SOMERSET MPs have shown their unwavering support for the farming community in a recent meeting in Westminster.

On Monday, February 10, MPs, including Gideon Amos, MP for Wellington and Taunton, and Adam Dance, MP for Yeovil, gathered in Westminster Hall to speak in support of small family farms.

MPs were debating an e-petition with more than 148,000 signatures calling to keep the current inheritance tax exemptions for working farms. The Government has said it will not make a U-turn on its plans to introduce a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate on farms worth more than £1 million.

Another tractor protest took place in London on the same day as the debate and Mr Amos said he was speaking up for the 337 signatories to the petition from his Taunton and Wellington constituency.

He said: “Farms are asset-rich but cash-poor, and that especially applies to smaller family farms. The Treasury’s figure that only 27 per cent of farms will be affected is therefore an underestimate. As the NFU has pointed out, it is more like 75 per cent.

“More importantly, this measure fundamentally misunderstands that the value of a farm is wrapped up in the land and is about not just pounds and pence, but the integrity of that farm.

“If one starts selling off chunks of that farm piecemeal, time after time, one eliminates the value of that farm as a whole. The Government need to accept the damage that this family farm tax could do.”

Mr Amos quoted two farmers whose farms he has visited and who have raised concerns locally.

He added: “Ed Hawkins from Cutsey Farm in Trull came to see me and explained that if he annualised that payment over a number of years, it would wipe out the very small margin that he depends on to live. We have heard the same thing from other Members. It is not realistic.

“Robbie Vile from Higher Lillesdon Farm in North Curry came to see me with his son, who is hoping to go into farming.

“However, looking at how farming has been treated recently – the delays in the SFI payments, the underspend of a full £358 million of the agricultural budget over the last three years, the massive advantage given to Australia and New Zealand, cheap imports after Brexit and now inheritance tax – they ask: Why would any young person be encouraged to go into farming in those circumstances?”

Mr Amos added: “In short, I have no objection to the taxing of super-large landowners who use farms as a loophole to avoid inheritance tax—in fact, I would support it.

“But the irony of this policy is that it will drive more land into the hands of those super-large landowners, because every time farmers have to sell off some of their land, it will go to one of those bigger companies.”

“The Government really must raise the threshold for this policy or extend the transitional relief. If they do not do that, the policy needs to go and it needs to go now.”