A change in Labour leadership is unlikely to help farming and the rural sector, the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) has warned.
With Andy Burnham widely expected to win the race to become Prime Minister, there has been much speculation as to what that will mean for emerging policy. “A lot of things have been said by him, and a lot of things have been unsaid by him,” explained Jeremy Moody, secretary and adviser to the CAAV. Speaking at the recent CAAV President’s Conference in Durham, he warned rural professionals to take all speculation with a healthy pinch of salt. “So much of the current talk is just people projecting their hopes and fears onto his uncertain canvas.”
Potential for change
Mr Burnham has mooted some radical and large changes, including taxing land to fund social care, increasing taxes on the wealthy, and aligning capital gains tax rates with income tax bands. Such ideas would likely take a long time to implement, suggested Mr Moody. “If he knows what he wants, he would have to move very quickly, and very firmly, in a handful of weeks to get anything big done.
“But when he gets into power, he’ll have to pick a Chancellor, choose defence and energy policies and see who he disillusions. He then has an election that’s only two or three years away. He faces many much larger problems that came nowhere near the Mayor of Manchester’s in tray; it could easily be that we are looking at a re-run of the past two years.”
There has been very little mention of farming – and Mr Burnham is unlikely to offer anything to help rural communities, warned Mr Moody. “The talk is more about capping food prices than supporting food production.”
There is also very little political appetite to revisit the Inheritance Tax changes that have now been in force for two months, he added. “Any changes will depend on a General Election, so for now we just need to get on with it.”
Political priorities
One political priority that does affect farmers is the focus on water quality, said Mr Moody. “The Clean Water Bill is coming, bringing regulation of agricultural pollution. While there is a focus on water companies at the moment, the knife will spin, so farmers need to get compliant before it does.”
The new Farming Roadmap looks to phase out payments for buffer strips and the conversion of farming systems, moving money to support larger changes, as for habitats, he warned. “The Sustainable Farming Incentive is to be a transitional scheme, as the regulatory baseline and expectations rise.”
With accelerating and unpredictable risk, the nation is in a much more difficult era but, unfortunately, what the country really needs – a return to economic growth – is not on the horizon. “Nothing yet suggests that Burnham, any more than Starmer and Reeves, understands what is needed to recover growth and so the means to pay for what we want.”
- For more information visit www.caav.org.uk.
