The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) today
launches an inquiry on the future of farming.
The inquiry will examine the policies driving one of the
agricultural sector's most significant periods of change in
years.
Given the scale and complexity of this period of change, and the
Government's two-year £5 billion funding commitment, the
Committee will run its thematic inquiry as an overarching and
ongoing piece of work. During its span, it will scrutinise a
variety of topical issues including food security, Defra's
farming and countryside programmes (ELMs), profitability of
farming, tenant farming, nature-friendly farming, agricultural
education and careers, innovation and agri-tech, and land-use. It
will report iteratively and in response to developments in the
area.
MPs will hold the first evidence session of this
inquiry next week, scrutinising the potential impacts of
proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and
Business Property Relief (BPR) on the farming sector and wider
rural communities.
The announcement, made in the October Budget, on changes to the
rules on APR and BPR, has generated conflicting estimations as to
the number of farms which will be affected, and the severity of
the impact on them.
To assess the veracity of the figures being publicly contested,
the Committee will next week hold an evidence session with the
Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Central Association of
Agricultural Valuers, and the Centre for the Analysis of
Taxation. The session will seek to elucidate the number and
proportion of farms impacted by the changes.
The Committee will also take evidence from farming
representatives including the presidents of the National Farmers'
Union (NFU) and the Country Land and Business Association (CLA),
and the Chair of the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), farming
groups who have publicly opposed the change.
The EFRA select committee this week wrote to the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, following its
evidence session with him
last month, with additional questions on the impact of the Budget
on the agricultural sector.
The Chair of the EFRA Committee, MP,
said:
“During this Parliament, the Government will make major
decisions on the environment, farming, food security and rural
communities that will affect us all. Through our future of
farming inquiry, our Committee will examine the realities of the
issues that farming communities and the agricultural sector are
facing.
“Since the announcement in the Budget about the changes to
Agricultural Property Relief, there has been an enormous amount
of concern amongst the farming community that the viability and
future of their farms are at risk.
“The number of farms that will be affected has been disputed
between different groups, and in our evidence session next week I
hope that we might shed some light on the predicted figures. For
this debate to move on we need to understand the basis of
competing claims and that is a job for which the select committee
is ideally suited.
“The Committee has chosen to take a strategic and long-term
approach to its work, and so we are opening an ongoing inquiry to
be ready to respond to developments as they
arise.”
Witnesses on Wednesday 11 December in Committee room 6,
Palace of Westminster
From 10:00am
- David Sturrock, Senior Research Economist, Institute for
Fiscal Studies (IFS)
- Dr Arun Advani, Director, Centre for the Analysis of Taxation
(CenTax)
- Jeremy Moody, Secretary and Adviser, Central Association for
Agricultural Valuers (CAAV)
- Stuart Maggs, Partner, Howes Percival LLP
From 11:00am
- Tom Bradshaw, President, National Farmers' Union (NFU)
- Victoria Vyvyan, President, Country Land and Business
Association (CLA)
-
, National Chair, Tenant
Farmers Association (TFA)
