As of late there has been plenty of weeping in politics, and I am not talking here about former Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ self-indulgent blub at Prime Minister’s Questions.

I have had veterans – some of toughest people I have ever had the privilege to meet – well up when recalling comrades lost and maimed in service of this country; a woman in floods because duff pension advice had robbed her.

And I have had farmers greetin’, as we say in Scotland. We are talking here about men in their 80s, with hard knocks enough for many lifetimes under their belts.

The issue was the changes ushered in during that egregious first Labour Budget, which became known as the Family Farm Tax.

And those proud old men were crying not for themselves and what they thought they might lose in what little time lay ahead, but about what future generations will lose.

“Those proud old men were crying not for themselves and what they thought they might lose in what little time lay ahead, but about what future generations will lose”

For the changes to inheritance tax sent a chill through my rural constituency, with many families realising no child would take on the stark new financial reality of farming.

They saw the bloodline of generations of farming running out in the rolling hills and gorgeous skylines of Galloway thanks to avaricious expediency – remember Labour wanted results in their first 100 days – in distant Treasury salons.

Inheritance tax is invidious in all its forms, the state exacting a last drop from estates earned despite the taxman’s previous depredations. Scrapping it entirely is for another day…

But Labour’s alterations to farming arrangements, cutting Agricultural Property Relief, threatened those who are rich on paper – the book value of farms can be substantial indeed – with no grasp of how little farmers actually earn.

My colleague Sir Ashley Fox (Con; Bridgwater) explained it best: A farm worth £5m may have relief of £3m, so faces a tax bill of £400,000 on the remaining £2m.

With a return on capital of about 1pc (No, really. Farming margins are razor thin) the farm will be paying about £50,000 per year, on which income tax is also liable. 

Even paying back that £400,000 interest-free over a decade is a tall order, probably forcing the sale of some, if not all, of the property. A smaller farm is less likely to survive; one sold entirely…

That means another family out of work and – very likely – agricultural land out of use for food.

The projected revenues generated were modest, according to Treasury, and so it is hard not to see the Family Farm Tax as anything other than a spiteful blow against ‘the rich’.

Agriculture is already under the cosh, with input costs skyrocketing. My constituency is heavily dairy orientated and farmers tell me of farm-gate prices for milk below their production costs.

We need to look again at agriculture, to see it not as a dripping roast for Treasury to devour, but instead as an industry, a rural powerhouse helping feed the nation.

That will not happen overnight, though.

So short term, we Conservatives are urging the Prime Minister and his new Chancellor to fulfil their promise to ‘look again’ at the disastrous removal of Agricultural Property Relief  – and Business Property Relief, which hit family business of all sorts.

If they are serious about their mantra ‘Food security is national security’, they will surely act. There won’t be a dry eye in the House, or in the fields.

John Cooper is the Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024.