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Generations of families working as farmers have toiled their entire working lives for well below minimum wage; they've entirely invested themselves into the family farm

Withdrawing the facility to pass it on in full will massively disincentivise this tradition of thankless toil

Surely the solution then is not to fiddle with IHT rules, but to ensure farmers are adequately compensated.

As we discussed last night, that is not in the broader interests of the nation. It is more important to have cheap milk than it is for dairy farmers to make a good living.

Now, I hear you ask, how long can this race to the bottom continue. No idea, I am not a dairy farmer so I don't know the limits of efficiency that can be achieved and what happens when they are pushed too far.

But that is the principle by which successive governments have operated.

Yes and no. Top priority is having milk production in the UK*, next comes making it cheap, then comes improving farmers’ pay. However there is a bit of a feedback in which priority one is inextricably linked to priority three, at the margins.

*Of course we don’t have to. There’s a perfectly valid free market view that says we don’t need to take any interest in where the food comes from, and we can secure it with diverse supply. But I think that’s a bit short sighted as the world drifts further away from open markets and back towards protectionism and power blocks.

Morning all

Ed Davey was at the farmers' rally as well so does that mean he was on the same bandwagon?

Oppositions oppose - that's what they do - but there's a difference between contradiction and argument as Mr Python once demonstrated. For every tax rise they wish to reverse, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have to show how they would "compensate" the public finances. I suspect both may find it difficult as we approach the next election to square the circle of cutting taxes, improving services and balancing the public finances.

As we've also seen this morning, public sector productivity remains a big problem - the kneejerk response of sacking 50% of civil servants won't help that at all.

The problem is we can't have a proper conversation about tax in this country - there's a claim from some we are "over taxed" (not quite sure what that means) and there's a valid question as to whether we get any "value" from the taxes we pay but the truth is we have a deficit which needs to be closed and borrowing which needs to be reduced and there's little or no honesty from anyone about any of this.

Yes, cut spending if there is an obvious argument (and nothing, including the armed forces, should be exempt) but the Party is over and we all now need to pay the bill and if that means raising basic rate tax to 25p and higher rate to 50p and looking at property and land asset value taxation, so be it.

Your final paragraph might be fine proposals for a left of centre Labour party and the Greens albeit at the risk of losing swing voters who hate higher taxes. They certainly aren't for a right of centre Conservative party

Fair enough so back to you - what would a "right of centre" (not even sure what that means) Party propose to reduce the deficit and borrowing?

Spending cuts? If so, what and where and why weren't these enacted during the 14 years your party led the Government? A previous Conservative Prime Minister transformed the State in eleven and a half years - the five leaders you chose over a 14 year period did the sum equivalent of bugger all.

Indeed one might argue for a "right of centre" party you governed more like a "left of centre" party but you didn't even do that properly.

Well we would start by axing the payrise for GPs and train drivers.

We could also then move on to making the NHS more efficient and finding savings there rather than just shovelling money into a bottomless pit.

The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.

Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.

To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.

What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.

The public sector is under immense pressure — from users, from taxpayers, from politicians — to perform well and efficiently. It’s complete nonsense to suggest otherwise. Services that demonstrate good outcomes get funding. With populations increasing and inflation high, an efficient public service will still need a larger budget.

Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.

Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.

How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?

Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.

Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...

Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.

https://x.com/ONS/status/1858805323441598762

@ONS
Public service productivity in Quarter 2 2024 is estimated to be 8.5% below its pre-#COVID19 pandemic peak in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2019.

And this is our problem in a nutshell. Our public services are falling apart, not because of cuts in spending which have been modest to non existent) but because we are getting less and less for our money. That is the problem the last government largely ducked and which this government has to come to terms with. If they don't no amount of additional taxation will be enough.

And the multi billion pound question is... why?

Is it about a lack of the smack of firm management, is it the money spent on diversity consultants, or is it that we have solved bottlenecks with the short term fix of extra bodies rather than equipping staff with better tools to achieve more?

My guess (based on the way that capital budgets always get raided to fix crises, and have been for decades, and we're going to be under Hunt) is that the last diagnosis is the main problem.

I think from my limited experience that there is a lack of quality management, that WFH has in fact reduced people's output despite all the claims to the contrary, that it has encouraged a mind set that this job is for my benefit rather than the benefit of the people to whom the service that is being provided, that it is my mental health and work life balance that is important, not the quality of life of the service users I am supposedly working for and, perhaps above all, the never ending multiplication of emails to masses of people who don't need to receive them but get interrupted anyway.

None of this will stop me from WFH today, of course.

David, you could have just said the inherently lazy barstewards will take the piss when allowed to work at home. The diligent productive people will do even more work.

I get more done at home, no question. Combination of longer hours (I'll some of the commute time) and fewer interruptions.

Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.

How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?

Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.

Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...

What happened to their input costs?…

Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.

How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?

The taxes from this measure might be enough to fund a decent condition GPMG-mounted Mini Metro off Autotrader, from what Dan Neidle says.

Steady. First let’s have a meeting to really bottom out the requirement. After a 6 month concept phase I think we’re quite likely to decide that we need our mini metro to have different windscreen wipers and a Rolls Royce engine.

Now, I know the budget won’t cover that, but it will cover the assessment phase while we plan for it. In the end we can have a mini metro delivered in two years, at twice the current quoted price, fitted “for but not with” an engine. That’s how we do things here.

Endeavour to.

Is the bit you're missing. Because it will never actually be delivered, or be stuck up a ramp for 24 months refurb before we get it, obvs.