Labour must add inheritance tax to long list of U-turns - Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru has called on the Labour UK Government to scrap their ‘devastating’ changes to farm inheritance tax - and add it to the ‘long list’ of the Government’s U-turns.

Speaking at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Winter Fair, Plaid Cymru’s rural affairs spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd MS has hit out at the Labour Government’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief, which are set to ‘devastate’ family farms.

Mr Gruffydd has called on the Chancellor to U-turn on the changes, similarly to her decisions to U-turn on income tax rises in the upcoming Budget, her U-turn on the Winter Fuel Payment, and her Government’s U-turn on the proposed welfare reforms.

This comes after a Welsh Affairs committee report highlighted how the changes to inheritance tax has created a ‘climate of uncertainty and confusion’ for Welsh farmers.

Plaid Cymru rural affairs spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd MS, said:

“This UK Govt Budget is fast becoming a U-turn budget. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap was out, now it’s in. Hiking income tax was in now it’s out. A hokey-cokey budget from a Government that’s in power but clearly not in control.

“There’s at least one other policy where I’d welcome a further U-turn. That’s on farm inheritance tax. I’ve stood up in the Senedd on countless occasions to highlight the folly of the proposed changes and the adverse impact it will have.

“It’s a policy that will do lasting harm to our small Welsh family farms, that targets the very people who feed us, who care for our land, who are in the frontline of the fight against climate change and reversing the loss of nature. They are the ones who sustain our rural economy and who underpin the social and cultural fabric of our rural communities.

“Most of our family farms are cash poor and many live a hand-to-mouth existence. They don’t have the capital to shoulder this huge tax burden. It will force the sell-off of land making farms less viable and less sustainable as they pass on to the next generation.

“My message to Rachel Reeves is that if you can U-turn on income tax then you can U-turn on farm inheritance tax as well. The family farm tax needs to be scrapped and the UK Budget next week is the perfect opportunity to do that.”