Rachel Reeves’s spiteful inheritance tax grab will be disastrous for family farms across Britain

Plus: Asylum claims; UNRWA funding; litter thrown from cars; BBC edits; a Chinese dissident in need of support; and a visit from a hedgehog

SIR – Encouraged by previous governments of all political persuasions, we have built up a reasonably successful family farming business, which provides food for the nation, benefits to the environment and employment to a happy, dedicated workforce. We have very large borrowings but a significant asset base, and are lucky enough to have a family that wishes to carry on the business.Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, obviously has no concept of the costs and assets needed to run a farm. She has savagely cut the basic subsidy payments (which she never mentioned in her Budget speech), reduced inheritance tax agricultural property relief from 100 per cent to 50 per cent on farms valued over £1 million (report, October 31), increased capital gains tax, and increased employers’ National Insurance contributions to 15 per cent. Labour talks about growing the economy, but the Budget won’t encourage much to grow on this farm.Peter FairsColchester, Essex
SIR – Given the cut to agricultural property relief, many of those inheriting their family farm will have to sell a portion of their land in order to pay inheritance tax. Given these slices won’t be commercially viable, the people most likely to buy them (at cut price) are financier investors – the very people whose actions were the excuse Labour used for removing the allowance in the first place. Our Chancellor has effectively transferred land from working people (farmers) to non-working people (investors) while taking a cut for the state. How enterprising.P J SinclairRoss-on-Wye, Herefordshire
SIR – Ros Altman (“Rachel Reeves’s pension raid is a cruel assault on family wealth”, Comment, October 31) notes that, while unspent pension pots remain free from inheritance tax (IHT) when left to spouses, if the pot passes to the deceased’s children, they will pay 40 per cent IHT.The reality is even worse than that. The Government’s detailed guidance shows that the pension pot inherited by children will be subject to 40 per cent IHT and income tax at the beneficiary’s marginal rate. So, a 40 per cent higher-rate taxpayer would pay the equivalent of 64 per cent in total deduction. How can this double taxation possibly be justified?John M Harding Tavistock, Devon
SIR – During the Budget, the Chancellor made fun of Rishi Sunak by suggesting that the Air Passenger Duty payable in respect of a business jet flight to California is to be increased to £450 per passenger. Evidently, the Chancellor does not understand her own taxation policy. The actual rate payable is £1,100 per passenger. Labour has no understanding of the damage its crass policies will do to wealth creation in the UK.Will CurtisManaging Director, London Oxford AirportKidlington, Oxfordshire
SIR – As a former HMRC employee, the increase in employer National Insurance (NI) contributions – both through the rate hike and a sharp reduction in the earnings threshold at which employers start paying it – reminds me of the introduction of Selective Employment Tax (SET) in 1966.SET was intended to subsidise the manufacturing industry from the proceeds of the services industries. At the end of each accounting period, manufacturing companies would have their SET payments refunded. Today, the public sector will have their extra employer NI payments refunded by the Treasury (while manufacturing gets no such relief).One unfortunate result of SET was the introduction of “the lump” in the building trade. “Lump workers” were self-employed and thus not entitled to holiday pay, NI or PAYE tax deductions. Instead, they received a fixed lump sum, supposed to cover all expenses. As a result, HMRC lost out on millions in tax and NI payments, and the scheme was scrapped in 1973.Labour’s increase in NI contributions will further incentivise employers to switch to contracting with the self-employed.Geoff BantockChristchurch, Dorset
SIR – The NHS is to be exempt from employer NI hikes. I wonder if the same applies to care homes, which are now looking at cutting employee hours and staff numbers, so as to stay open.Sue DoughtyReading, Berkshire
SIR – Given the evidence alleging that some staff employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were complicit in the massacre of Jews on October 7 2023, and are still involved in terrorism, I would expect David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, to halt all funding currently going to the organisation (“Starmer joins backlash over Gaza aid ban”, report, October 30).I am sure that all the Jewish people in this country would like an explanation as to why he has not done so already. I find it totally abhorrent that I am supporting this compromised organisation financially through my taxes.I would like Mr Lammy to address the Jewish people of Britain and explain his reasons for not acting, given that he has suspended certain arms sales to Israel – the only country standing up and fighting these barbarians. Vanessa WhiteWareham, Dorset 
