I was Jeremy Hunt’s main political adviser and helped put together multiple Autumn Statements and Budgets. This is what I think Rachel Reeves’s Budget means for the countryside

Two years ago this week, I wasn’t sitting at home in West Sussex looking out over the local farm as I am now, I was in the Chancellor’s office at the Treasury, reflecting on his first month in office and starting preparations for his first Budget.

Those days were spent pouring over tax policies and spending bids while worrying about gilt markets and fiscal rules. It was a world that came back to me when watching Rachel Reeves deliver her Budget last week. And the contrast with how I now live made me reflect on how communities like mine rarely feature in these set piece fiscal events.

I first walked into 1, Horse Guards Road, the home of His Majesty’s Treasury, only a few weeks earlier, on October 14, 2022, almost tripping on the coattails of the newly appointed Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. Moments before, I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get into Downing Street to start my new job working for him. My name wasn’t on the gate and, understandably, the security guard politely, but firmly, declined to let me through. As I was beginning to panic about being late on my first day, word reached me that the Chancellor was heading to the Treasury instead and that I should join him there.

I jogged round the corner just as he was being greeted by the permanent secretary, the department’s most senior civil servant. Jeremy called out my name and I managed to slip into his wake, following behind him into the building and up to the Ministerial floor. And there, figuratively speaking at least, I remained for nearly two years as his chief of staff.

During that time I was his main political adviser and helped put together two Autumn Statements and two Budgets. From the day Liz Truss appointed him to the day after the General Election that delivered Labour’s historic landslide, I saw most of what crossed his desk. It was an immense privilege.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the making of a Budget. It is a process very few people ever glimpse. Based around one central spreadsheet called the ‘scorecard’, which contains every spending or tax measure under consideration, it can be a roller coaster ride as the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts come in. One week you have the fiscal room to do everything the Chancellor wants, the next week you are scrabbling around to find the money to just keep things steady.

This was a world away from my family life in rural Sussex where I witness first-hand the impact of government policy on communities who aren’t well understood by officialdom.

One example stands out. The devastating changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) were repeatedly put forward during my time at the Treasury as a way of raising a little money to fund tax cuts elsewhere and to make inheritance tax ‘fairer’. Reforming the relief, the argument ran, would only affect a tiny number of people, most of whom were wealthy landowners using it for tax planning. Some even referred to it internally as the ‘Dyson Tax Break’.

The real-world consequences of such a reform were little understood. But I remember raising the idea, very tentatively, with my host while shooting one weekend near home. His response was robust. While he personally might survive the change, thousands of farms that had remained in the same families for generations would not.

I’m not sure how many of the current crop of Labour advisers in the Treasury live in the countryside, let alone have been shooting, go to their local country show or love taking their children to the ploughing match, but I was not surprised when Rachel Reeves made the long-mooted changes to APR in her first Budget.

It was with some trepidation, then, that I watched last week’s Budget, hoping for signs that the Chancellor might undo some of the damage caused last year.

There was some good news. Measures announced last week will help rural communities with the cost of living in the short term. Everyone will see a £150 cut in their energy bills next year. The continued freeze in fuel duty will keep a lid on a major element of rural household budgets.

There was also a sensible, but very modest, change to APR that will now mean any unused Inheritance Tax (IHT) allowance can be transferred from one spouse to another. This just brings the IHT regime for farmers into line with everyone else. It doesn’t change the fundamental problem with what Government has done, but it at least closes this obvious anomaly.

And increases to the Minimum Wage and National Living Wage mean that many in lower-paid rural roles such as pub staff or stable hands will see a pay rise. Yet even this comes with a sting in the tail. For rural businesses already struggling with higher costs, the extra wage burden may make it harder to employ more people or invest in growth.

And it is on growth that I found the Budget most disappointing. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that not a single policy in it will make any difference to growth. The Chancellor has raised taxes to increase welfare spending instead of controlling welfare spending to reduce taxes on work and investment. And I fear rural businesses will feel the consequences particularly sharply. Farmers are already wrestling with the APR changes and now rural business owners must also navigate higher taxes on property and dividend income.

This is hardly an environment to encourage diversification or investment. Even some of the lower key announcements, such as expanding the tariff-free quota for sugar cane imports will hurt some farmers.

All told there wasn’t much to cheer for those of us who want to see the half a million rural businesses flourish. At the margins the Budget has made this harder. Taxes are going up on everyone, but more so on those who we need to invest and create jobs.

How do we stop this happening again next year? And how do we ensure the rural voice is heard loudly inside Budget preparations?

Some changes could be made inside the Treasury itself. During my time there, officials and advisers alike obsessed over what the Confederation of British Industry, the big banks and our major manufacturers would say in response to a Budget. This year the pattern seems to have continued, with the Chancellor’s team reportedly coordinating positive messaging from the banks after the decision not to raise the bank surcharge.

The same attention should be paid to organisations that represent rural communities and rural businesses. The rural voice should not depend on whether a particular adviser or Minister happens to live in the countryside. It should be institutionalised and embedded within the Budget-making process so that it remains part of the conversation whatever the politics of the government of the day.

But that will only happen if those of us who live and work in rural Britain play our part. Many Labour MPs now represent rural constituencies. They need clear evidence and compelling arguments to take to their Ministerial colleagues in the Treasury. Meanwhile, individuals and businesses can engage directly by writing to Ministers and contributing to the media debate.

Ultimately, even though we currently have a very urban government, with city-focused Ministers who do not always understand business or rural society, a loud enough rural voice can still make itself heard. If we speak clearly and persistently, they may at least, if nothing else, leave us alone.