A British farmer has despaired at Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of her Spring Statement, declaring he is “fighting to survive”.
Speaking to GB News, Andrew Shaw branded Labour’s U-turn on the inheritance tax threshold a mere “sticking plaster”.
In the upcoming statement, delivered by Ms Reeves in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon, she is expected to say the economy is “stronger and more secure”.
Ms Reeves will also claim Labour “has the right plan for Britain” and is not expected to announce any new tax raids but could make “minor changes” to tax policy.
Asked by GB News National Reporter Sophie Reaper what he is hoping for in the Spring Statement, Mr Shaw admitted: “Well, what we’re hoping for and what we’re going to get are completely different things.
“We’re hoping for a change and some sort of injection into our industry, ready to give it a bit of a boost. We’re not going to get anything because they do not see food security at this moment in time as important.”
Declaring the industry is “fighting to survive”, he added: “We’ve seen our glorious Prime Minister running around the world doing trade deals with every other country and not supporting his own people and providing the food for us.
“We’ve had massive knocks and we’re fighting to survive at the moment.”
Farmer Andrew Shaw has told GB News he is ‘fighting to survive’ ahead of Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement
|
GB NEWS
Highlighting the “glimmer of hope” offered to the industry by Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds, Mr Shaw told GB News: “We had a little bit of a glimmer of hope from Emma Reynolds last week at the NFU conference, where she said that they are going to bring SFI (Sustainable Farming Incentive) back.
“But most farmers I spoke to, we don’t want to rely on the likes of SFI and diversification. We just want fair price for our produce.”
Taking aim at Labour’s “U-turn” on the inheritance tax threshold, Mr Shaw declared the move was simply a “sticking plaster” for the industry.
He stated: “It was a sticking plaster and it was very coy that they did it two days before Christmas, so no one could really question them.
Rachel Reeves will not announce any new tax or spend policies in her Spring Statement | PA
“The arguments they based everything on in the first place to introduce inheritance tax did not really then stack up, and what we have seen since that is all of the industry now is being affected by it, because there is no confidence in and no reinvestment going on at all, because no one knows really where they’re at.”
Stressing the U-turn has done “nothing” to ease the pressure on Britain’s farmers, Mr Shaw concluded: “They came to us and they have said that is the last they’re going to give is and that’s it.
“But if you look now about the amount of farms and farm sales that there are at the moment, you can just tell it’s done nothing to ease the pressure at all.”
Speaking at the National Farmers’ Union annual conference last week, Emma Reynolds declared the use of SFI should be part of a system where “both food and nature and thrive”.
Andrew Shaw told GB News the U-turn on inheritance tax was a ‘sticking plaster’ for farmers
|
GB NEWS
She told the conference: “We are making the scheme simpler, and we have streamlined the actions available from 102 to 71. We have weeded out those that were duplicative or weren’t delivering enough for food production or the environment. And judging by the low uptake, those which weren’t working for you either.
“We are also making the scheme fairer. Right now, a quarter of the funding is going to just four percent of farms. That is not right. I want more farmers to have the opportunity to benefit from the scheme and we need to reach our target to double the number of farms delivering for nature.
“We will introduce an agreement value cap of 100,000 pounds per year so we can fund as many agreements for farmers as possible. And to put that in context, 97 per cent of current agreement holders fall below that cap.
“We will also remove the SFI management payment for new agreements and rebalance a small number of payment rates. We are increasing rates for some moorland actions in both new and existing agreements to ensure hill farmers are properly compensated. And we are reducing rates for three parable actions.”