Labour councillors quiet but deadly vote crushes Tory farm tax motion

Tory councillors lined up to pour scorn on the plan to make farmland and assets over £1 million subject to inheritance tax at 20 per cent from next year.

Councillor Stephen Burrell (Cons, Edgmond) had proposed that the council “resolves to throw its full weight behind local Telford & Wrekin farmers and the farming industry by directly lobbying the Government to reverse the Chancellor’s terrible Inheritance tax proposals.”

The motion added that the council should recognise the vital role that farmers provide for this borough and beyond.

Councillor Burrell said he knew of a family farm, built up over three or four generations, which would face a bill of £250,000.

“That is 12 years of operating profit. It will destroy them, destroy them,” he said.

He said reform of inheritance tax is a “good idea” but it has been “implemented in a catastrophic way”.

He added that during Storm Darragh it was the farmers who went out in their tractors in numbers to clear local roads, not council workers.

Councillor Thomas Janke (Lib Dem, Newport South) said the tax would have a “disproportionate impact on family owned farms”.

And fellow Newport councillor Peter Scott (Ind, Newport West) said the council should lobby the government over the proposals while Councillor Steve Bentley (Cons, Ercall Magna) said the tax is “abhorrent.”

He added: “We should be supporting the farmers at every opportunity.”

No Labour councillors chose to speak up on the motion but they still had the decisive say in its fate.

The red party holds 38 of the council’s 54 seats while the Conservatives are on seven, the Lib Dems are on six and there are three independents.

And when it came to the vote, Labour votes crushed Councillor Burrell’s motion, which was supported by 10 councillors.

The Government says that reforms announced at the Budget will “help raise money to fix the public finances while protecting small family farms from unfairly high inheritance tax.”