Ed Davey has called on the government to "withdraw" its new inheritance tax measure for farmers. The Liberal Democrat leader says farmers are "worried" after Chancellor Rachel Reeves closed a loophole to stop rich people investing in land to reduce their inheritance tax bills, penalising them with a new million pound tax threshold. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00We're really worried that farmers who are already struggling aren't going to get the
00:04extra help.
00:05Liberal Democrats argued at the last election we needed to increase the budget by a billion
00:08and now we've got Labour cutting it.
00:10Farmers have had to struggle so hard.
00:13The Conservatives really failed by failing to deal with the payments issue, with closing
00:19markets and bad trade deals.
00:21And farmers had a dreadful weather to contend with, so this is the last moment for withdrawing
00:27support.
00:28I think it's really worrying for farmers.
00:31If you talk to the Country Land and Business Association, they're really worried.
00:35It's going to affect far more farmers.
00:38And I don't know whether it's a mistake by the government or, frankly, whether they've
00:41just got it wrong.
00:42Either way, I think they need to withdraw this measure.
00:46Rural communities depend on agriculture, it's really a key part of rural communities and
00:52to take this away when farms are passed on from generation to generation, I think is
00:57a mistake.
00:58I think farmers will make their own decisions.
01:01I think it's really important that people realise we've got the best farmers in the
01:04world here in Britain and they've really been struggling.
01:08They were not supported by the last government, the Conservatives have betrayed farmers and
01:13now we're seeing Labour doing the same.
01:15It's why Liberal Democrats are saying, you know, withdraw this tax that you're putting
01:21on farmers, on the new inheritance tax proposal, but also support them through DEFRA's budget
01:27and make sure that the trade deals enable them to export more in a fair way.
01:32Well, Liberal Democrats think the rise in employers and national insurance contributions
01:36is wrong, it's the wrong tax, it's going to hit many small businesses.
01:40But at the very least, given the government wants to improve the health service, they
01:45shouldn't be letting GPs and pharmacists and anyone else in the health sector have to pay
01:53these.
01:54It's going to really hit them.
01:55And so they've exempted hospitals, for example, they need to exempt GPs and pharmacists.