THE Conservative Party would reverse the inheritance tax rise on family farms, Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins has said.

Speaking ahead of a debate on the issue in the House of Commons, Atkins told GB News: “The Conservatives have forced this debate and vote today, because we want Labour MPs, particularly those 114 Labour MPs that represent rural constituencies, to really think about the impact that this tax policy is going to have on their constituents.

“Over the last few weeks, I have been inundated with stories from farmers themselves about the impact…how they are asset rich, because on this crowded Island, funnily enough, land prices tend to be quite high, particularly in certain parts of the country, and yet they can be cash poor.

“And I’ve heard from farmers whose incomes can be as small as £20,000 a year. How on earth then are they supposed to pay an inheritance tax bill at a point, of course, where they have also suffered a family bereavement?

“That’s why they are facing this bill in the first place. How on earth are they supposed to pay a bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds, or even over a million pounds, which is some of the figures that I’ve been given by farmers?”

Asked if the Conservatives would reverse the change, she said: “We absolutely will, because on so many levels, we believe this is the wrong thing for our countryside. We know the impact that this will have on family farms over the coming years.

“We know, actually, that at the moment, farmers are having incredibly difficult conversations, quite heart-wrenching conversations, if they’re older, about whether they are a burden.

“That’s the word that’s been given to me, a burden for their families, which is terrible that a Labour Party, Labour government policy, would cause these sorts of conversations to be being had…in the coming years, it’s going to have a huge impact on our food security and on food prices.

“So anyone who perhaps isn’t living in the countryside, perhaps is living in the centre of a city and thinking, what does this matter to me, it matters to us all, because if you care about the quality of our food, if you care about animal welfare standards, if you care about our countryside and nurturing the wildlife for generations to come, family farms are an essential part of this, and Labour just don’t seem to get that.

“And we know that far more farmers are going to be affected by this than the Treasury has been claiming, because in the last couple of days, we have had advice from agricultural valuers that shows that the Treasury has underestimated the number of individuals affected by this policy by up to five times.

“In other words, rather than just 500 farms being affected each year, as the Treasury claims, in fact, it could be as many as 75,000 individuals over a generation.

“So we will reverse this tax when we’re back in government, because we are convinced this is a bad policy.”