The CLA View

Last year was certainly eventful - building up to a general election and swiftly understanding the new government’s priorities. It ended with several unpleasant and unwelcome surprises, delivering a hammer blow to rural communities up and down the country and hampering growth across many industries.

We start the new year with the same focus, determination and resolve as we ended 2024 – we will continue to campaign against the proposed changes to inheritance tax reliefs and highlight the devastating impact they will have on rural businesses to the government, MPs and in the media.

We need the government to start listening. Last year when we said: ‘We need you to listen to our concerns about the rash changes to inheritance tax,’ the government fired back ‘Tory chaos,’ followed by ‘black hole’ and ending with ‘fixing the foundations’. That is not a conversation. This government said it would listen. We’re not naive – we all know politicians say anything to get elected – but even in that context it really has been quite the opposite.

Ahead of the Christmas break the farming industry came together urging the government to rethink its inheritance tax changes, as the CLA gave evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee.

CLA President Victoria Vyvyan highlighted the case against the changes. It was the first session of a new inquiry into the future of farming, and heard from a range of industry leaders.

The committee was informed that no impact assessment has been undertaken. Victoria told the committee the policy needed "a pause, to really consider whether there should be a full U-turn and a different approach to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief". She added: "Don't kill us. Let us fight our way out of this corner."

Meanwhile, in a joint letter sent to the Prime Minister, the CLA, NFU, Tenant Farmers Association and Central Association for Agricultural Valuers urged Keir Starmer to reconsider plans to cap vital inheritance reliefs from April 2026.

The letter warned of the dire consequences of the policy for family farms and businesses, as well as tenant farmers and the wider rural economy, and called for collaboration and consultation.

We have also been working with wider business organisations such as Family Business UK who recently commissioned modelling which showed the changes to Business Property Relief alone could result in a £1.25 billion net fiscal loss to the Exchequer, lead to more than 125,000 job losses and reduce economic activity (GVA) by £9.4 billion over the course of the Parliament.

As we enter 2025 we will be staunch in our defence of rural businesses and decisions that will have a negative impact on them. Alongside our campaigning against inheritance tax we will continue to have a focus on other areas of policy and legislative work.

For example, we will be reviewing the government’s response to the National Planning Policy Framework, analysing what the Devolution Bill will mean for rural representation and responding to a consultation on energy efficiency. Already this year we have raised concerns regarding the government’s plan to scrap the 2031 cut-off date for adding unrecorded rights of way.

Locally, we will be continuing our engagement with local authorities and police forces to ensure our members’ views are heard on a range of matters.

I would like to wish everyone success with their rural business ventures. It may be a challenging time on many levels, but we are a resolute industry and have faced up to many challenges in the past. The CLA we will be at the forefront of tackling the latest bumps in the road.