Pleas from local farmers were ignored at the latest Cheshire West and Chester Full Council Meeting (Thursday 12 December 2024) over the damage to be caused by the Labour Government’s ‘Family Farming Tax’. The Labour-run Council refused to debate the hot-topic issue which will potentially affect over 1,000 farms in the borough.
Councillor Simon Eardley said:
"I am incredibly frustrated by the ruling Labour administration's unwillingness to debate issues which may not be convenient for them to do so, but which matter to many, including our important farming and agricultural community in the Saughall and Mollington Ward. My own family have farmed in Cheshire for generations and I appreciate the incredible anxiety that I know exists amongst those who now face the prospect of having to pay unreasonable - and unaffordable - amounts of tax. We should have debated this matter at the full Council meeting on 12th December - why else are we there? Labour arrogantly refused to do so in a shameful act to manage the agenda."
You can read Cllr Eardley's intended speech at the end of this news release.
Councillor Martin Loftus (Hartford and Greenbank, Con), Shadow Cabinet Member for Homes, Planning and Safer Communities, asked Council to debate the issue by saying:
“While many might consider farms to be businesses, I would respectfully suggest they are more than that. It is in fact a lifestyle. I can’t think of many people who would work such very long hours, often in very difficult conditions, for such ridiculously small returns on their investment. The fact that despite the harsh conditions and low returns, which sadly leads to a higher than average suicide rate, so many farms have been passed down multiple generations makes my point.
“Farmers MAY be asset rich, especially given the high value of agricultural equipment, but many remain cash poor, and most certainly do not lead a life of luxury. Despite promises by the now Prime Minister and Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I think most people were genuinely shocked at the introduction of this new tax, and I suspect that most of our electorate respect the role our farmers play in feeding the nation, and given the threat to food security, would not wish to see farmers forced out of business.”
When put to the vote, every single Labour Councillor present at the meeting voted against debating the item, with the independent member for rural-facing three-member Weaver and Cuddington ward abstaining on the vital discussion while the Conservative Councillor Phil Rimmer, also representing the ward, voted for. Therefore, the item was not heard.
Reacting afterwards, Cllr Adrian Waddelove (Farndon, Con), Conservative Group Leader said:
“I have been inundated with messages from worried and concerned farmers from my ward and further afield about the damage that Labour’s Family Fax Farm will have on them and their livelihoods.
“We already know that many Cheshire farmers are struggling to cope with rising cost pressures. I am really disappointed that Labour councillors did not stand up to their government this evening – instead voting not to even debate this critical issue. This Labour Council made it abundantly clear to everyone that they do not care about our rural residents, our rural economy, or our food security.”
Image: prior to the meeting, Conservative councillors joined a local farmer and his tractor outside the council chamber in Winsford to highlight their concerns on the issue.
The intended speech Cllr Simon Eardley would have made but was prevented from doing so by Labour is here:
"My family have farmed in Cheshire for centuries.
In Malpas, in Burwardsley, near Tattenhall, in Dunham-on-the-Hill and latterly in the village of Ince.
We’ve been both tenant farmers and owners of our own land and farmhouse.
Farming is an important part of who I am – although I’m not a farmer – and my heritage. I know first hand the positives and negatives of what being a farmer - and being from a farming family - means.
The class rhetoric that has infected this debate from the opposition is deeply regrettable and offensive.
Farmers will have to just put up with it says the Defra Secretary. No compassion. No sympathy. No empathy with the reality of the situation.
But its okay, they say…farmers will have years to pay off the sums involved as a result of changes to Inheritance Tax Relief. This does not reflect the reality of life on the ground for family farms. Small family farms – the foundation of family farming in our county of Cheshire.
My family bought our farm, Yew Tree Farm, in Ince in 1968 on the death of my grandfather. My father ran the business with my grandmother from the age of 25.
For most of the 1990s we never recorded a single year of profit within the farm business.
Those with long memories will recall the BSE crisis which destroyed livelihoods and people.
You might recall how the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy crippled efficient and effective British farmers.
My grandparents and parents were custodians of the land as much as anything else.
They were working people. Not gentlemen farmers. In the worst of times they milked their cows three times a day – at 4am, at 3pm and 10pm – to make ends meet.
The impact of this policy isn’t about toff farmers or the rich.
What’s at stake is food security, food production, the land, the countryside and much else that will be impacted by the destruction of family farms that this cruel and unnecessary policy will result in.
The very least this Council can do tonight is back this motion and the resolution contained within it."
