- Borrowing figures: Another sign the Chancellor’s Budget has not worked
- OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise farmers for practically no benefit
- Cole-Hamilton: SNP must scrap social care power grab now
- OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise Welsh farmers for practically no benefit
- OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise farmers and crofters for little benefit to Exchequer
- Cross-border healthcare difficulties letting patients down
Borrowing figures: Another sign the Chancellor’s Budget has not worked
Responding to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showing UK borrowing has hit its highest December level for four years, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson, Daisy Cooper MP said:
This is yet another sign that the Chancellor’s Budget has not worked. It’s now putting people’s mortgages at risk and will make it even harder for the Chancellor to meet her borrowing rules.
The answer to this is to turbo-charge growth by scrapping the jobs tax, and raising the necessary revenue for our NHS from the big banks and tech companies instead.
After the Conservative Party’s disastrous legacy of economic vandalism, the Chancellor needs to go for growth through fairer tax measures that can unleash growth through small businesses, not undermine it.
OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise farmers for practically no benefit
Commenting on the latest OBR report on the impact of agricultural and business property relief, Liberal Democrat Environment and Rural Affairs spokesperson Tim Farron MP said:
This report confirms that the Government’s misguided family farm tax is mired in problems and will penalise British farmers for practically no benefit.
It is deeply concerning that older farmers will be hit hardest from this tax, with the rug pulled from under them before they can change their plans. And with tax revenue expected to be highly uncertain and unstable for two decades, the Chancellor’s excuses simply don’t stack up.
Farmers are absolutely vital for Britain, putting food on our tables and protecting the British countryside. And they are already battling botched trade deals, declining incomes and high energy prices. The Government must do the right thing and scrap the family farm tax before it’s too late.
Cole-Hamilton: SNP must scrap social care power grab now
Speaking ahead of the ministerial statement on the future of the National Care Service, proposals which would centralise social care services and wrench away control from local communities, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:
My party has been the only party to oppose this ill-fated power grab from day one.
The SNP have wasted four years and £30 million attempting this bureaucratic takeover – the equivalent of the annual salary of 1,200 care workers. It is money that should have been spent on care staff and service users, as well as fixing community care so that people can leave hospital on time.
Ministers need to announce that their planned power grab is being scrapped immediately and waste no time in investing in staff and services now.
OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise Welsh farmers for practically no benefit
Commenting on the latest OBR report on the impact of agricultural and business property relief, Welsh Liberal Democrat Westminster Spokesperson David Chadwick MP said:
“This report confirms that the UK Labour Government’s misguided family farm tax is mired in problems and will penalise Welsh farmers for practically no benefit.
“It is deeply concerning that older farmers will be hit hardest from this tax, with the rug pulled from under them before they can change their plans. And with tax revenue expected to be highly uncertain and unstable for two decades, the Chancellor’s excuses simply don’t stack up.
“Farmers are absolutely vital for Wales, putting food on our tables and protecting the Welsh countryside. And they are already battling botched trade deals, declining incomes and high energy prices. Labour must do the right thing and scrap the family farm tax before it’s too late.”
OBR Report: Farm tax will penalise farmers and crofters for little benefit to Exchequer
Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has today responded to a new report by the Office of Budget Responsibility on the impact of changes to agricultural and business property relief on inheritance tax, warning that it confirmed that the changes are still “mired in practical problems”. The OBR found that the tax yield to Treasury from the changes was subject to a “high” level of uncertainty, due to behavioural changes.
Mr Carmichael is Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.
Mr Carmichael said:
This report confirms that the government’s misguided approach to farm inheritance tax is still mired in practical problems and risks harming farmers and crofters for very little benefit to the Exchequer. In the words of one expert to my committee last year: ‘it hits the people they say they are protecting and it protects the people they say they are hitting’.
It is deeply concerning that the OBR seems to expect that older farmers will be paying the hardest price from this tax. They followed the advice they were given throughout their lives and now they have had the rug pulled from under them before they can change their plans. With tax revenue expected to be highly uncertain and unstable for two decades, the logic behind these changes simply does not add up.
Farmers, crofters and food producers are vital for our country. The government must do the right thing and rethink these plans, before it is too late.
Cross-border healthcare difficulties letting patients down
Following a Welsh Affairs Select Committee meeting on cross-border health care between England and Wales, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP for the border constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe has said that the current situation is letting down Welsh patients, especially in Powys.
Commenting after the session, Welsh Liberal Democrat MP David Chadwick said:
My constituents in Powys are being let down by these systemic problems.
Patients in border communities face challenges to accessing healthcare that other regions of Wales don’t and they often feel these are ignored by the Welsh Government, despite the fact between 15-20% of patients in Wales are treated in England.
