Farmer labor tax may be defining mistake in Reeves budget, warns ALEX BRUMMER

This green and pleasant land is dedicated to its farmers.

Farming is the only industry to have a dedicated daily bulletin on the BBC (Farming Today), a long-running radio soap opera (The Archers), a television series (Emmerdale) and a prime Sunday night slot in the form of Countryfile. .

As an industry, its contribution, estimated at £13.9 billion or 0.6 per cent of national output, is relatively modest. But the family farm is central to UK culture.

In August this year, whilst on holiday, I went in search of my first home, Dewbrook Farm in Horam, East Sussex. There was no sign of the long tree-lined road, the apple orchard, or the chicken coop.

Just a farmhouse of the same name and an urbanization. It may not be the intention, but Rachel Reeves’ tax on farms worth more than £1m may prove a fast track to freeing up land for Labour’s housing development.

Or it could become the Chancellor’s ‘pasty tax’, suffering the same fate as George Osborne’s tax when he tried to impose VAT on environmental foods in 2012.

There is a myth that farmers with their tweeds, laces and Land Rovers are plutocrats living large.

It is true that there are tycoons, such as billionaire inventor James Dyson, who have protected some of their wealth in agricultural land.

Naturally, the taxman is eager to reap some of the profits when this real estate is cascaded from generation to generation.

But most farms aren’t owned by engineering pioneers or city titans. They are in the hands of modest, hard-working families, who help preserve the landscape and satisfy our food needs.

These are hard-working people, who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for whom working from home means removing sludge, milking, collecting eggs or tending the strawberry tunnels.

The loss of inheritance tax exemptions for medium-sized farms will mean many will be sold or broken up. It will hurt organic products and make the UK increasingly dependent on foreign imports, worsening the country’s trade balance.

Labour’s inability to understand rural Britain may prove to be a defining blunder of Reeves’ budget.

gas sprint

Shell’s strategy of doubling down on fossil fuel production rather than bowing to a climate change agenda appears to be paying off.

The group’s focus on liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, bolstered by the oil giant’s £47bn purchase of British exploration firm BG Group a decade ago, is proving hugely valuable.

In the third quarter, when refining profits plummeted 70 percent, LNG rushed to the rescue with a spectacular 13 percent profit increase. As a result, total profits in the third quarter amounted to £4.6 billion, slightly below the previous year.

Under Wael Sawan, Shell, like its American rivals such as Exxon, decided that there is much life in fossil fuels and that the main objective is to deliver for shareholders and taxpayers.

The group has expanded its share buybacks and debt levels of £26.9bn are at their lowest since 2015.

Labor must be careful not to alienate Shell and indeed BP in its quest to achieve a green Britain by 2030.

Shell has indicated in the past that if the environmental, social and governance agenda in the UK becomes too intrusive, it could even consider changing its domicile.

It would be a catastrophe if one of the main constituents of the FTSE 100 were driven abroad by green fanaticism.

pumped

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband will no doubt be dancing in the hallways as British households embrace the heat pump revolution. The latest data shows that certified facilities in the UK have reached 250,000.

The stampede is terrible for Swedish manufacturer Aira, and the group’s UK boss, Daniel Sarefjord, welcomes improved incentives for boiler upgrades.

This is all fantastic, but the aim of Great British Energy, launched by the Labor Party this year, was to create tens of thousands of green manufacturing jobs to offset the cancellation of the North Sea.

The ambition is great, but unfortunately many of the new jobs are elsewhere, and Aira chose a lower-cost Polish factory.

The new employment tax in the United Kingdom, following the increase in national insurance, will hardly encourage new foreign investment.

One fears that no one in the Government understands business.