Farm tax breaks; potato harvest; Clarkson at Tory conference

Industry leaders are lobbying hard for farming ahead of the budget with the NFU and Britain's big supermarket chains calling for a budget announcement they say could unlock billions of pounds worth of investment in UK agriculture.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw says tax reform would help to boost farm investment and strengthen food security at little cost for Treasury coffers.

Well, the Country Land and Business Association is taking a similar approach.

Here's CLA chief tax advisor Louise Speak.

Well, I think the first ask that we've got is we want the government to have a rule reset, and the main way they can do that is by overturning the inheritance tax changes that came into law in April this year.

That's been devastating for farmers trying to plan to pass on their farms to their children and other family members.

As we know, fa- farmers like to look to the long term, and, um, this has been very damaging and it has a real impact on, uh, their ability to invest for growth for the future.

And that decision to impose inheritance tax on farming families, a totemic decision by the Labour government, can we really expect them to revoke it, Louise?

Well, we have effectively got a new government.

We have suggested that, that it's, it's a very simple change.

They just have to revoke those changes.

This, so it isn't a question of saving face.

This is about encouraging growth.

We've had a survey of members, and we had over seven hundred members reply, and seventy percent of our members have said they're worried about their business not surviving the next ten years because of these inheritance tax changes.

Um, we've certainly heard that our members have been forced to cancel the creation of holiday homes.

They've put off buying new machinery.

They've stopped growing some crops.

They've certainly delayed building reservoirs, which are much needed because of the drought that we've had this year and, and really helps with resilience for farming to make sure they've got proper water supplies.

So it's, it's really been, been detrimental.

The government says it has earmarked fifteen million pounds for farm reservoirs.

You're saying that, uh, it could do more, and it needn't cost more.

Things like capital allowances, investment allowances, tax breaks to encourage investment.

Well, I think it's recognizing that although our members don't necessarily run companies and they have partnerships or they're sole traders, their assets aren't personal wealth assets, they're business assets.

And, um, yes, we need to encourage these businesses to invest in the same way as the government has already encouraged the big corporates to invest by having the full expensing.

Our members who are unincorporated businesses, so they're sole traders and partnerships, have to rely on the annual investment allowance, or they can rely on the structure and buildings allowance for their farm buildings.

Industry leaders are lobbying hard for farming ahead of the budget with the NFU and Britain's big supermarket chains calling for a budget announcement they say could unlock billions of pounds worth of investment in UK agriculture.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw says tax reform would help to boost farm investment and strengthen food security at little cost for Treasury coffers.

Well, the Country Land and Business Association is taking a similar approach.

Here's CLA chief tax advisor Louise Speak.

Well, I think the first ask that we've got is we want the government to have a rule reset, and the main way they can do that is by overturning the inheritance tax changes that came into law in April this year.

That's been devastating for farmers trying to plan to pass on their farms to their children and other family members.

As we know, fa- farmers like to look to the long term, and, um, this has been very damaging and it has a real impact on, uh, their ability to invest for growth for the future.

And that decision to impose inheritance tax on farming families, a totemic decision by the Labour government, can we really expect them to revoke it, Louise?

Well, we have effectively got a new government.

We have suggested that, that it's, it's a very simple change.

They just have to revoke those changes.

This, so it isn't a question of saving face.

This is about encouraging growth.

We've had a survey of members, and we had over seven hundred members reply, and seventy percent of our members have said they're worried about their business not surviving the next ten years because of these inheritance tax changes.

Um, we've certainly heard that our members have been forced to cancel the creation of holiday homes.

They've put off buying new machinery.

They've stopped growing some crops.

They've certainly delayed building reservoirs, which are much needed because of the drought that we've had this year and, and really helps with resilience for farming to make sure they've got proper water supplies.

So it's, it's really been, been detrimental.

The government says it has earmarked fifteen million pounds for farm reservoirs.

You're saying that, uh, it could do more, and it needn't cost more.

Things like capital allowances, investment allowances, tax breaks to encourage investment.

Well, I think it's recognizing that although our members don't necessarily run companies and they have partnerships or they're sole traders, their assets aren't personal wealth assets, they're business assets.

And, um, yes, we need to encourage these businesses to invest in the same way as the government has already encouraged the big corporates to invest by having the full expensing.

Our members who are unincorporated businesses, so they're sole traders and partnerships, have to rely on the annual investment allowance, or they can rely on the structure and buildings allowance for their farm buildings.