SIR – I have a six-page entry to a handwriting competition (Letters, October 30) organised at a music festival in 1920, submitted by my mother when she was aged 12. It is a long passage from Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, written in the most beautiful cursive handwriting, without a single error.Goodness knows how impressive the others were – she was only awarded fourth prize.Jackie AtwellFelbridge, Surrey
SIR – In 1957, aged 11, my parents sent me to Lyon for two months, to stay with a family who would not allow me to speak anything but French during my visit. After a while, I became homesick and tearful, kind as my hosts were. Writing letters to my parents was a great help. Thankfully, I still have them as my mother kept each one. Another help with the tears was being given my first cigarette to smoke, a Craven A. From then on I would deliberately summon up tears, in order to have more.I arrived back home speaking fluent French.Martin CoomberLondon SW19 
SIR – Your Leading Article (October 29) says that nationals from Pakistan and Nigeria are “not from countries that are associated with war, civil strife and political persecution”. In Nigeria, 22,000 Christians have been slaughtered by Islamic extremists in the last decade, and in Pakistan, the blasphemy law has seen Christians imprisoned on flimsy evidence. These people are genuine asylum seekers.Carla StainkeAlness, Ross-shire 
SIR – The Leeds International Piano Competition used to be a staple of BBC arts output. This year’s eight days of performances were compressed into a single two-hour programme showing “highlights” of the final, which was broadcast more than five weeks after the event.Presumably in order to save an hour of transmission time, all five concertos played in the final were decapitated for BBC broadcast. The Brahms and the Bartók actually lost their first two movements. How the television audience were expected to understand the decisions of the judges is impossible to fathom. Only half the winning performance survived the editing process. This was a disservice to the competition, the performers, the composers – even music itself.The late Christopher Nupen, one of the UK’s most celebrated makers of arts programmes, used to call the BBC the British Broadcorping Castration. I am beginning to understand why.David ElsteinSevenoaks, Kent 
SIR – Most litter (Letters, October 29) is thrown out of cars. There is a solution to this problem: by law, every car should have a built-in waste bin lined with a reusable bag that can be emptied at home or at petrol stations. Car designers who can find room for huge touchscreens, cup holders and bulky glove boxes should be able to make space for all the rubbish that amasses during journeys.In the meantime, a plastic carrier bag hooked over the gear stick will suffice.Marianne BentonHungerford, Berkshire 
SIR – We’ve lived in our house for over 40 years and had never seen a hedgehog (Letters, October 30).Imagine my excitement last month when I saw a pile of straw in the corner of the henhouse. Not sure what to expect, I tentatively touched it – and found a hedgehog. She goes out at night but can be found back in the hen house in the mornings. We are overjoyed. But I’m not sure the hens are.Alexandra ElletsonMarlborough, Wiltshire
SIR – I’ve spent close to 80 years enjoying our countryside, and many years ago I had the opportunity to plant a small 10-acre wood, which I intended would be a wildlife area. As a young man I often sat in a hedge bottom and was enthralled by hedgehogs in the undergrowth. But, although my wood is peaceful, I have not seen a hedgehog for 40 years. I keep three trail cameras working and record eight badgers every night turfing up the ground for bumblebee nests. The huge number of these creatures now at large is not only responsible for the loss of hedgehogs and ground-nesting bees, but also the spread of tuberculosis in cattle. I love badgers, they are part of our countryside, but there are too many and they have no natural predator here. I do not support massive culls, but something has to be done.N H WalkerAtherstone, Warwickshire 
SIR – Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal scholar and human rights lawyer, is reported to be on hunger strike over his treatment in prison. He is serving a 14-year sentence for inciting subversion, and “is still being deprived of his right to communicate with his family”, according to Teng Biao, a visiting professor at the City University of New York and former colleague of Mr Xu.So where is the global condemnation? The death in prison in July 2017 of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo lingers in China’s collective memory after the international outcry, and yet Mr Xu still languishes in a Chinese prison, abandoned and forgotten. If ever the voices of the international community were needed, it is now. For Xu Zhiyong, it may well be a matter of life and death.Brian StuckeyDenver, Colorado, United States 
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