EXCLUSIVE: TV star backs our Save Britain’s Family Farms crusade after Rachel Reeves announced “unfair” plans to “cripple” British agriculture.
Jules Hudson told Sir Keir Starmer ‘farmers will not take this lying down’ (Image: BBC/ANDY.COMMINS)
BBC star Jules Hudson told Sir Keir Starmer that “farmers will not take this lying down” after Labour’s “insidious” attack on family farms.
Mr Hudson said the prospect of farms worth more than £1million being hit with a fresh 20% inheritance tax bill had triggered “real panic” in the countryside.
His warning came just hours before news emerged a farmer tragically took his own life in fear of the Chancellor’s inheritance tax raid, according to his son.
Yorkshire farmer John Charlesworth, 78, was found dead at his 70-acre farm in Barnsley on Tuesday, 24 hours before the Budget.
His son Jonathan said his father had been “eaten away” by concerns he would lose the £2million estate owned by the family since 1957, The Telegraph reported.
Mr Hudson, a stalwart of BBC favourites Escape to the Country and Countryfile had already highlighted to us the mental health struggles facing farmers – who have some of the highest suicide rates of any industry – before the tragic news of Mr Charlesworth’s death came to light.
And he now joins this newspaper in urging the Chancellor to “think again”.
He said: “For goodness sake, they need to get a grip! Of course, I back your campaign. This is my community and I do think they have got this wrong.
“They should have the temerity to admit mistakes have been made.”
Farmer Jamie Blackett and his son Oliver (Image: ANDY.COMMINS)
He added: “This could absolutely cripple farming. It sent shockwaves through the farming community.
“It is such a big issue and I do not usually speak out on anything remotely political but this is so important.
“It has a whiff of the politics of envy. It is absolute folly.
“We all get things wrong. The Chancellor should put her hands up and say ‘we made a mistake’”.
Farming was typically made up of people who were asset-rich but cash poor and the industry had already suffered from awful wet weather, increased running costs and the war in Ukraine, Mr Hudson explained.
He said: “Farmers are facing a vicious cycle of misery.
“We produce probably the best food in the world but the margins that farmers work to are incredibly small.
“They are not prepared for this sword of Damocles hanging over them
“Looks are deceiving. It is not the case that farmers are awash with cash.
“Farmers are not a pot to raid. Frankly, most of them will not be able to pay these tax bills.”
He said it would be a “real concern” if people started to leave the industry as a result of these measures.
Mr Hudson’s friend who farms 1,000 acres in the Welsh uplands now faces a fresh £400,000 bill and is considering selling up.
Trending
He said: “It is not a particularly profitable farm and it would just not be possible to pay that bill so he said, ‘I might just get rid of it’.
“And it was heartbreaking to hear that. It would fly in the face of all his sensibilities to maintain the family tradition.
“If generational farmers do give up we will lose that passion and experience working to be custodians of our countryside.”
It would not take much to “throttle” the way the UK imports food, Mr Hudson said.
He argued: “We should view this as part of our national security. And if the Environment Secretary meant what he said about that then he would be looking to support it.”
The TV star’s intervention came after pollsters More in Common asked the public about the specifics of making farms eligible for inheritance tax.
Their new polling found a majority of voters and nearly half of all Labour voters believe farmers who pass their farms onto the next generation should be exempt from inheritance tax.
Just 24% of those surveyed said they were in favour of the policy compared to 40% who opposed such a move and a voter focus group could not understand why Labour were “going after farmers”.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed (Image: Getty)
Former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Nature Rebecca Pow described the so-called farm tax as “madness”.
She said: “Family farms play an integral role in the fabric of our whole rural society.
“And while they appear to have valuable assets our farmers are striving daily to earn enough to live on.
“I grew up on a family farm, part tenanted and part-owned and experienced first-hand the amazing role they play, in rural life.
“It’s not just about the vital food they produce and the people they support.
“It’s also understanding that these rural people in many cases have generations of accumulated knowledge of caring for the soil, producing food and managing nature.
“And utilising the new grants available they are best placed, to help us restore nature, tackle the challenges of climate change and ensure we have a secure food supply at affordable prices.
