The UK Government have announced another major U-Turn, this time on the family farm tax.
In the week before Christmas, the DEFRA Secretary of State, Emma Reynolds MP, announced that they were finally making changes to their decision on Inheritance Tax for farmers, in particular on their original threshold of £1million which is to be raised now to £2.5million.
This climbdown from the Labour government confirms what everyone else already knew – this policy is deeply flawed and must be scrapped.
Small family farms have been put through hell by this Labour government. These tweaks only minimise the damage to family farms across the country; they don’t end the threat completely.
Labour promised farmers no changes to Agricultural Property Relief in the run-up to the election – but they broke that promise in the 2024 Budget. Scottish Labour MPs refused to take a stand against the UK government when it mattered – they now need to explain why they voted for a policy that their own government has now had to climb down on.
This chaos is just another symptom of an incompetent, rudderless Westminster government that doesn’t work for Scotland. It’s only with the fresh start of independence that Scotland can realise its full potential.
