Lib Dem MP accuses government of “actively disincentivising” food production, whilst in Leyburn

Successive Labour and Conservative governments have failed to understand that farmers’ main objective is to produce food, a senior Liberal Democrat said during a visit to the Yorkshire Dales.

Lib Dem spokesperson for the environment, food and rural affairs, Tim Farron MP, visited Leyburn Auction Mart today, where he spoke out against the government’s “stupid” policies which he said “actively disincentivised” food production.

The Westmorland and Lonsdale MP said he had made the trip over the Pennines to listen to the views of farmers.
“I’m not here to tell people that the Liberal Democrats are brilliant, I’m here to tell farmers that they are and that we want to understand what their needs are and how we can help them going forward.”

The MP added: “I think farming is under enormous pressure, indeed, under threat.
“Obviously, people talk about the inheritance tax changes deeply, deeply troubling to farmers on very low incomes, but with farms that, on paper, are worth some money. But maybe even more troubling is the transition from the old farm payment scheme to the new one. It’s left so many people behind. Now it’s concentrated money in the hands of very large landowners, including public bodies, rather than the hands of hard-working farmers.

“And so at the bottom of all this is a failure of the Conservative government and now the Labour government to understand that farmers’ principal objective is to produce food.

“So we’ve got an agricultural policy minted by the Tories being now rolled out by Labour, which disincentivises the production of food, which is madness — it self-harms the country.”

The MP said thatif the nation cared about the environment, it would want farmers producing food and stewarding the countryside as well.

On the issue of inheritance tax, Mr Farron said his party was deeply opposed to the policy. “We were the first people to spot the government doing it and to call them out on it, and so we always said we’d scrap it all together.

“Meanwhile, we’re just trying to find clever ways of persuading Labour MPs in rural areas that they should put power or pressure on their government, so at the very least they will increase the threshold and delay implementation.”

After the visit to the auction mart, the MP gave a talk at the Garden Rooms at Tennants in Leyburn.