Councillors have approved allocating £60,000 to support local farmers and businesses facing challenges due to changes in national policy.
Council leader Martin Hill (Conservative) proposed allocating £10,000 to the Lincolnshire Rural Support Network and £50,000 to the Business Growth Hub. The motion was passed during a Lincolnshire County Council full council meeting earlier today (Friday, 13 December). The funds will come from the general reserve contingency.
As part of the decision, members also agreed that Councillor Hill would write to the government, highlighting the cumulative impact of recent changes to Inheritance Tax Relief and Business Asset Relief on communities in Lincolnshire. The letter will call for these proposals to be abandoned to help safeguard family farms and businesses.
He insisted it was a “quite serious time for rural areas and for Lincolnshire in particular,” adding that there was a “genuine issue” regarding the future of rural areas and businesses.
His comments came alongside recent news that more than £536 million is being spent overseas on 10 programmes, including grants to promote low-carbon agriculture in Brazil. Another scheme, worth over £16 million, aims to help new farmers in Rwanda produce tea for the first time.
Councillor Hill described this as “just bizarre,” given the struggles faced by UK farmers, who he claimed commonly sit on a lot of assets but make about 1% profit. “That’s where the problem lies,” he stated.
Cllr Hill said: “The motion today was all about protecting Lincolnshire from what we believe is a bit of an assault from central government.
“Not only have we got the issues in terms of new taxation, new inheritance tax rules, new taxes for environmental purposes, but also new taxes for employing people. I think the farmers and small businesses across Lincolnshire feel very much under threat, and the cumulative threat, I think, will mean that a lot of these small businesses won’t survive.
“In Lincolnshire, 90% of our businesses are small businesses, and we do feel if the government carries on this course, it will have a terrible effect on the economic basis of our county.”
Councillor Colin Davie (Conservative), portfolio holder for economic development, environment, and planning, seconded the motion. He highlighted how businesses in the tourism sector are now facing an extra cost of £2,500 per employee, something he feels is “untenable for businesses in the current climate.”
Another part of the motion that was agreed was that the council would do all within its power to defend and mitigate the county from various challenges it is facing, including an “onslaught” of major developments, such as pylons from National Grid and solar farms.
“In terms of our environment, we are now hearing that we’re expected to have massive solar farms. Many of them have already been granted. We’re expected to have huge pylons going across the county, we’ve got things like reservoirs, pipelines, and potentially onshore wind turbines as well.
“The attitude of Ed Miliband and government is that we should just take it.
“We now have permission to, as a council, fight all of these proposals and make sure what developments do happen are in sympathy with what we have got.”
Former Lincoln Labour MP Karen Lee, however, insisted that Lincolnshire isn’t “under sudden attack” and argued that farmers have faced high costs for a number of years.
“It hasn’t come about since July this year. It’s a long-standing situation the current government is working hard to resolve,” she said.
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