Starmer says most farmers won’t be affected by inheritance tax change as Clarkson tells rally it’s a ‘hammer blow’ – UK politics live
Starmer rejects claim inheritance tax plan amounts to class war, and says ‘vast majority’ of farmers won’t be affected
Jessica Elgot
Keir Starmer has said he is “very confident” that the “vast majority” of farmers will not be affected by the extension of inheritance tax. In an interview in Brazil, where he is attending the G20 summit, he told the BBC:
If you take a typical case, which is parents who want to pass on their farm to one of their children … by the time you’ve built in the other income tax thresholds, it’s only those with assets over £3m that would begin to pay inheritance tax, and that’s why I’m very confident that the vast majority of farms will be totally unaffected.
He also said rural communities needed the extra investment the budget would fund.
I also say this; I know that in rural communities – I grew up in one – we also need really good schools, really good hospitals, and we need houses that people could afford to live in, and they were the measures that we invested heavily in the budget.
In an interview with Sky News, asked if he was waging “class war” on wealthy landowners, Starmer replied
Look, It isn’t at all what we’re doing. It’s a balanced approach. We have to fill a black hole which was left by the last government.
Key events
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Starmer dismisses Russia’s talk of using nuclear weapons as ‘irresponsible rhetoric’
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Starmer says UK launching its ‘global clean power alliance’, as he holds press conference at end of G20 summit
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Cutting winter fuel payment set to push between 50,000 and 100,000 extra pensioners into poverty per year, DWP admits
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Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey both stress their opposition to ‘family farm tax’
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Yvette Cooper says police forces will be compensated for employers’ national insurance increase
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Health minister Stephen Kinnock says he will back assisted dying bill
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Just Stop Oil joins NFU rally, but says crisis in farming ‘about so much more than inheritance tax’
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Many farmers ‘wrong’ to think they will be affected by inheritance tax extension, Reed tells MPs
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Starmer restates his desire for ministers to stay neutral in assisted dying debate, in implied rebuke to Streeting
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Starmer declines to say if Ukraine will get approval to use Storm Shadow missiles to hit Russia
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Starmer rejects claim inheritance tax plan amounts to class war, and says ‘vast majority’ of farmers won’t be affected
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Labour would bring back winter fuel payments in Scotland, says Anas Sarwar, but tapered so wealthy get less
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Clarkson addresses rally, saying budget delivered ‘hammer blow’ to farmers and urging ministers to back down
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Clarkson denies buying farm primarily to avoid inheritance tax – despite having said in past he did
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Reeves says Defra data about farm values overstates how many families would have to pay inheritance tax
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Greenpeace urges ministers to protect farmers, using revenue from higher taxes on supermarkets and agribusiness
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Jeremy Clarkson cheered as he joins farmers’ protest
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Tories claim inheritance tax plan shows Labour ‘does not understand countryside’
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Steve Reed says, if farmers feel betrayed, they should blame Tories for state public finances were in after election
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UK retailers warn Reeves of £7bn hit from budget tax rises
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NFU president says farmers willing to work with ministers on alternative policy to ‘stop people using land as tax dodge’
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Farmers arrive in Whitehall for protest about inheritance tax plan
Q: Why is Steve Reed saying farmers can avoid inheritance tax?
Starmer says he is very confident of his analysis saying most farming families would not pay.
Starmer dismisses Russia’s talk of using nuclear weapons as ‘irresponsible rhetoric’
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: The final communique waters down previous commitments made on Ukraine. How do you feel about that?
Starmer says the G20 communique has to be agreed by many countries. But he says he has been clear about his support for Ukraine.
Q: Should Brits prepare for nuclear war?
That is a response to reports that Vladimir Putin has changed the rules that would decide when he might use nuclear weapons.
Starmer says “irresponsible rhetoric” is coming from Russia. That will not deter him from supporting Ukraine, he says.
Starmer says UK launching its ‘global clean power alliance’, as he holds press conference at end of G20 summit
The G20 summit has now wrapped up, and Keir Starmer has just started speaking at this end-of-summit press conference.
He says today the UK is launching its “global clean power alliance”, with Brazil and other countries.
This is an idea that Labour first proposed in opposition.
