No, it is just homegrown, British family companies that will pay. This is a tragedy.
Make no mistake, the very fabric of our economy is being ripped apart. No business can survive Reeves’s 20 per cent tax grab. It will be the death of entrepreneurship. Think of the jobs for “working people” that will be lost — or never created …
Every business expects to pay tax, but for Labour to kill off homegrown family businesses is a tragedy. In particular, I have huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer.
Labour has shown its true colours with a spiteful budget. It detests the private sector and has chosen to kill off individual aspiration and economic growth.
The Times: Starmer - World must wake up to severity of migration crisis #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/KjMi8cwDgW
— George Mann (@sgfmann) November 3, 2024
Dyson became a billionaire through the firm selling his eponymous vacuum cleaner and other inventions, but he also has a large farming business (36,000 acres) in the UK. In his article he acknowledges that his family would lose out from Labour tax changes, but he does not say by how much.
In an interview with Times Radio, asked about Dyson’s article, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said she “clearly” disagreed with his claim that Labour hated the private sector. She said the budget involved “difficult’” decisions, but that they were necessary.
I think this was a budget that had to do three things. It had to deal with the public finance chaos that we inherited and had to put the public finances back on track. That’s fixing the foundations as Rachel has described it. Also make sure that we’ve got plans to boost growth for the future … And then thirdly, to make sure that we can start to repair the deep damage to our public services and particularly our national health service, which I am deeply worried about.
In order to do all of those things and to deal with that inherited chaos that we had, that has meant some difficult decisions, including on employers’ national insurance contributions. But it’s also been done in a way to protect people’s pay slips and you’ve got no increase in the national insurance for employees.
Updated
Yvette Cooper criticises 'appalling' comment about Kemi Badenoch retweeted by Labour MP
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning ahead of the PM’s speech to the Interpol general assembly later. In an interview with LBC, she condemned the Labour MP Dawn Butler for sharing a tweet describing Kemi Badenoch as “the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class”.
Cooper said she had not seen the tweet, which Butler quickly deleted. But she said:
The words that you have read out are clearly appalling and I would strongly disagree with them.
So, I haven’t seen the post. I don’t know the circumstances around it but I think we should congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her election.
I will continue to disagree with her on all sorts of issues, but, nevertheless, I congratulate her on her election.
Asked if Butler should be disciplined by the party over the tweet, Cooper said that was a matter for the whip.
Updated
Archie Bland has a good summary of the challenges facing Kemi Badenoch in his First Edition newsletter.
Badenoch makes Nigel Huddleston and Dominic Johnson Tory co-chairs, and Rebecca Harris chief whip
Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, has already made some appointment.
Rebecca Harris has become the new chief whip. This was announced yesterday, but the outgoing chief whip, Stuart Andrew, who posted these on social media.
It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as the Conservative Party Chief Whip. @RebeccaHarrisMP is a great friend and a brilliant Whip. I wish her all the best in the role.
I would like to thank the Whips and the MP’s that have helped the Whip’s Office for their dedication and assistance in helping me steady the ship over the past three months.
At an uncertain time for our Party it has been challenging at times, but we have kept the show on the road and had some great successes.
And Badenoch has appointed two Conservative co-chairs, PA Media reports. They are Nigel Huddleston, a former Treasury minister, and Dominic Johnson, a hedge fund manager (he ran an investment firm with Jacob Rees-Mogg) who was given a peerage and made a business minister when Liz Truss was PM.
It is normal for the Conservative party to have two co-chairs – one an MP, focusing on presentation and party management, and another focusing on fund raising.
Often a new opposition leader announces the new shadow chancellor first but, as Dan Bloom explains in his London Playbook briefing for Politico, there is a reason why it makes sense to start with choosing a new chief whip.
News that Badenoch had appointed Rebecca Harris as chief whip emerged because Harris will be helping Badenoch make the other appointments, two people tell Playbook. One said: “There’s a lot of knowledge in the whips’ function as the HR department of the party — who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague.” Best behaviour!
“Who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague?” Badenoch should find out what the Tory whips used to say about her. As Eleni Courea reports, on these criteria, some of her colleagues would not rate her highly.
Starmer says world must 'wake up to severity' of threat posed by illegal migration
Good morning. Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation, which has 196 member countries, has a general assembly and, for the first time in 50 years, it is meeting in Britain. Keir Starmer will address the meeting in Glasgow and he is going to deliver a “wake up” call on illegal migration, saying that the world needs to face up to the scale of the problem and that tackling the problem needs to be internationalised. Britain cannot do it on its own, he implies.
According to extracts from the speech released in advance, Starmer will say:
The world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge. I was elected to deliver security for the British people. And strong borders are a part of that. But security doesn’t stop at our borders.
There’s nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the channel.
This is a vile trade that must be stamped out – wherever it thrives. So we’re taking our approach to counter-terrorism - which we know works, and applying it to the gangs, with our new Border Security Command.
We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies.
In the headline of its news release, No 10 describes people smuggling as a “national security threat”. Rajeev Syal has a full preview of the speech here.
You might think some of this language might appeal to the Conservatives. Like Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, the new opposition leader, also believes that the previous government failed on illegal migration. But the Tories are saying Labour’s approach will not work because there is no deterrent. Badenoch is appointing a shadow cabinet today, and so there is no proper shadow home secretary in place this morning (James Cleverly is stepping down), but last night CCHQ put out this statement from a party spokesperson.
Keir Starmer’s announcement on tackling gangs will mean absolutely nothing without a deterrent to stop migrants wishing to make the dangerous journey across the channel.
It is a shame that Starmer has not recognised the extent of the crisis in the channel sooner, as he and the Labour party voted against numerous measures to stop the gangs while they were in opposition.
If Starmer continues to ignore the need for a deterrent to stop migrants crossing the channel, there will be more deaths in the channel as more and more migrants continue to cross it, he needs to get a grip of the crisis in the channel.
(Some experts in this field prefer to use the term irregular migration, not illegal migration, to describe people crossing the Channel in small boats because claiming asylum is not illegal under international law and, even though UK law says it is an offence to enter the country without proper authorisation, people who claim asylum don’t get prosecuted. But the government is using the term illegal migration, as the previous government did.)
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, is due to meet party staff at CCHQ this morning. She will also be working on shadow cabinet appointments.
11am: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is speaking at the Interpol conference in Glasgow, ahead of Keir Starmer who is delivering a speech too.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is due to meet the NFU leader Tom Bradshaw to discuss the budget plans to ensure that some farms are subject will be subject to inheritance tax.
2.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is opening for the government in the resumed budget debate.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Updated
