'The average working farmer is asset rich and cash poor'

It shows both her and the Labour Government to have a total lack of understanding about the effect this Budget will have the commercial family farm.

The Chancellor, obviously did not consult with the farming industry before announcing major changes to Agricultural Property Relief on inheritance tax.

If she had liaised with the National Farmers Union, the Country Landowners & Business Association and in particular the professional bodies, being the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, they would have been informed that the average commercial farm of around 300 acres complete with livestock, machinery and other assets is worth in the region of £4m.

This would result in an inheritance tax bill of about £600,000. Zero before this Budget!

This would inevitably result in some farmers having to sell land to pay the tax, hence reducing the viability of their farm.

This Chancellor has failed to appreciate the average working farmer is asset rich and cash poor and is continuously re-investing any profits in the farm to make it more efficient.

The knock-on effect will be stunting economic growth, reducing employment, discouraging the next generation from wanting to enter or continue to farm.

It will also have a serious impact on associated rural businesses and the countryside economy in general.

Does this Government realise how important farming is in providing this country’s food security in the light of climate change and wars around the world?

W. Robin Jessop BA (Hons) (Dunelm) FRICS FAAV, Northallerton.

Family farming

OVER the past few days, there has been huge concern about the impact of the Budget on many farmers.

The changes to inheritance tax could bring about the end of family farming in the UK.

There are around 250 farms within York Central and York Outer.

Together they cover around 18,000 hectares of farmland.

They directly employ hundreds of local people, not to mention all the local suppliers and distributors that depend on their produce.

Many of the local butchers in York are linked to these farms in some way.

Because of the value of land around York, hundreds of these farming families could be hit by this family farm tax.

Those of us who love the countryside around York and in the villages across the area will see it change forever if these farms are lost.

We already import around 40 per cent of the food we eat in the UK, and this tax is only going to make food security even worse.

Edward Young, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for York Central, 2017.

Road safety

’VE read the exchange of letters between Sue Frank and Ian Hobson (D&S Oct 11 and Nov 1) with great interest.

Ian raises excellent points, particularly the change to the Highway Code covering the hierarchy of road users.

Sue is right: wearing high-visibility clothing is sensible for walkers and cyclists. I do so myself, particularly in dull conditions.

Road safety however is about much more than high-vis clothing.

Our roads are not safe for any users.

The casualty statistics for just the county of North Yorkshire for 2022 (most recent data I’ve seen) show this: 27 deaths, 228 seriously injured.

Why is this? Our roads are designed for speed and throughput of traffic, with safety coming after these.

Locally the highways authority is North Yorkshire Council. The council leaders talk a good game, particularly regarding cycle infrastructure, but deliver little in practice.

If we want road safety improvements we have to demand them: to let the politicians know this is an important issue to the public.

We need to campaign for road safety. I support campaigning by Cycling UK, the cycling charity, and 20s Plenty. There are other excellent campaigning groups such as Brake, the road safety charity.

Philip Martin, South Kilvington.

Saturday service

USE it or lose it. How a often do we hear that? This time it really will apply.

When North Yorkshire County Council took over running the bus from Leyburn to Bedale and back several years ago, they reduced the service to five days a week by saying that not enough people were using the bus on Saturdays.

Well, they are reinstating a Saturday 155 from November 16 and it will follow the Monday to Friday timetable – first bus from Leyburn 9.35am, last bus back from Bedale 2pm.

It will enable people to go to the market in Northallerton and get trains at the railway station by catching the 73 at the same stop in Bedale. The wait is about ten minutes between buses.

It also lets people enjoy looking round the big car boot sale in Bedale, among other things.

So, we must make sure we don’t lose it again as we would never get it back a second time and we need all the buses we can get in Leyburn.

Well done to our regular 155 driver who has asked his boss if he can drive the bus on November 16 as he wants to make sure all goes well. His dedication is really appreciated.

Sheila Simms, Leyburn.

Second class

I WONDER if any of this paper’s more educated readers could enlighten me as to why we have two old age pension schemes and offer some justification for this system.

I read on the BBC that in the Budget, pensions will increase 4.1 per cent from April next year.

