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The truth of the matter is that the Treasury has 'far too much control and say'. That was the message from Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland and Efra chair, Alistair Carmichael, when asked why there was continuous refusal by Chancellor Rachel Reeves to meet with the farming industry over the family farm tax.  

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He said while the Treasury was very good at working out numbers, when given the numbers to work with, they did 'not get the politics right', adding that is where Government departments, in the case of the family farm tax, Defra and the Prime Minister himself must take some responsibility.

Treasury

"By bringing in these political forces, you can create then a balance between politics and economics."

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Mr Carmichael said currently this Government had got the ‘balance wrong', and the figures being used in the economic case for the family farm tax were ‘questionable'.

'Blind to the damage'

"The Treasury seems to be blind to the damage that is being done to the Labour Party politically in communities where they have representation for the first time in decades."

He advised backbencher Labour MPs to not ‘put up with' being ignored on concerns around Inheritance Tax (IHT) proposals.  

Inheritance Tax

"The most powerful people in any Government, are the people who are on the Government backbenches. Without them, there is no Government majority, and without a Government majority, there is no Government."

But he said it was down to either the Chancellor or the Prime Minister to ‘make the first move here'.

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Defra

When asked what responsibility the Defra Secretary and Farming Minister had in this policy move, he said they should be the ‘voice of farmers within Government'.

He said: "They are clearly not being listened to. We can hypothesise why that might be."

When asked how Defra was valued as a Department, Mr Carmichael said it was ‘not respected across Whitehall' in the way people in rural communities need it to be.

'Not very good'

"As a Department, it is actually not very good.

"Look at how they handled the transition to Environmental Land Management schemes – they try something, they do not listen to the right people, it does not work, so they stop it and they try something else.

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"They call it an iterative process, I would say they are just making something up as they go along," he said. 

Mr Carmichael said Defra needed ‘strategic command' over its agenda and to clearly say what it wanted to do and how it was going to achieve it.

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