Political View: 'I stand with our local farmers – scrap the tax!'

In truth, it was a deeply disappointing budget, which will see debt rise, taxes rise, and growth fall, and it missed the opportunity to address the challenges facing our local area, and our nation.

Promises made by Labour in the run up to the election were torn up by them now that they are in power.

We saw the Chancellor choose to hike employer National Insurance (NI) contributions in what is in effect a tax on jobs.

Its cost will in reality be passed on by employers to workers in lower wages and fewer jobs as businesses, often making only a small profit, make the tough choice of whether to hold down wage rises in the future, or not to employ as many people.

This comes on top of the Government’s cruel cuts to pensioners' winter fuel allowance eligibility.

The budget also saw the Government increasing the cost of the bus fare cap by 50%, up from £2 under the last Government with people now having to pay £3 from the new year.

While it may seem like a small amount, to those regularly relying on buses, that additional fare hike will soon add up, and while the continued freeze on fuel duty and reduction by about 1p per pint of the duty on draught beer in pubs are welcome, such crumbs of good news were dwarfed by the bad news this budget contained for businesses, individuals, and crucially for our area, for farmers.

The Labour Government's decision to impose from 2026 a 'Family Farm Tax' on farmers who run family farms, and pass them on from generation to generation, shows their woeful ignorance of farming and our countryside.

The changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) will in many cases potentially make it impossible now for one generation of family farmers to be able to afford to pass the family farm on to the next generation - the decision to move the goalposts and to effectively bring many family farms into inheritance tax when passed from one generation to the next, will see some farmers forced to sell land to pay off that tax bill, making family farms increasingly unviable and potentially unable to survive.

Despite the Government reassuring the farming community in the run up to the Budget that changes such as this were not on the table, they have torn up those pledges, leaving local farmers understandably angry and concerned for the future.

The tax reliefs gave certainty to family farms that they will be able to keep the farm in the family, and were specifically designed to do exactly this when the tax relief was introduced in 1984, with Government's of all parties up until now recognising its importance.

While farm assets may be valuable, family farmers are not wealthy, but they are the backbone of our rural communities and our country's food security.

They work all the hours in the day, day-in, day-out to produce top quality food, and to protect and enhance our countryside, all for an uncertain and often modest income when all the costs and risks of farming are taken in to account.

As we know here in Melton Mowbray, the Rural Capital of Food, our farmers play a central part in our local and community life and we all need to get behind them and support them in fighting the Government's 'Family Farm Tax'.

As the NFU recently said, in response to the Labour Government u-turning on its assurances to farmers that there would be no changes, “when you make a promise to farmers, you keep it”.

I entirely agree, which is why I've already been in touch with our local NFU in Melton, why I am daily receiving emails from concerned local farmers, and why I'll be supporting the NFU's protest in London on 19th November.

There is still time for the Government to do the right thing. so my message to the Government is clear: “I stand with our local farmers; keep your promises, think again, and scrap the family farm tax.”