Comment: The government must go further to support farmers

By Jess Brown-Fuller MP

Over recent years, the annual charity Christmas Tractor run has grown in both size and popularity. In December, 100 tractors, festooned with lights and signs, processed through Chichester and the surrounding villages, enjoyed by crowds of people along the route. Their chosen charity was KSS Air Ambulance. Some of those tractors also had reminders of the vital role they play in our nation’s security; ‘No farmers, no food’ and in an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, our ability to feed ourselves as a country should be a high priority.  

Across Chichester, we are blessed with some of the highest-grading agricultural land in the country.  The constituency, which spans from the coast to as far North as Compton and Chilgrove, is home to some 178 farms.  

On top of their economic significance for our area, family farms play a critical role in providing stewardship for some of our most precious landscapes. For instance, the Chichester Harbour National Landscape is home to 15 arable farms, with farming accounting for over half of the total land use. Crucially, almost 2,000 hectares of this farmland is managed under Environmental Stewardship Schemes, supporting important habitats for flora and fauna alike. 

Many of the farming families I have met with since the election have been farming the land for generations. They have shared their experiences working in an industry that has been undermined over years and years of incompetency from successive governments.  

The Family Farm Tax was opposed by my party since its inception as a nonsense. I could understand what the government were trying to achieve, removing a loophole for billionaires that have bought large swathes of land to avoid paying inheritance tax. But what the tax did in practise was make many of the family farms across the country unviable and would have meant families selling off land to pay the huge bill they received when the farm was passed on. This would undermine their ability to farm the land when farming by its very nature requires economies of scale to be sustainable.  

It’s true that farms are asset rich and cash poor. Their yearly returns can be completely undermined by volatile weather conditions and government data showed on average a farm will be £300,000 in debt.  

It should not have taken this long, nor this much effort and fight, to demonstrate to the government that the policy would harm farms up and down the country. But it has and it is a credit to all those who have campaigned against the Family Farm Tax that the government has taken the decision to row back on its original plan.  

The increase in the tax thresholds is a positive first step that will help many. But it is only a first step. To ensure these precious natural landscapes are protected for years to come, the government must now listen to our rural communities by going further and scrapping the Family Farm Tax in full. 

Jess in constituency