
Inheritance tax change 'immoral', Kemi Badenoch says
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said that government changes to inheritance tax for farmers is "immoral".Speaking on a visit to a farm in Bangor, Co Down, she described the tax rise as a "family farms tax" and called for it to be reversed. In her autumn budget, the chancellor capped the Agricultural Property Relief at £1m, with anything over that being taxed at 20%, half the normal rate of inheritance tax.The government insists the majority of farms in Northern Ireland will be unaffected.
The change will be introduced from April 2026.The government is adamant that its policy will not change. Other reliefs may help reduce the amount owed, but concern remains high.Speaking from Fairview dairy farm near Bangor, the Conservative Party leader said: "We want farmers to know that we are with you, we understand."Taxing those assets to force farmers to often give up their land and their children or their grandchildren to not continue in this way of life, I believe, is immoral."We are doing everything we can to fight the family farms tax."
'No space for paramilitaries'
Badenoch also added that "every possible lever" should be used to remove paramilitary groups and "negative criminal activity from the communities who are suffering".In a joint move, London and Dublin are to appoint an independent expert to assess whether there is merit in beginning a process which could bring about the disbandment of paramilitary groups.It followed a recommendation from the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC) which was set up to monitor paramilitary activity.Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has insisted paramilitaries will not be paid by the government to "disband".He defended the government's decision to explore the possibility of formal engagement with paramilitary groups.Badenoch said: "We looked at this proposal when we were in government."We didn't bring it forward because one of the things we must remember is there is no space for paramilitary organisations."We need to make sure that they are not benefitting from the harm they cause to communities all over Northern Ireland," she added.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


BBC News
26 minutes ago
- BBC News
Majority on Dumfries and Galloway Council back special meeting
A majority of councillors in Dumfries and Galloway have backed a move for a no confidence motion in the Conservative-led administration.A total of 22 members of the 43-strong local authority signed the call, which has triggered a special meeting for 16 move came after a number of Conservatives left their political group to form a new Labour and Democratic Alliance councillors have backed the move which could see current leader Gail Macgregor and depute leader Malcolm Johnstone replaced. The Conservatives formed an administration in 2023 after the collapse of a previous had 16 members but that fell to just nine when seven councillors quit the group - four to form a group called Novantae and three to create the Dumfries and Galloway Independent a result a request was lodged to convene a special meeting of the local authority to consider a no confidence vote in the standing orders, the move must be backed by at least a quarter of councillors. However, papers published on the council website show that support has significantly exceeded that 11 SNP members, eight Labour councillors and three from the Democratic Alliance signed the they were to agree to work together in future they could form an outright majority on the full council will meet to decide the way ahead on Monday.


The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Two-child benefit cap: How much is it worth and what will families get if Labour scrap it?
Scrapping the two-child benefit cap could lift up to 470,000 children out of poverty, according to the latest estimates, by allowing low-income families to claim an extra £3,513 per year in universal credit for every extra child. After months of firm support for maintaining the limit, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has appeared to leave the door open to the possibility of lifting the limit, put in place by the Conservative government in 2017. 'We'll look at all options of driving down child poverty,' Sir Keir said last week, in response to questions on whether he would scrap it. It came after mounting pressure from his own MPs and Reform leader Nigel Farage, who committed to scrapping the limit if he were PM. What is the two-child benefit cap - and who loses out? There are 1.2 million families with three or more children in the UK and around 370,000 of these are households on universal credit (UC). Families receiving UC - who are on low or no income - receive an extra £339 each month for their first child born before 2017, and £292.81 for first or second children born after 2017. This amounts to £7,581 per year for families with two children. But in most cases, parents are unable to claim UC benefits for any further children. There are rare exemptions, for example, in the case of twins, or adopted children. Most families can still claim general child benefit payments for more than two children, which amounts to £897 per child per year. But if the government scrapped the two-child benefit cap, families on UC could claim a further £3,513 per year for every extra child. However, there is an upper limit to how much families can claim in benefits with an overall cap of £22,020 a year, or £25,323 for households in London. How many children would scrapping it help lift out of poverty? The number of children living in poor households has been steadily increasing over the past decade, with 4.5 million children - around 1 in 3 - now living in poverty. Poverty can be defined in several ways but the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) uses 'relative low income' as a marker, referring to people in households which earn below 60 per cent of the median income of £36,700 in 2024, or £14,680. Some of these children are going without essentials, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, such as food, heating, clothing or basic toiletries. Removing the two-child benefit cap could lift 350,000 out of poverty, according to analysis from researchers at the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). A further 700,000 children could see their lives improved with the extra cash, their research has found. Meanwhile, the Resolution Foundation has estimated that around 470,000 children could be taken out of poverty by lifting the cap, or 280,000 if the limit was extended to three children. Since the Labour government came into power in July last year, some 37,000 more children have been pushed into poverty by the two-child limit, according to CPAG estimates. 'No road to better living standards, economic growth and wider opportunities starts with record child poverty. The policy must go - and sooner rather than later,' said CPAG's CEO Alison Garnham. Since the cap applies to families receiving UC, the children affected are in low-income households. And 6 in 10 families affected by the two-child limit have at least one parent in work, CPAG found. What would scrapping it cost the government? The estimated cost of removing the two-child limit, extending it to three children, or removing a household cap varies. Getting rid of the cap could cost the government £3.5bn in 2029/30, according to estimates from think tank the Resolution Foundation earlier this year. Meanwhile, CPAG suggests that the move would cost £2bn. The Independent's own calculations suggest that extending the limit to three children could cost at least £1.3 bn a year; assuming that 370,000 households claim an extra £3,513 of UC each year. Consecutive governments have refused to commit to removing the cap, despite its unpopularity with voters. Last year, Sir Keir enforced the whip on seven Labour MPs who voted against their party to oppose the two-child benefit cap. The current Labour government had consistently maintained that they would not take action to remove the cap, due to tight resources in the budget; yet Sir Keir's statements last week appeared to open up the possibility of a U-turn.