1) New state pension (for those who retired after 2016), this is a rise of £472 per year giving £230.25 per week; 2) Basic state pension (for those who retired before 2016), a rise of £360 per year giving £176.45 per week.

In my case my working life was 48 years and I retired in 2011, never a week out of work and paying all due National Insurance.

How can this make me a second class pensioner, and every year the percentage increase makes the gap even wider?

I am proud to have lived in a country that frowns on age discrimination, inequality and injustice but there are too many issues falling through the cracks and not being redressed.

Why am I going to be £53.80 per week worse off from April 2025 than a person on the new state pension, a double whammy after losing my winter fuel allowance.

I think it would be a just cause for MPs to run with attempts at redressing this issue, as I am not alone.

Chris Thackray, Wheldrake, York.

Sense of betrayal

WELL now we have it following the Budget, the biggest betrayal of the all the people of this country where the Labour party has lied its way into power.

We are now going to be burdened further with potentially ten years of increasing taxes, all of which will probably be used to finance the ongoing public sector wage explosion. Bear in mind they have already given into the last round of public sector pay rises, potentially half of the money from the employers’ National Insurance (NI) grab will in all likelihood be used to fund future public sector pay rises, consequently increasing the differential between the private and public sector in terms of income and benefits.

Labour are playing on the electorate having a short-term memory and we must not forget the last time they were in power they almost bankrupted the country.

Now they have set the country on a downward spiral towards the same outcome, taking more money and not ensuring there is a conditional positive productivity gain in the public sector.

The increase in employers’ NI will only serve to reduce the inclination of employers to take on extra staff and it will depress private sector incomes and reduce the desire growth, which contradicts the Labour Party’s own manifesto.

Everything they stood on in and out of their election manifesto has turned out to be an outright lie.

Honesty and integrity needs to be restored in our society.

One does wonder whether the time has now come to consider a protest when next voting to spoil the ballot papers, as all the parties look to be as bad as each other. Only by doing this en masse will we effect real change to an honest democratically accountable political system based on plain, straight forward English.

Colin Telfer, Darlington.

State control

KARL MARX or Lenin could have written the Budget speech; tax, borrow, spend, personal ambition, business enterprise to be throttled by state control.

Labour’s election manifesto contained not a hint of these extreme measures despite their claim that everything had been fully costed and fiscal pragmatism was their mantra.

It’s a shame the public can’t sue politicians for being blatantly untruthful.

One obvious saving the Chancellor could make would be to slash the number of bureaucrats employed by the Ministry of Defence, for currently there are more pen pushers, possibly on a four-day week working from home, than all the personnel serving in the RAF and Navy.

Peter Rickaby, Selby.

Long term impact

AFTER a long, drawn out and highly choreographed build up, the Budget finally arrived.

The government’s primary “mission” as they termed it in typically grandiose terms, to deliver economic growth.

Having tied her hands by ruling out tax rises on “working people”, the chancellor then proceeded to place most of a huge tax bill, squarely on the shoulders of business employers (presumably not considered “working people”) taking the tax burden to record levels.

These private business owners, large and small, including private care company owners, already struggling with small profit margins will inevitably, as a result of increased costs, reduce staff wages, and cancel or delay recruiting.

Some businesses will inevitably go under, leading to increased unemployment.

Will these measures achieve the economic growth mission?

The Office of Budget Responsibility has made clear in their view in the longer term they will not. And whilst increased tax revenues in support of our struggling NHS will be widely welcomed, what will be the cost to the nation’s economy of one of the biggest tax, borrow and spend budgets of modern times?

Time will tell.

John Crick, Bishop Auckland.

Clean it up

THIS mild autumn must be an ideal time for those dog owners who are lazy, inconsiderate and irresponsible.

The dark evenings enable them to leave their dog dirt without being seen.

The leaf fall enables them to camouflage their dog dirt.

Twice recently I have trodden in dog dirt, once in a very dark stretch of well used footpath and once walking through leaves that covered a footpath adjacent to a dangerous bend in a road.

At least can these dog owners who believe they shouldn’t clean up ensure that they don’t leave it in the middle of the footpath.

Ian Wilson, Guisborough.