Chancellor ‘doesn’t get’ impact on Northern Ireland farmers, Little-Pengelly says

The Deputy First Minister said she discussed the impact of the changes with Ms Reeves in a meeting on Tuesday.

The Chancellor does not “genuinely get” Northern Ireland’s exposure to inheritance tax changes for farmers, the deputy First Minister has said.

Rachel Reeves has defended plans to proceed with tax changes for inherited agricultural assets from April next year. Farmers in Northern Ireland have said they will be disproportionately affected by the changes.

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said she discussed the impact of the changes with Ms Reeves in a meeting on Tuesday.

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Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra on Wednesday, Ms Little-Pengelly said: “I don’t think she genuinely gets it. And if she does, she certainly isn’t explaining in any logical way why she is continuing to back that.

“Because, of course, from a farming perspective, the farm is a necessity for carrying on the business.

“So therefore, if you’re passing your farm from one generation to another, that farm is required in order to carry on that business, and yet that tax could make the sustainability of that difficult.

“It could make the size of that farm, and the ability to farm to the extent it was being farmed, not possible for the next generation, and indeed, to put off the next generation.”

Ms Little-Pengelly said she did not see “any benefit” to the proposed changes.

“Those are the types of points that we raised to her in great detail. I’m disappointed by the remarks that she made about that, but that will not stop us from continuing to emphasise and to raise these points, because I think that’s very much what our role is, to champion these issues, to highlight these issues.”

More broadly, she said the Chancellor was facing a difficult fiscal position and added: “I don’t get the sense that there’s any good news coming any time soon.

“But of course, she does have the ability to do certain things to support growth in our economy, to support us in what we’re trying to achieve here in Northern Ireland.”

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