The BBC is set to address farmers’ inheritance tax in The Archers after coming under fire from rural campaigners for appearing to dodge the issue.
So far, the Radio 4 rural soap has only made a fleeting mention of the subject, despite it being one of the BBC’s flagship rural programmes.
However, the broadcaster told The Telegraph that characters in Ambridge will soon begin to discuss how the inheritance tax changes, which were announced in the autumn budget, will affect them.
In the past, The Archers - the UK's longest running soap-opera - has reflected the grassroots feeling in the farming and rural community, even on contentious issues.
The so-called 'family farm tax' is likely to come up in talks over the future of Bridge Farm, where Pat and Tony Archer have been prompted to think about retirement after their daughter, Helen, said she wanted to take over one day and have her children grow up there.
“We plan to cover inheritance tax more fully in future storylines,” a spokesman for the BBC told the paper.
“The programme has a dedicated farming and countryside adviser who works with the team to ensure we accurately reflect the big issues within the rural community.”
It has prompted further confusion, however, after Sybil Ruscoe, the show’s farming and countryside adviser, made recent comments on The Archers Podcast.
She said: “It’s interesting, definitely what’s happening topically now and current affairs-wise will feed into how we develop our storylines.
"That’s true of anything that’s happening, but sometimes it is extremely difficult because we’re working so many months in advance, it’s quite hard to react very quickly to something that’s topical.”
The Countryside Alliance, which has been urging the BBC to address the inheritance tax issue on the show, said the omission so far was 'very strange indeed'.
A spokesperson for the rural group said: “The BBC seems to be stretching the truth here. Our understanding is that episodes are written weeks, not months, before broadcast and can be rewritten right up to recording.
"There is a culture there – rural people do not feel represented by the BBC. Certainly, there is a feeling in the rural community that is very widely held, that there isn’t any programming that represents them.
"If even The Archers – which is a programme about farming families – can’t tackle the challenging issues, that only reinforces people’s concerns about the BBC’s approach to the countryside.”
Thus far, the only reference to the issue was in a November episode in which David Archer, head of another branch of the farming family, said: “There’s a lot of anger about this new inheritance tax on farms.”
Leonard Berry, his friend, replied: “But we need those taxes to pay for things like the NHS.” The pair then changed the subject.
