Farmers will take to the streets of London on Tuesday to protest against the government’s inheritance tax plans.
Labour announced in the budget that there would be a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million, a measure the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) has described as “horrific” and a “betrayal”.
The NFU says the environment secretary, Steve Reed, promised that a Labour government would not make changes to the tax prior to the general election.
As many as 15,000 people are registered to attend a rally at Richmond Terrace, near Downing Street, to protest the reforms. Separately, the NFU has 1,800 members registered to lobby their local MPs in person in Westminster at 9 am.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president, said the farming industry has been “betrayed” by the Labour government.
Bradshaw reiterated that Reed promised farmers a year ago that this inheritance tax hike would not happen.
“He stood here a year ago at a conference in London, and said that the government would not be changing agricultural property relief”, he told Sky News.
“[Reed] then reinforced that a couple of weeks later. This industry has been betrayed. They said they wouldn’t make this change, then suddenly they’ve gone ahead and done it.”
Bradshaw added: “Our members are asset rich but cash poor, they are working day in, day out, they are the hard working people of the countryside producing this country’s food.
“They’re not making the returns they need. We would love to pay more tax, if we get proper margins from food production and we end up swelling the Treasury coffers — bring it on.
“But at the moment the supply chain doesn’t give us those returns.”
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Bradshaw met Reed for talks in Westminster on Monday and said that after “tough conversations” the demonstration would “definitely” go ahead.
Commenting after the meeting, Bradshaw said: “It was a valuable meeting. It was a great opportunity to really spell out in black and white why their evidence is wrong, why it has to come forwards in consultation, and what the extreme human pressure is that this policy has created.”
But, with farmers travelling to Westminster, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has defended the changes to inheritance tax.
Asked if she wanted to apologise to farmers, she told Times Radio: “I fully understand the strength of feeling that the farming community have and, of course, they have the right to come and protest and lobby Parliament, as we’re seeing happening already this morning.
“But the Labour government, when it came in in July, was having to face some very difficult decisions because of the economic mess that we inherited and the £22bn black hole in the public finances.
“So, difficult decisions have had to be made. So, I think that that is the backdrop to this.
“I also want to recognise that there is money going into farming. There’s over £5bn over the next two years that the Government is putting into farming and the number of farms that will be affected by the changes are relatively small.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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