LISTENING seems to be a difficult skill for governments with a large majority. Liz Truss wasn’t right good at it and we all suffered as a result. Now Labour are failing to listen to small farmers.

Few people have any sympathy for very wealthy people who have bought up land in order to dodge tax and are now expected to contribute a bit more to society. All of us should be showing some towards small farmers sitting on high value land that generates very low income for very hard work.

The simple truth is that the allowance has been set too low. There is already a shortage of people willing to farm the land and a problem over an increasingly elderly workforce. Taxing small farms more heavily than the income they generate can ever pay off is going to force those farms to be sold off and do nothing to help the next generation to keep on growing food.

The government needs to look again at its figures and raise the inheritance tax allowance on farms to a more sensible level which avoids dragging people into tax that they surely can never have intended to target. It is time for them to stop trying to justify a policy which has clearly been badly designed and ill thought out.

Cllr Andy Brown. Green Party

Cononley