Now in addition to the usual difficulties with referrals and separate IT systems we have abysmal proposals from Powys Health Board to deliberately slow down the treatment of Welsh patients in hospitals in Herefordshire and Shropshire to save money.
It isn’t good enough and both the UK and Welsh governments need to be getting together to solve it. Some of these issues have been highlighted for over 10 years, but they still haven’t been addressed.
8 Comments
Might many of the problems caused by the “benefit no one budget” have been brought about because of the massively mistaken household budget analogy and the ideological blindness afflicting so many political parties, caused by the restricted attitudes and thinking resulting from adherence to Neo-liberalism?
But one indicator of difference between households and sovereign currency governments is that households do not own a bank but our government does. Another is that households cannot create money but our government can, should and must. In the creation of more money than the receipt of taxes, the difference need/should not be classified as borrowing/debt because it is not owed to anyone.
Please read the attached article:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/23/the-curse-of-the-household-analogy/
As for “Ideological blindness”:
“In neoliberalism, the state has been stripped of its capacity for economic government and subordinated to market-like mechanisms which are wildly optimistic about their doctrines and demonize alternatives despite glaring problems including productivity inertia, increasing private subsistence debt, increased food banks etc., etc. [From “Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail” by Abby Innes]
The above book is so well worth reading!
“Borrowing figures: Another sign the Chancellor’s Budget has not worked”
An alternative view is that Governments usually don’t borrow their own IOUs. Others lend them to Govt for safe keeping and to earn a small component of interest. If anyone buys Premium Bonds, or conventional bonds (gilts),or makes a deposit into a National Savings account they are lending to Govt. Just how much ends up being spent has to be a matter for Govt. If its fiscal policy is too loose we could have excessive inflation.
If Rachel Reeves wants to keep a tight fiscal policy to minimise inflation, this is what she should be saying. She should leave discussion of ‘Black Holes’ to the Astrophysicists!
The Labour Government is taking £500 million per year from the rural area by ending Agricultural Property Relief for Inheritance Tax. £500 million that would have been spent in rural shops and businesses, supporting jobs and small businesses in rural areas. I do not know if that is neoliberalism but it is certainly reverse Keynesian economics.
@ Gwyn Williams,
“……. it is certainly reverse Keynesian economics.”
No it isn’t. There’s nothing in Keynesian economics to suggest that we shouldn’t have inheritance taxes. Agricultural Property Relief (APR) was introduced in 1984 by Margaret Thatcher’s government as part of the Inheritance Tax Act. Mrs Thatcher wasn’t known for her adherence to Keynesian economic principles.
APR is a tax break that reduces the amount of inheritance tax paid on agricultural property. The goal of APR is to protect family farms from being sold to pay inheritance taxes.
Unfortunately it has brought about unintended consequences. The tax free status of agricultural land has attracted buyers who previously have no particular interest in farming, and probably have heirs which don’t have any interest either. This has caused the value of land to soar to be far above anything that can be justified on an economic basis making it very difficult, if not impossible, for those with a genuine interest to acquire farming land unless they happen to be born into the right families.
There are other ways to tackle the problem.
@Peter Martin . Interesting but misleading observation. Inheritance Tax was introduced in 1988. In 1984 Agricultural Property Relief was introduced on Capital Transfer Tax. A Tax which had a 70% top rate when it was first introduced in 1974. By 1988 the agricultural budget in the UK reached a peak of £3 billion per year. A figure that has never been exceeded. If a Government takes away an industry’s ability to make profits then how can capital taxes such as Inheritance tax be justified. I do not know if the policy qualifies as neo liberal but it is certainly the reverse of Keynesian economics.
Gwynne Williams
You ask:
“If a Government takes away an industry’s ability to make profits then how can capital taxes such as Inheritance tax be justified?”
Let’s take a look at some numbers. Consider a family farm which is worth £5 million. You rightly claim that the ability to make an economic return is limited. I’ve seen claims that it is as low as 1% p.a. which in this case is £50k per year.
The present system is encouraging the family to sell up to someone with the same motivations as Jeremy Clarkson. Even without trying very hard they could invest the £5million and multiply their income by factor of 5. They wouldn’t have to milk any cows or grow any crops.
This is clearly not what we want as a society. We want farmers to farm and people like Jeremy Clarkson to do something else! Preferably something that might be useful to society but in his case I’m struggling to come up with a suitable suggestion.
Pity that three Lib Dems have each “authored” a virtually identical press release about the farm tax!
@Peter Martin As we are advancing hypothetical arguments, why not replace the word “agricultural” property relief with “residential” and “Inheritance” Tax with “Capital Gains”. Although there would be huge disruption in the housing market, it would mean that homes became more affordable. If it’s fine to plunge farmers into negative equity then why not homeowners.