Budget 2024 APR / BPR Update from Wales Director Victoria Bond
The aftermath of the Chancellors budget last week has left our rural communities in a state of confusion and concern. Our Director Victoria Bond outlines the situation from Wales.
A note from Director Victoria Bond
What a challenging week it has been.
Since the Chancellor's budget announcement, we have been working tirelessly to try and redress the balance and impress upon our politicians the detrimental impact their proposed actions will have on our members and generational farms and estates.
We are grateful to have received correspondence from many of you and we would encourage you to continue to contact us with your queries, concerns, support with correspondence to politicians and any case studies that may help strengthen our case to treasury – we need to illustrate they have their numbers wrong!
Meeting with Secretary Of State
Some of our members have kindly given up their time to provide media interviews and attend meetings with politicians. In particular we would like to thank Iain Hill-Trevor, Chair of Polisi Cymru, who provided a heartfelt, articulate and passionate speech to the Secretary of State Wales (Jo Stevens) and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Dame Nia Griffiths), mapping out major discrepancies and concerns with the current proposal. The Secretary of State Wales committed to taking our concerns away and working with her colleagues to further understand the potential consequences of treasury’s actions.
In collaboration with the other farming unions, we are requesting a complete reversal of the proposed APR/BPR changes. Our priority is to continue political engagement, alongside accurately mapping the direct and indirect implications for our rural communities.
Our priority is to continue political engagement, alongside accurately mapping the direct and indirect implications for our rural communities.
Press and Call to Action
We have worked with the press on key messages to thwart inaccurate assumptions by the Government, including a piece on ITV featuring our Polisi Cymru Vice Chair, Thomas Homfray. It was a chance to refute the over simplified statistics from the Government, whilst engaging in dialogue that outlined the potential ripple affects of both APR and BPR proposals. We have continued to push the PR messages to keep the issue at the forefront of the news.
Should any of you be meeting with or hosting MSs or MPs, please feel free to request CLA Cymru input and attendance. We must keep this issue at the forefront of politicians’ minds and we urge you all to help us do so.
Nationally the CLA has embarked on a major campaign 'Help CLA Save Your Family Business'and we urge every member and your friends and family that may be affected (whether members or not) to sign the letter and share it as widely as you can, to ensure that the weight of the wider community is delivered directly to your local MP's inbox next week. The policy team are also developing an evidence based data set to provide treasury with real figures on the impacts on members and wider landowners, to help the fight to overturn the decision.
Advice and Support
For our members, we have been updating all our succession and tax planning advice on our website and we would encourage all of our members to review this valuable information.
We’re also extremely aware and understanding of the strain this has caused many of you. Our team are here to listen, and can provide referrals to specialist organisations should you need additional support. Please do not hesitate to contact us for advice, guidance and support and continue to keep an eye on our webpages for further updates as matters progress
Upcoming Events
Steve Reed, DEFRA Secretary is due to attend our Rural Business Conference in London on 21st November and there is still time to register.
The CLA Cymru team will also be available to meet in person at the CLA Pavilion at the RWAS Winter Fair to continue to update our members on the budget outcomes, the Sustainable Farming Scheme, and other policy matters.
Next Steps
It remains a very worrying time for farmers who were blindsided by its’ inclusion in the Budget. CLA Cymru always seeks to ensure that any changes to agricultural policy respect the unique character of Welsh agriculture and promote a balanced approach that safeguards rural livelihoods. We will continue to research accurate data and implications on all our members and update all our communication channels.
Please feel free to reach out to the team.
Victoria.
