MPs slammed over vote on farmers' inheritance

A NORTHUMBERLAND councillor has slammed the county's Labour MPs for voting to impose inheritance tax on farmers.

- DANIEL HALL

Farmers on the A1

Farmers have fiercely opposed the introduction in last year's budget of a 20 per cent rate on agricultural land and businesses worth more than £1million.

They claim that the reintroduction of Inheritance Tax Relief will have a crippling impact on farms whose landholdings make them “asset rich but cash poor”, though the Government says that it will only affect around 500 estates each year.

Guy Renner-Thompson, Conservative councillor for Bamburgh, was one of the organisers of a protest which saw farmers drive their tractors from Newburn to Newcastle on Sunday, November 23.

Organisers had hoped the protest would pressure the Government into a U-turn on the tax.