Environment secretary insists "most farms won't be affected"

ODN

Environment secretary Steve Reed has insisted "only around 500 farms will be affected" by the new family farm tax. The plans to impose inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million have sparked fury among rural communities, with thousands of farmers descending upon Westminster on Tuesday in protest.   "The vast majority of farms will pay nothing more under the new scheme - that's been validated by the Independent Office for Budget Responsibility," Mr Reed added.    Report by Kennedyl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

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00:00This government's commitment to farming and to farmers is absolute.

00:04That's why we've allocated £5 billion to farming in the budget.

00:08That's the biggest amount of money in our country's history for sustainable food production.

00:15But we have to plug that £22 billion black hole in our public finances,

00:19otherwise we can't fix our public services like the broken National Health Service.

00:23So it's only right that we've had to ask the wealthiest landowners and the biggest farms

00:29to pay their fair share. But I would emphasise only around 500 farms will be affected.

00:35The vast majority of farmers will pay no more under the new scheme than they do under the current one.

00:41The data from HMRC is actual data from the last year that we actually have real data available

00:48projected forwards. It shows that no more than around 500 farms would be affected.

00:54The vast majority of farmers will pay nothing more under the new scheme.

00:57And that's not just the Treasury saying that. It's been validated by the independent

01:01Office for Budget Responsibility and by the independent financial think tank the IFS.

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