By UFU parliamentary officer Alexander Kinnear
As farm families are still trying to digest the aftermath of the recent budget, one thing can be guaranteed, UK food security has been turned into a political debate. The Labour manifesto claimed, ‘Labour recognises that food security is national security’. This recognition has been rescinded and politicised at a time of such global insecurities with war in Europe and the Middle East, showing how weak our food supply chains are as experienced during the Covid pandemic, and are now consigned to the history books.
In context to Northern Ireland, agriculture has been based on two key pillars; family farm ownership and financial aide being provided to compensate for poor market returns. Both of those pillars have been broken in order to ‘not raise taxes for working people’ – a phrase promoted by the Labour government.
Budget
During the general election the Ulster Farmers’ Union put forward as our main proposal, that ring-fenced farm support and development budget for NI would be increased to match inflation’s current impact and guaranteed for 10 years to meet the many challenges of the future. The budget delivered the most significant change since the UK joined the EU in 1973, with the removal of the ring-fenced aspect of the support, it was not inflation proofed, and finally, we have now moved from receiving funds based on seven year intervals under CAP, to five year intervals under the Conservatives, to now a one year budget under Labour. The funding allocation will also move to being based on the Barnett formula. The UFU is still trying to process what this will mean.
However depressing the Labour budget may be, there is political hope on this particular issue. Stormont can rectify one pillar of which our industry is based and prove the purpose of devolved government by re-introducing the ring-fenced budget, something which all political parties have said should now happen.
Family Farm Tax
On the introduction of the family farm tax, politically, the UFU could not ask for more from our local politicians from all parties who have stood shoulder to shoulder with farmers. NI Executive Ministers, MPs, MLAs and councillors have set aside political ideology to ensure that the rural constituency has representation that speaks as one.
The UFU continue to avail of the important political avenues to escalate our deep concern, with plans to speak publicly with the AERA and NI Affairs Select Committees in the next two weeks and meet with the DEFRA Secretary. These political processes must be maxed out before escalating to the next stage. Farm families whilst playing their part at the UFU rally, must continue to contact all politicians in their local area.
However, with all our efforts, as recently as Wednesday 27 November in NI Questions, the NI Secretary of State still seemed to misunderstand how NI farms are disproportionately impacted by changes to agricultural property relief. The NI Office and Treasury do not seem to understand the family farm structure in NI and that farms are in many cases under sole ownership (unlike England) and worth more per acre. No impact assessment has been conducted of what the changes will mean in NI even though DAERA analysis which requires a deeper investigation, shows that at the very least a third of NI farms will be affected and 60% of owned land in NI. One of the roles of the Secretary of State’s is to be the champion of the Labour government in NI, but he must also remember to be the champion of NI within the Labour government.
Labour have repeatedly made the argument that these tax changes are in order to provide for better services of which rural communities also avail such as rural schools, GPs and better infrastructure. However, the way they have went about making these tax changes has resulted in food security being politicised and pitted against everything else.
Last year Sir Keir Starmer said ‘losing a farm is not like losing any other business, it can’t come back’. These words can now be linked to trust in his new government which can’t come back until recent tax decisions are reversed.
