Labour’s crippling attack on family farms will cut our connection with the landIn the recent budget, the government chose to throw a hand-grenade into the mix, provoking an instant reaction of horror from every part of the farming community. Announcing inheritance tax on farms is akin to setting a death sentence. Most farming businesses which own land are asset-rich but cash-poor. They would have no funds to pay inheritance tax, leaving the only option to sell the land and thereby destroying the farming business. Tenant farmers don’t own their land, but face the same outcome when their landlords are forced to sell the land. In both cases, the land is the critical issue – no land, no farm, no farm business, no farming family and no farming future.
