Labour urged to ‘change course’ on farmer inheritance tax raid in stark warning: ‘This will be catastrophic!’

Shadow Environment Secretary Robbie Moore has issued a stark warning about the impact of Labour’s Budget on British farmers, describing the consequences as “catastrophic” for the farming community.

Speaking to GB News, Moore highlighted the united opposition from farming lobby groups against Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s Budget proposals.

“The anger out there amongst our farming community is quite rightly, very, very damning on the impacts that the budget will have,” Moore said.

The Shadow Environment Secretary explained that Conservatives had initiated a parliamentary vote urging Labour MPs to support the removal of the family farm tax, but the effort was unsuccessful.

Moore warned that the budget would have significant negative implications for food security and business growth across the rural economy.

“This isn’t just about farmers,” Moore emphasised. “This is about all businesses being impacted by this million pound cap on business property relief and also agricultural property relief.”

While the Government anticipated raising £500million through these measures, current figures suggest they will fall more than a billion pounds short of their target.

Moore cautioned of concerning long-term economic forecasts: “It’s anticipated up to 2030, growth in terms of gross added value will be less than about £9billion.

“Which will lead to job losses, much more business uncertainty and having dire consequences to many of those farming businesses – but also all businesses out there that are generated and encompassed within a family setup, so catastrophic implications, and I would urge the government to change course.”

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The Shadow Environment Secretary stressed the urgency of the situation, calling for immediate policy revision.

Moore told GB News: “We are urging the government to change course. We’ve been very clear as a Conservative Party that we would axe the family farm tax if we were lucky enough to get back into Government.

“But what I would urge the Government to do right now is listen to those concerns that are being raised from the industry, listen to those concerns that have been raised by us as the official opposition, and change course urgently before it has the negative impact on our farming businesses and food security, and indeed, food prices further down the line.”

Moore reiterated that the current measures were not achieving their intended objectives, and called for Labour to heed warnings from both the industry and the Official Opposition.

Moore concluded: “Let’s be honest about this, the changes that the Government have brought out are not even meeting the objectives that they wanted to try and achieve.

“Therefore they should have looked at other mechanisms within the tax structure if they were wanting to get that desired outcome where it wasn’t multinational corporations coming up and buying land.

“All of the farming lobby are united in saying to Keir Starmer that his budget is going to have catastrophic implications.”

He added: “As Conservatives, we had a vote in Parliament urging all Labour MPs to back us in axing the family farm tax. Unfortunately, they didn’t do that, and we are still calling on the Government today to look at this and change course.”