FIVE out of the six members of Parliament in Cornwall did not vote on the proposed changes to the exemption of agricultural land from inheritance tax.

The changes, often referred to by pro-farming campaigners as a ‘family farm tax’ was the subject of a vote in Parliament as part of multiple votes relating to the budget announced by the chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves.

Of the six MPs that represent Cornwall, only Andrew George (St Ives, Liberal Democrat) registered a vote, voting against the government’s proposals relating to the inheritance tax levy.

Across the Tamar, Sir Geoffrey Cox KC, the member of parliament for Torridge and Tavistock, also voted against the proposals having previously voiced strong opposition to it.

Voting tallies released by the UK Parliament show that the other five, Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat, North Cornwall), Anna Gelderd (Labour, South East Cornwall), Noah Law (Labour, St Austell and Newquay), Jayne Kirkham (Labour, Truro and Falmouth) and Perran Moon (Labour, Camborne and Redruth) did not vote on the proposal.

One Labour MP who did vote against the policy, Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway), was suspended by the party for voting against it.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) had called on Labour MPs to abstain on the vote in order to show their support for farmers.

Mr Maguire said he was unable to make the vote and took measures to ensure his opposition was still registered.

He said: "Just to be clear, I did not vote for the inheritance tax rises on farmers.

“I was unable to make the vote on the day, so submitted a vote ‘pair’ to the House, which meant I was paired against someone on the Labour benches who voted in favour of the tax.

“This means that each vote is cancelled out - effectively making the same vote difference in overall tallies, which is a way for me to have the exact same effect as physically voting against it.

“I do want to clarify that I am absolutely against the Government’s proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR), which will hit quite literally hundreds of family farms here in North Cornwall extremely hard.

“I’ve spoken up in Parliament countless times on the issue, urging the Government to rethink their damaging plans - and at the very least, demand they consider the NFU-backed alternatives, that would actually raise more in revenue but avoid targeting genuine working family farms.

“I’ve also visited countless farms across our constituency, and welcomed a group of Cornish farmers up to Parliament just a few weeks back to work out how to best fight in their corner.

“I’m outraged that the government won’t even give due consideration to the number of sensible alternatives. The fight goes on, and I’ll continue campaigning hard on behalf of North Cornwall’s farmers until this disastrous family farm tax is scrapped."

Explaining his voting decision, Mr Law said: “I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to enabling the spousal transferability of the IHT allowance, which shows the government is addressing some of farmers' most pointed concerns.

“However, many of us would like to see a commitment to review the real world impacts of this policy on a sector where profitability is currently incredibly challenged. I encourage the government to take the forthcoming review of farming profitability by Baroness Minette Batters under consideration.”

No response was received from Anna Gelderd, Jayne Kirkham, Perran Moon and Andrew George to a request for comment at the time of going to press.