Labour’s U-turn on Winter Fuel is welcome, and long overdue – now they must axe the Family Farm Tax. Since they snatched away support from millions of vulnerable pensioners, the Conservative Party, led by Kemi Badenoch, has been campaigning tirelessly to support vulnerable pensioners and correct this injustice.
We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Daily Express and its readers in the paper’s great crusade to see this terrible decision overturned. And thanks to our combined efforts over the past 10 months, the Labour government has been forced into a humiliating climb down.
We will continue to hold Labour to account to ensure that they set out proper, and fully funded, proposals to ensure vulnerable pensioners no longer have to choose between heating and eating.
But we will not stop there, as Labour continues to ram through another injustice.
Keir Starmer & Rachel Reeves’ decision to impose the Family Farms Tax in the Autumn Budget flies in the face of the evidence we have gathered across the UK about the threat it poses to British farming.
This vindictive measure, borne out of left-wing ideology, has been devastating. Asset-rich but cash-poor farmers up and down the country have warned that they will face massive tax bills for simply farming the land that their ancestors farmed before them.
This tax is forcing them to make impossible choices – selling their family home and land which their family have nurtured for generations, and losing the skills, careers, and way of life that they want to pass on to their children.
The emotional toll is serious: a Coroner has reported recently that a farmer took his own life for fear that Labour’s inheritance tax changes would lead to the loss of his family’s farm.
Tragically, we know that others have done the same. Still, the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, refuses to own up to the consequences of his policy.
This is not just a threat to our rural communities, and their way of life, but a risk to this country as a whole. Without our farms, there can be no food security, and there can be no national security without our food security.
But these pleas continue to fall on deaf ears, as City Steve hides in Whitehall and Rachel Reeves shamefully doubles down on her misguided and ideologically-driven decision.
However, this week’s Winter Fuel U-turn has shown us that there is a path to fairness for farming families. Under pressure, this government will buckle.
With determination and grit, we will continue our fight. The Conservatives will not stop campaigning: we want Labour to scrap their vindictive policy, but if they don’t, we will axe the Family Farm Tax when back in government.
We are proud knowing that we will be joined in that fight by the Daily Express and its readers every step of the way.