Meeting of the Parliament 13 November 2024
I welcome the fact that we are having this debate, and I appreciate Tim Eagle’s contribution and his bringing his personal experience to the chamber.
I want to make it clear that this Government wants a tax system that supports rather than hinders orderly succession planning and the transfer of land to the next generation of custodians. However, that is not what the new UK Government has put in place. The UK budget is not just a disappointment; frankly, it is a disgrace. The unnecessary worry, stress and severe concern that it has caused, and is causing, farmers and crofters in Scotland is simply unacceptable.
The UK Government’s decision to change inheritance tax, which is a reserved matter, was taken without consultation with the farming community, its representatives or the Scottish Government. The changes were not included in the Labour manifesto, so we had no warning at any point that they were coming. As Tim Eagle outlined, not only were they not mentioned but Labour stated before the election that it had no plans to change inheritance tax or agricultural property relief. It is an entirely arbitrary decision, and we are left—as farmers and crofters in Scotland are—to try to work out the extent of the impact, as no assessments have been made or published.
And that is not the full extent of the indifference that has been shown to rural Scotland by the new UK Government in its budget. Although I welcome the fact that future funding allocations will be a Scottish Government decision, baselining and removing ring fencing from funding for agriculture—and, indeed, marine—add to the pressures that we are under. Unlike other farming nations, such as Denmark and Ireland, we no longer have any long-term funding certainty. What we have now can only be described as an inadequate settlement. Any move to break the link between the area of land farmed and funding increases for Scotland ignores our on-going commitment to active farming and direct payments, and it risks our efforts to transform our industry for the future.