Tories attack BBC for questioning farming lobby’s inheritance tax claims – UK politics live | Politics

good morning. Keir Starmer, who is returning from the G20 summit in Brazil, will not be able to make it to the House of Commons in time for PMQs, so Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rainer will take questions on his behalf. In line with recent practice, new Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch will not confront MPs and will be absent from the meeting. The Conservative Party does not have a deputy leader, but Mr Badenoch is seeking to appoint Alex Burgert, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, as deputy leader.

The Prime Minister may not answer, but that doesn't make the questions any easier. The situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly dangerous, inflation is rising and yesterday's statistics have reignited the controversy over the government's decision to cut winter fuel costs. But the Conservatives may also want to ask questions about farmers and plans to extend inheritance tax to some farmers. The Conservatives have traditionally liked to think of themselves as a pro-country, pro-agricultural party, but when they stood alongside farmers at yesterday's rally they didn't just have Jeremy Clarkson with them. I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that there isn't. ; the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, Greenpeace and even Just Stop Oil were on the farmers' side.

The Conservatives are now combining support for the NFU with another deep right-wing obsession: attacking the BBC. In a comment that provided a hot topic to the Daily Telegraph, stuart andrewThe shadow culture secretary has attacked the BBC for carrying out fact-checking analysis, saying some of the claims made by the farming lobby about the impact of inheritance tax changes are exaggerated. he said:

BBC Verify's job is to do just that, but BBC Verify has failed in its own way.

The government refuses to say how many family farms there are. subject to their tax collectionprovides only partial and outdated statistics that fail to account for the full scale of the reform.

Taxpayers are paying for the BBC to be independent and free from bias, not for it to regurgitate the Labor Party line.

This issue needs to be investigated and fixed immediately.

The Telegraph article also heavily featured TV celebrity and farmer Jeremy Clarkson, with a BBC reporter daring him at a rally yesterday about the fact that he had bought the farm, at least in part, to avoid inheritance tax. He also accused the BBC of bias. – something he has happily boasted about in the past.

Andrew's broadside to the BBC seems to have been inspired by this BBC verification article and this video A summary by BBC Verify correspondent Ben Chu said the Country Land Business Association's claim that 70,000 farms would be affected by the changes was “arguably an overstatement”. There are good grounds for Mr Chu to make this comment, for reasons set out in the Treasury's letter to the Commons Treasury Committee, and the BBC stands by its story. Of course. Most sane commentators would agree that these reports are fair and unbiased. But the uproar shows how difficult it is for the ruling party to win the debate, when attacks on media organizations trying to report impartially have become part of the opposition's modus operandi.

The agenda for the day is:

9am: Shadow Home Secretary Chris Phillip speaks at a meeting of the National Police Chiefs' Council.

9:30am: Lord Darge, a leading surgeon and former health secretary, will give evidence to the Commons health committee on a report he wrote for the government on the state of the NHS.

10am: Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook will give evidence to the Commons Housing Committee on the Government's housing plans.

noon: Deputy Prime Minister Angela Ryder will face shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burgert at PMQs.

3:20pm: Jess Phillips, Minister for Protection and Violence for Women and Girls, gave evidence to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee about the abuse of non-consensual intimate images.

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