“It is madness to upset this fundamentally critical framework, which underpins our wonderful countryside.”
And Tory MP Greg Smith claimed “Labour are completely out of their depth” when it comes to farming.
He said: “They clearly don’t understand their approach means most family-owned farms having to sell significant proportions of their farm to meet the tax bill.
“Farms do not have bags of cash lying around. They are run on tight margins and often no margin at all.
“This is a full-frontal financial attack on our farmers and our food security. No farmers, no food.”
‘Labour is siding with big multinationals against small family farms – we do not know if we can survive this’
Jamie Blackett, 60, has a mixed dairy and arable farm of roughly 1,200 acres (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
A sixth-generation farmer has accused Labour of “siding with large multinationals against small family farms”.
Jamie Blackett, 60, has a mixed dairy and arable farm of roughly 1,200 acres in Dumfries and Galloway.
His son Oliver, 30, who is getting married, hopes to return to Scotland soon and help his father run the farm.
Jamie said: “We are wasting valuable time and money trying to assess the full impact of this policy.
“But it is likely that we will be liable for a lot of inheritance tax.
“Whether we can survive or not we do not know. But we are faced with costs that our competitors in the institutional sector do not have.
“We are a family farm and therefore we have to cope with a death in every generation.
“If we had many deaths in quick succession it would be terminal for our farm.”
He pointed out that if he were an organisation such as the RVPB or Wellcome Trust, he would be protected against the extra tax.
He said: “I hope Labour has misunderstood the rural community and that this is not just being done out of spite.
“I hope that they have just not done their research and not realised the impact this will have.
“Family farms are just a family business like any other and the effect of this will either be to break them up or to load costs onto them.”
Mr Blackett said there could be ways to mitigate against the tax by using life insurance products.
But he said: “It is certainly going to load a huge cost onto our industry.
“And it will become a huge distraction from the business of entrepreneurship.
“We are constantly going to be looking over our shoulders now and having to waste our energy on tax planning.
“It is not a level playing field any more. Labour sees the future as being with big corporate landowners and not with small family ones.
“They appear to want to see us sell up our farms so they can be bought up by huge institutional investors who will not be liable for inheritance tax because institutions do not die!”
He also highlighted the impact the policy could have on the wider community.
He said: “If farms have to be broken up the first thing to go is usually the cottages where workers or people in the community live.
“And those buildings will probably be sold off to retirees or second homeowners.
“The next thing to go will be pockets of land that will be used as pony paddocks.
“And, as a result, your actual food-producing farm gets smaller and you have to start laying people off.
“And all this money that we are now going to have to pay for tax planning and life insurance and tax planning and expensive lawyers is money that would have normally been spent paying working people in the countryside doing things like laying hedges and repairs dry stone walls. We would rather spend the money on that.”
He explained that small family farms used to get broken up and sold off before the APR policy came into effect and that this could happen again.
He said: “And you are going to lose that personal contact in the countryside.
“Families who have been there for generations are embedded into the community.
“The new farming landlord is going to be some hedge fund in the city with no connection to rural life.
“I cannot understand why Labour is siding with large multinationals against small family farms.”
Environment Secretary Steve Reed has repeatedly insisted “food security is national “security” and that the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs has a “steadfast commitment to farmers”.
He said: “Our Labour Government has committed £5billion in the agricultural budget over the next two years.
“As part of that, we’ve allocated the biggest ever budget for sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.
“I completely understand farmers’ anxiety at any changes.
“But rural communities need a better NHS, affordable housing and public transport we can provide if we make the system fairer.
“That is why the Labour Government has announced plans to reform Agricultural Property Relief.
“Look at the detail and you’ll see that the vast majority of farmers will not be affected at all.
“They will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done.”
Ms Reeves has defended the proposed reforms to inheritance tax by claiming it is not “affordable” to keep the current system.
She has said “only a very small number of agricultural properties will be affected” by the changes, with Budget documents stating the Government wants to restrict the “generosity” of tax relief for the “wealthiest estates”.
Most Commented
Join the debate