Cutting winter fuel payment set to push between 50,000 and 100,000 extra pensioners into poverty per year, DWP admits
The government estimates that its decision to stop most pensioners getting winter fuel payments this winter will push between 50,000 and 100,000 more pensioners into relative poverty every year for the rest of the decade.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, disclosed the figures in a letter to the Commons work and pensions committee published today.
But she stressed that the figures, which are based on modelling, do not take into account the impact of the rise in people applying for pension credit. Applications for pension credit have risen by 152%, because claimants continue to get the winter fuel payment and the government has been actively trying to increase uptake.
Kendall also said the modelling was subject to “a range of uncertainties”.
In her letter to the committee, Kendall said:
The latest modelling shows that compared to the numbers that would have been in poverty without this policy, it is estimated that in each year in question there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in relative poverty after housing costs in 2024/25, 2025/26 and 2027/28, instead. The modelling also shows that an additional 100,000 pensioners are estimated to be in relative poverty after housing costs in 2026/27, 2028/29 and 2029/30. For all other measures of poverty it is estimated that there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in poverty each year from 2024/25 to 2029/30.
Being in relative poverty is defined as having household income worth less than 60% of the median. Absolute poverty is defined as having household income worth less than 60% of what the median was in the baseline year (currently 2010-11).
Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey both stress their opposition to ‘family farm tax’
The two main opposition parties, and their leaders, both supported the farmers at the rally today.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said the Tories would oppose “the family farm tax”. She said:
The Labour government clearly doesn’t understand, or care about rural communities, and now families are having to sell their farms, with knowledge that has been handed down through generations lost for ever.
Under my leadership the Conservative party will staunchly oppose the family farm tax, which threatens our vital rural economy and our food security, with increased costs and a greater reliance on imports.
And Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, used the same phrase when he said his party was also opposed the inheritance tax extension.
This family farm tax isn’t just cruel – it’s stupid too. What the government needs to understand is that if British farmers can’t make the sums add up, if you have to close down and sell up, how on earth are we going to feed ourselves as a country?
Who else will put healthy, nutritious food on our tables? Who else is going to care for our countryside or our environment, if we lose the families who have been doing it so passionately for generations?
Rest assured, Liberal Democrats will keep making your voices heard in parliament, fighting for more support for farmers and to stop the family farm tax.
Yvette Cooper says police forces will be compensated for employers’ national insurance increase
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has said that police forces will be compensated for the rise in employers’ national insurance in the budget, Sky News reports. She said forces would get the money in addition to an extra £500m being allocated for neighbourhood policing. She made the announcement as she set out police reforms. In its summary the Home Office says the measures include:
-a new Police Performance Unit to track national data on local performance and drive up standards
-a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to get policing back to basics and rebuild trust between local forces and the communities they serve
-a new National Centre of Policing to harness new technology and forensics, making sure policing is better equipped to meet the changing nature of crime
The text of Cooper’s speech is here.
Sarah Bool (Con) asked why the government had chosen £1m as the threshold where farms will start to pay inheritance tax. She suggested it should be higher.
Reed said that, taking into account other allowances, a couple with farm could avoid inheritance tax on sales up to £3m. He said people might find it hard to justify people someone inheriting property worth more than £3m not paying inheritance tax.
The Commons environment committee had to suspend proceedings for a while, because there was a division in the chamber.
When proceedings resumed, in response to a question from the Lib Dem MP Sarah Dyke, the environment secretary Steve Reed said that last year more than half of farmland was sold to non-farmers. And he said the price of farmland was rising above inflation. He said this trend had been going on for a while. He went on:
I suspect a part of that is being driven by wealthy individuals who are buying up agricultural land potentially as a means to avoid inheritance tax liability.
And some of them will be very open about that. If you’re listening to tax advisers or tax consultants, some of them will freely give this opinion in public; one of the best ways to shield a large amount of money from inheritance tax is to buy agricultural land.
He said that when agricultural property relief was established (the inheritance tax exemption), it was not there to help people like this.
Health minister Stephen Kinnock says he will back assisted dying bill
Stephen Kinnock, the health secretary, has said he will vote in favour of the assisted dying bill next week, arguing that it is the “compassionate” thing to do and will not automatically place NHS palliative care services under extreme pressure. Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot have the story.
