Elderly farmers and those in poor health may take their own lives to avoid their estates being hit by inheritance tax, MPs have been told, as protesting farmers drove hundreds of tractors into London.
Farms worth more than £1 million will be subject to a 20 per cent inheritance tax from April 2026 under reforms to agricultural property relief announced in the budget. The government argues the measure, expected to raise about £500 million from 2027 onwards, is needed to fund public services.
Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), told MPs on the the environment, food and rural affairs committee that he wanted to talk about the most “severe human impacts” that might be triggered by the change. He said he was concerned some farmers are too old to mitigate the impact of inheritance tax by taking advantage of a seven-year tax-free gifting period.
• Why are farmers protesting? London feels rural wrath over tax raid
“Those people who genuinely are either in ill health or don’t believe that they are going to be able to live for seven years may well decide that they shouldn’t be here in April 2026 [when the changes will be imposed],” he told the committee on Wednesday.
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Bradshaw became visibly emotional and stopped speaking at one point as he was questioned. “It’s not money,” he said. “This is a lifetime of work. It’s the heritage … the custodianship of that farm.”
A WhatsApp group of about 50 Labour MPs has formed to try and convince the government to make a U-turn on the changes, it has been reported. Some MPs are said to be pushing for the inheritance tax threshold to be substantially increased from £1 million, to more effectively target those using the relief as a way to avoid tax.
One Labour MP told the Politico website that “the current plan doesn’t do what it sets out to do”. The prime minister’s spokesman insisted on Wednesday that there would be no change to the policy.
The NFU, along with farming groups the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and the Tenant Farmers Association, urged the government to pause the policy change. “We’ve had long meetings [with government officials] and no sense whatsoever that any listening is happening,” said Victoria Vyvyan, president of the CLA.
Bradshaw said the tax changes also risked stymieing environmental reforms.
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“We know the industry needs to make huge investment over the next decade to meet our environmental mitigation responsibilities. [Inheritance tax] takes cash that should be going to be invested in the future of our businesses to mitigate environmental risk,” he said.
Stuart Maggs, a partner at the law firm Howes Percival, told the committee that farms would have to sell land or sell up entirely to pay tax bills. “It’s going to happen a lot,” he said.
When asked by MPs, experts could not agree on precisely how many farms will be affected by the tax change. Treasury figures have suggested it could be about 500 a year, while the NFU has suggested three quarters of farms could be hit.
The hearing came as about 200 tractors arrived in central London to protest against the tax reforms.
Farmers have vowed to block roads and shut down the country’s food supply if the government does not rethink its position.
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As the tractors amassed on Whitehall, organisers warned the prime minister and chancellor of a groundswell of anger, describing the protest as a “warning shot”.
In an address outside Downing Street, a veteran farmer said that while they were “not militant people”, farmers are poised to choke food supplies if ministers do not heed their concerns.
One of the organisers, David Catt, from Broughton Monchelsea in Kent, said: “Listen, Mr Starmer — if you do not have a rethink of this ill-thought-out budget, things will get worse.
“We can bring this country to a standstill in minutes. You have only got to see the kit that we have here today.”
The founder of the Save British Farming group likened the crisis facing the sector to the death of the coalmining industry in the 1980s.
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“The government wants to destroy the countryside like they say Thatcher destroyed the coalmines,” she said. “I promise you, I give you my absolute pledge, that I will fight every step of the way to ensure that we are still here and Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are gone.”
Farmers told The Times that if they were not heard they would seek to mimic more aggressive protesting tactics adopted by French farmers.
Jeff Gibson, 47, said that farmers had the power to “bring this country to an absolute standstill” but did not “want to be Just Stop Oil”.
After Dad died I ran the farm. Now my family face a huge inheritance tax bill
Nigel Farage, the Clacton MP and leader of Reform UK, met those protesting outside the Houses of Parliament.
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Steve Reed, the environment secretary, said: “Our commitment to farmers is steadfast. That is why this government is working hard to get money into farmers’ bank accounts as well as announcing today how farmers can benefit from the new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier scheme, with more flexible actions, improved payments to help cashflow and a rolling application window.”
The protest came as a government report warned that extreme weather events are having a “significant effect” on Britain’s ability to produce food.
The government’s food security report, which is published every three years, said that arable crops, fruit and vegetables were hit particularly hard by extreme weather events. Last winter was one of the wettest on record, when rainfall linked to climate change left crops rotting underwater and farmers unable to sow seed.
However, the report found food security in the UK was stable. Last year the amount of domestically grown food consumed in the UK rose to 62 per cent, up slightly from 61 per cent in 2021.
The report also said that a long-term decline in the state of the natural environment is endangering future food supplies. It said a deterioration in “natural capital”, such as the pollination that insects provide for free, is a “pressing risk” to UK food production.
