A study on the impact of the inheritance tax changes on farms in the county is to be carried out by the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority.

The mayor of York and North Yorkshire, David Skaith, said they would be working with partners including the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) on the report.

Protests by farmers were held in London and across the country, including Thirsk, this week by the farming community amid anger over plans in the Budget to apply inheritance tax to family farms which were previously exempt.

But the Labour mayor said he received a “positive” response when holding round-table talks with members of the farming community today to discuss ways the authority could support the sector.

“We’ve already been doing a lot of work at the combined authority on farming – it’s our top priority for our growth plan for the next ten years.

“We have Grow Yorkshire which is part of the combined authority and we run a few projects already.

“One of those is the farm sustainability program, which is already committed to 30 to 40 farms to support them through energy audits.”

The mayor added: “We will be commissioning a piece of work now and working with partners to identify how the inheritance tax will impact farms in York and North Yorkshire.

“We’ll be doing that very soon with people like the CLA and NFU in our region.

“I will be also writing to the Defra Secretary of State tomorrow to outline our priority for food and farming in our region and discuss the work we are already doing, and making sure we get every single penny we can out of the £5 billion that is set aside for next year by Defra.”