Environment minister defends tax changes as farmers protests in London
Large UK retailers including Tesco, Boots, Marks & Spencer and Next have written to Rachel Reeves to say that a £7bn increase in annual costs after last month’s budget would lead to job cuts and higher prices, Mark Sweney reports.
In an interview with BBC News, Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said that farmers felt particularly aggrieved because last year, when Steve Reed was shadow environment secretary, he said Labour was not planning to change agricultural property relief (the inheritance tax exemption). He said farmers only started hearing rumours that the government was going to go back on this about a week before the budget.
This policy is ill thought through. There’s still a 20% benefit for the uber-wealthy to invest in agricultural land, and with the changes they’ve made to pensions, they’ve now incentivised people to rip money out of pensions and invest in up to £1m of agricultural land. That is not going to deliver for food security. It’s absolutely nonsensical. It’s not joined up. There’s no thought about the impact on food production or the families that produce this country’s food …
Let’s sit down [with the government]. Give us the question. Tell us what the exam question is. We will work with you. If you want to stop people using land as a tax dodge, let’s work out the policy that does that. But this policy is not the answer.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/19/2024 - 04:47
11/19/2024 - 03:47
Proposed inheritance tax changes targeted by body for agricultural industry in England and Wales
Farmers protest in Whitehall – live updates
The head of the farmers’ union has accused UK ministers of betraying the agricultural industry with changes to inheritance tax before a protest in Westminster.
Tom Bradshaw, the president of the NFU, told Sky News that the environment secretary, Steve Reed, promised a year ago that a future Labour government would not change the relief on inheritance tax for farmers.
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11/19/2024 - 02:35
Albanese government denies media reports it is signing up to collaboration to share advanced nuclear technology
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The UK government has conceded that Australia was mistakenly included on a list of countries that were expected to sign up to a US-UK civil nuclear deal.
The Albanese government flatly denied media reports on Tuesday that it would join the UK and the US in a collaboration to share advanced nuclear technology. The UK and the US announcement said they would speed up work on “cutting-edge nuclear technology”, including small modular reactors, after inking a deal at the Cop29 UN climate summit in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
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11/19/2024 - 01:46
G20 communique in Rio contains key lines on climate confirming world set to transition away from fossil fuels
The UK government has conceded that Australia was mistakenly included on a list of countries that were expected to sign up to a US-UK civil nuclear deal agreed at Cop29 on Monday, writes Adam Morton, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor.
The Albanese government flatly denied media reports on Tuesday that it would join the UK and the US in a collaboration to share advanced nuclear technology. The UK and the US announcement said they would speed up work on “cutting-edge nuclear technology”, including small modular reactors, after inking a deal at the Cop29 UN climate summit in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
We urge them to use the G20 meeting to send a positive signal of their commitment to address the climate crisis.
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11/19/2024 - 01:00
Experts say mix of taxes with development bank and private funding can provide $1tn a year needed by 2030
Raising money needed to tackle the climate crisis need not be a burden on overstretched government budgets, leading economists have said.
The sums needed – approximately $1tn a year by 2030 – are achievable without disruption to the global economy, and would help to generate greener economic growth for the future.
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11/19/2024 - 01:00
When exploring wrecked warship the London I can barely see six inches ahead, but I’ve dived 500 times to document and save the secrets of this vessel built by Oliver Cromwell
When I dive to the shipwreck of the London, a warship which was accidentally blown up in the murky waters of the Thames estuary in 1665, I dive in darkness. I can barely see six inches in front of me. And if I turn my torch off, I cannot see anything at all.
But I love it. I’ve dived to the London about 500 times and I only have to feel certain timbers of the wreck, and I know where I am.
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11/18/2024 - 23:24
Small island states must continue to be protected by special circumstances and need access to sufficient climate-based finance, Palau’s president writes
A week into Cop29 negotiations, we’re not moving fast enough – or anywhere for that matter – on some key issues.
Climate finance, or more specifically the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) to replace the current $100bn a year goal, and the work to operationalise the loss and damage fund, are key expected outcomes here in Baku.
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11/18/2024 - 19:13
Marine scientists say one area around Cooktown and Lizard Island had lost more than a third of its live hard coral after bleaching event
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Reefs across the north of the Great Barrier Reef have seen “substantial losses” of coral cover after a summer of extreme heat, two cyclones and major flooding, according to the first results of surveys from government marine scientists.
After the most widespread coral bleaching event seen on the world’s biggest reef system, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said one area around Cooktown and Lizard Island had lost more than a third of its live hard coral – the biggest annual drop in 39 years of monitoring.
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11/18/2024 - 18:45
When the heat is on, the onus should be on the Coalition to explain why they don’t support measures to ensure their newly discovered battlers have access to rooftop solar
Guardian Essential poll: almost half of Australian voters want Aukus reviewed after Donald Trump’s election win
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Australia is facing the extreme risk of dangerous concentrations of high pressure and hot air this summer. There is also a strong likelihood of heatwaves.
The return of the performatively anti-climate Donald Trump will see the world’s biggest per capita carbon polluter pull out of global targets, emboldening energy incumbents and their mouthpieces to amp up their attacks on renewables.
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11/18/2024 - 13:00
Sherry Rehman says rich nations should pay ‘internationally determined contributions’ to help poorer and worst-affected countries
Amid the endless politicking and inscrutable arguments at the UN climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, this month, it can be hard to remember what is at stake. That’s why Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s former climate change minister, is calling on global leaders to “keep an eye on the big picture”.
“We’re here for life and death reasons,” Rehman said.
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