Labour’s tax on farmers could prove to be the decisive blunder of the Reeves budget, warns ALEX BRUMMER

This green and pleasant land is dedicated to its farmers.

Agriculture is the only sector to have an exclusive daily bulletin on the BBC – Farming Today, a long-running radio soap – The Archers, a TV series – Emmerdale, and a first on Sunday evenings in the form of Countryfile.

As an industry its contribution, estimated at £13.9 billion or 0.6 percent of national output, is relatively modest. But the family farm is central to British culture.

In August this year, whilst on holiday, I started looking for my first home, Dewbrook Farm in Horam, East Sussex. There was no sign of the long, tree-lined driveway, the apple orchard, or the chicken coop.

Just a farm with the same name and a residential area. It may not be the intention, but Rachel Reeves’ levy on farms worth more than £1 million could prove to be a fast track to freeing up land for Labour’s housing development.

Or it could turn out to be the Chancellor’s ‘pasta tax’, which suffers the same fate as George Osborne’s levy when he tried to impose VAT on food products available on the market in 2012.

There is a myth that farmers in their tweeds, cords and Land Rovers are plutocrats living high on the pig.

Granted, there are tycoons, like billionaire inventor James Dyson, who have parlayed some of their wealth into farmland.

Naturally, the tax authorities would like to capture a share of the profits as this property flows through the generations.

But most farms aren’t owned by tech pioneers or urban titans. They are owned by modest, hardworking families, who help preserve the landscape and meet our food needs.

They are working people who work around the clock seven days a week and for whom working from home means having to remove sludge, milk, collect eggs or take care of the strawberry tunnels.

The elimination of inheritance taxes for medium-sized farms will lead to many farms being sold or demolished. It will hurt organic products and make Britain increasingly dependent on foreign imports, worsening the country’s trade balance.

Labour’s failure to understand rural Britain could prove to be a defining blunder of Reeves’ budget.

Gas sprint

Shell’s strategy to double fossil fuel production rather than bow to a climate change agenda appears to be paying off.

The group’s focus on liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, boosted by the oil giant’s £47 billion purchase of British exploration company BG Group a decade ago, is proving hugely valuable.

In the third quarter, when refining profits plummeted 70 percent, LNG came to the rescue with a huge 13 percent profit increase. As a result, total profits in the third quarter came to £4.6 billion, slightly lower than a year earlier.

Under Wael Sawan, Shell, like American rivals such as Exxon, has decided that there is plenty of life in fossil fuels and that delivering results for shareholders and taxpayers is the main goal.

The group has increased its share buybacks and debt is at its lowest level since 2015 at £26.9 billion.

Labor must be careful not to alienate Shell and for that matter BP in its quest to make Britain greener by 2030.

Shell has indicated in the past that if Britain’s environmental, social and governance agenda becomes too pushy, it could even consider changing its location.

It would be a catastrophe if one of the most important parts of the FTSE 100 were driven abroad by green fanaticism.

Pumped up

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband will no doubt be dancing in the aisles as British households join the heat pump revolution. The latest data shows that certified installations in the UK have reached 250,000.

The rush is great for Swedish manufacturer Aira, with the group’s British boss Daniel Sarefjord celebrating improved incentives for boiler upgrades.

This is all great, but the aim of Great British Energy, launched by Labor this year, was to create tens of thousands of green manufacturing jobs to offset the axing of the North Sea.

The ambition is great, but unfortunately many of the new jobs take place elsewhere, with Aira opting for a cheaper Polish factory.

The new British jobs tax, which follows the increase in national insurance, will hardly encourage new foreign investment.

You fear that no one in the government understands things.