A minister was put in the hot seat on BBC Question Time last night over the Budget – and particularly the impact it will have on farmers.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves changed the rules around inheritance tax so that farms worth more than £1 million will become liable for the charge although at the reduced rate of 20%.
This has sparked a furious backlash from the agricultural sector and thousands of farmers protested in Westminster this week.
The fallout comes on top of the anger over Reeves’ decision to hike National Insurance contribution for employers – which top stores have warned will trigger job losses and higher prices for consumers.
An audience member on last night’s BBC Question Time told paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds that she is “starting to think that Labour actually doesn’t know what it’s doing.”
That prompted some laughter from the rest of the audience, while the woman explained: “You’ve taxed people who do food, then you want to actually make people poorer who have worked and contributed.”
Thomas-Symonds quietly said, “no,” but the woman continued: “So it’s like, what are you doing? I think it’s just stalling tactic just to tax people in the end. What are you doing? Because I don’t know.”
The minister also struggled to respond when host Fiona Bruce asked him exactly how many farming estates would be impacted.
She said: “In terms of the number of farms that are being affected, if the government are saying 520 estates will be affected per year, overall, of all the farms that there are in this country – 200,000 or something like that – how many, overall, would be affected by these changes in inheritance tax?”
He said the government figure is 27% of the total number of farming properties in the UK will be impacted, which works out to around 500 per year, while the unaffected number is around 1,500.
Bruce asked: “And overall? The question I’m asking is how many farms overall...”
He replied: “It’s 27%!”
The presenter tried again: “And how many farms is that in numbers?”
He said: “Of 2,000 per year, around 500, will be affected –”
But at this point, Bruce turned to the audience and said: “Have I got an answer to that? Nick, hang on, this is what we don’t understand.”
She noted that the National Farmers’ Union say around two-thirds of the country’s farms will be impacted.
But the minister just repeated his 27% stat, prompting exasperated looks from the audience.