‘Treasury doesn’t know value of farms’, says Conservative MP

We spoke to Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Victoria Atkins.

We began by asking if she accepts the principle that rich landowners should be charged inheritance tax because they’re using land as a loophole.

Victoria Atkins: This is a tax relief that has been used over decades to try to protect family farms. And so the aim of it has been to ensure that family farms, if they’re working farms producing food, that they should be allowed to be continued from generation to generation.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But do you agree with the principle they’re trying to hit these rich investors who are using land to actually just avoid inheritance tax?

Victoria Atkins: Where there are occasions of abuse of a tax system in this regard or any other regard, of course we will support measures to tackle that. It’s going to tackle people who are in the middle of the income range and indeed…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But it will also hit the rich landowners, won’t it?

Victoria Atkins: My worry is, and I’m afraid this is…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Why wouldn’t it?

Victoria Atkins: We know that the very wealthiest of people often are able to afford the clever advice that means that they can find ways around tax rules.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So just sort of give up trying to go for the super rich is what you’re saying.

Victoria Atkins: No, no, no. What it means is, if someone is going to make a change, if this chancellor is going to make a change to tax policy that is there with a direct tax agenda and a direction of travel, namely to protect family farms, then they need to frankly come up with a more sophisticated policy than they have done with this. And that’s what’s so terrible.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: There are thousands of people out there, at the moment, who worry that this is going to catch them. And we know that the facts are, that it’s less than 500 farms a year who will be affected by this change, and we know that because of the existing figures. So going out and scaring people and saying ‘this is going to catch you’, when in most cases it won’t, seems quite irresponsible.

Victoria Atkins: Krishnan, if I may. That is simply wrong. And to cite those figures as the Labour government has done…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: What’s wrong?

Victoria Atkins: They have a conflict between the figures that the Treasury have produced and the figures that Defra have produced.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: No, they don’t. There’s no conflict between those figures. What is wrong with the…

Victoria Atkins: Krishnan if I may just finish this point. Last night I went to a meeting with the Treasury minister and the Defra minister to see if I can help them because I want them to find an elegant solution and climb down from this policy.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Talking about what? A couple dozen?

Victoria Atkins: You may well ask the Treasury. No, no, no. Forgive me, I’ve had so many examples over the last couple of weeks, and today I’ve had people coming up to me as well. But you’re asking me questions that the Treasury themselves do not know the answer to, because at this meeting…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: You’re being very misleading with these numbers. We do know the breakdown for 2021-22. We can look at exactly what the values are of all those farms, and it’s a tiny number.

Victoria Atkins: The Treasury and Defra, they don’t know the value of farming units and they have no idea about the number of working farms that they are dealing with. This is the problem.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: If you look at what happened after Brexit, the farmers have suffered massively. The schemes to recompense them for land management have been badly run. They’ve ended up with an underspend. Farmers’ proposals have been knocked back. That’s why they’re in such a financial mess, in many cases.

Victoria Atkins: Again, Krishnan, first of all when we left the European Union, of course we had to create agricultural policy. And what is more, we have changed the payment systems…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But you made a mess of it.

Victoria Atkins: Krishan, you’re putting that to me as though it’s fact. It’s your view. I’m not accepting that because I can tell you…

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Ask the farmers.

Victoria Atkins: What I can tell you is that the EU Common Agricultural Policy, under that scheme, 50 per cent of the payments being made to landowners were going to the top 10 percent wealthiest landowners. So we have said instead, rather than doing it on the acreage that you farm, why don’t we look at the environmental benefits as well as the food production that you are bringing about as a farmer. And so that is why these schemes have been set up.