I have added my name to a letter to the Prime Minister, alongside Conservative colleagues from Westminster, Holyrood and the Senedd, urging the Government to fully reverse Labour's damaging changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief in the Autumn Budget on 28 October.
Thirsk and Malton is home to a large and proud farming community, and I hear regularly from local farmers about the pressure these inheritance tax changes are placing on them. Most family farms are asset-rich but cash-poor. Their money is tied up in land, buildings and machinery, not in money they can simply hand over to the taxman. The result is that families who have farmed the same land for generations now face bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Since the Family Farm Tax was announced, more than 6,300 agricultural businesses have ceased trading, and almost one in four family farms have cut jobs. Farmers who once invested in the future are now holding back, worried about what these changes mean for the next generation.
The Prime Minister has said he is willing to look again at these measures. I am calling on him to keep his word, listen to farmers, and use the Budget to scrap this tax before more damage is done.
