Terry Jermy

My hon. Friend is right that Government policies do not always fall equally across the country, and I absolutely welcome the idea of a rural strategy. Importantly, if the changes to APR go ahead, they will fail to address one of the key issues, because after 1 April it will still be financially advantageous for the super-rich to purchase agricultural land to avoid inheritance tax. At a rate of 20%, as opposed to 40%, it will remain a tax-efficient form of investment. In Norfolk, as elsewhere, we continue to see large swathes of land purchased by big corporations and the very well-off. This change will therefore not stop that abuse by the celebrities and the billionaires. APR has contributed to over-inflated land prices, despite the profitability of farming continuing to be a major challenge. Farmers in my constituency rarely make a return on capital of more than 1%, and farming is so often misunderstood and caught out by the view that land ownership equals wealth. If a farmer owns 200 to 400 acres of land, as many of the 500 farmers in my constituency do, they may well be wealthy if they did something with that land other than farm it, but if they continue to farm the land, that value is theoretical and will return very little profit. That should be of huge concern to this country and this Government. Farmers in my constituency regard themselves as custodians of the land, and in many ways, they provide a public service. I accept, as many in the farming community do, that we need to reform APR. With a few specific changes, this policy can be improved to better target its impact and provide the support for British farming that I know our Government want to provide. While I accept the economic situation and the appalling legacy of the last Conservative Government, the future of farming in this country depends on this Government’s policy being right.