Times
10 hours ago
- Times
Kemi Badenoch to channel her inner dame at PMQs
Kemi Badenoch thinks she's cracked PMQs after a choppy start to her weekly duels with Sir Keir Starmer. The Tory leader believes she was too much like a lawyer, and she needs to channel her inner dame. 'I realised this isn't a courtroom where I'm prosecuting a witness — it's a panto,' she told The Political Party at the Duchess Theatre. She may find that PMQs is not the only part of parliament which is like a panto. After all Kemi, where is the biggest threat to your leadership? Badenoch's attempt to be more mainstream is being helped by her children, who are broadening her tastes in popular culture. Her son has taken her to a football match while her daughter has introduced her to the music of Taylor Swift, though they're yet to see the singer live. Badenoch said: 'Rachel Reeves took all the tickets.' Tory transports of delight With some ministers disgruntled by the spending review, reshuffle rumours are swirling, but the former Tory minister Greg Hands warns that a beleaguered premiership can make strange decisions. He discovered this when Theresa May asked him to become a transport minister. 'I replied that I couldn't drive, couldn't ride a bike and was one of four government ministers given a derogation to oppose government policy on Heathrow expansion,' Hands said. May let him keep his job at trade, but he wasn't the first Tory to be baffled by the suggestion of a job at transport. When Margaret Thatcher sent Ken Clarke there in 1979 he told her he knew nothing about transport. 'My dear boy,' she said tersely. 'You will pick it up!' • What will be in the spending review? The winners and losers Euphemisms around death often irk more than they soothe and, on that point, the former Newsnight journalist Michael Crick has made his wishes clear. 'If anybody uses the word 'pass' when I die, then I promise that my ghost will come back to haunt them,' he said. ''Passing' is for footballers.' Something to remember when he reaches full-time. Herbal diarrhoea The producer Cameron Mackintosh may have a magic touch in the theatre, but that hasn't necessarily extended to the garden. While his Somerset home has wonderful greenery, it is tended to by his partner, Michael Le Poer Trench, who tells Country Life that the theatre impresario turns into Mrs Malaprop when dealing with things horticultural. Hellebores, for instance, become 'herbivores', though this is not as alarming a confusion as the time Mackintosh meant epimedium but instead said 'Imodium'. Forsyth right on target As a creature of the Cold War it was fitting that Frederick Forsyth had works banned by both the Russians and the Americans, though the latter did it only in their Guantanamo Bay prison for alleged terrorists. 'I suspect the Americans have banned The Kill List because it might give the detainees ideas,' the author, who died this week, said in 2014. His masterpiece The Day of the Jackal was never published in the USSR, though the Soviets were very keen on the story of an assassination attempt on a French statesman right up to the point that someone had a pop at Brezhnev. Suddenly, the launch party was off. As Forsyth noted: 'Authoritarian systems don't like people to speak about how to kill the boss.'