Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms

Debate between Chris Bloore and John Cooper

Monday 10th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.

I represent Dumfries and Galloway, which is the land of milk and slurry. With due deference to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and his super-valuable land, we have some of the most productive grassland in the whole country. The point that the farmers there make to me all the time—they do not, by the way, have the large estates, but are small and often tenant farmers—is that Treasury Ministers, like accountants, often know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. That is the situation.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the reliefs. They are not loopholes; they were specifically put in place to allow multigenerational farming to continue. One of my farmers, Robert, who farms near Moniaive, said:

“APR and BPR are not, as has been suggested, ‘loopholes’ but targeted and necessary reliefs designed to allow multi-generational farming businesses to contribute towards food production and economic growth.”

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

Labour Members have made several attempts to project possible tweaks to the legislation, with feedback from our members. On that point about loopholes, however, I do not think that anyone is saying that family farms have tried to abuse loopholes; it is the big billion-dollar corporations and land banks that have started to exploit them—[Interruption.]

[John Cooper]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but as he can hear from Opposition Members it has repeatedly been called a loophole. I have been told in the main Chamber that I am scaremongering, which is not right either. That is nonsense—the fear out there is real. Listen to the noise outside. The people outside are not multimillionaires; they are not shroud waving for the sake of it and are not exploiting a loophole. This is a bit like red diesel—again, I suspect, the Minister does not even know what that is. Red diesel is priced cheaply, and that has a direct link with, and effect on, the price of food that we pay in our shops. The whole system is designed, first and foremost, to ensure food security and to deliver quality food at low prices.

We have heard about tweaks and so forth, but it is not for me to suggest tweaks. The Government are in power with a huge majority; they must think again and it is not, as I say, for me to sit down to write out specifics for them. They have the ability not to make a great screeching U-turn, but to make the tweaks that can protect this most important and vital industry. Will the Minister please take away the message he has heard today—including the change of tone from those on the Benches behind him—that this is a real and serious problem? Changes can be made. It is not too late.