What you need to know
Protests will not stop planned changes, says No 10
The planned changes to inheritance tax will go ahead despite the protests from farmers, the prime minister’s spokesman has said.
Asked if the protests had prompted a “rethink” in No 10, they said: “No. We have been clear that we understand the strength of feeling about the changes, but we are clear this will only affect a small number of estates.
“This government recognises that food security is national security; that’s why we remain steadfast in our support for farmers.”
It came as Tom Bradshaw, the president of the NFU, said he was “very surprised” there had been no government action after he met the prime minister last month. “I felt that the prime minister had a far better understanding of the unintended consequences by the end of the meeting than he did at the start of the meeting,” he told MPs.
Tractors take to the streets of York
Starmer defends inheritance tax changes
Sir Keir Starmer reiterated that the “vast majority” of farmers will be unaffected by the changes to inheritance tax at prime minister’s questions.
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Several MPs questioned the prime minister about the policy as farmers protested on the streets of Westminster just outside the House of Commons.
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the tax changes were the “final blow” for farmers who already feel “let down” by the last Conservative government.
Jerome Mayhew, a Conservative MP, said many farmers in his constituency now believed the prime minister and his government were “duplicitous”.
In his replies, Starmer highlighted that the government was spending £5 billion over the next two years on farming and said that the threshold for paying the tax is £3 million.
NFU president’s tearful speech
The head of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) broke down in tears in front of MPs as he spoke of the impact of the changes in inheritance tax.
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Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president, became emotional as he said: “It’s not money. This is a lifetime of work, it’s the heritage and the custodianship of their farm.”
Speaking at the commons environment committee, he said that some family farms had been left in an “awful, unacceptable position. They really deserve more self-respect than they have been given by the changes that have been proposed”.
He also spoke of the “more severe human impacts” of the policy: “No policy should ever be published that has that unintended side effect,” he said.
Standstill ends and procession begins
The cavalcade of tractors is now leaving Whitehall and passing the Houses of Parliament in a cacophony of noise.
Organisers had urged farmers to go “hell for leather” on their air horns as they began a procession through London before heading home — and they have followed their orders.
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Horns are ringing out with a mellifluous variety. One of the lead tractors in the convoy has a horn adjusted to play The Final Countdown by Europe.
Starmer warned to rethink budget
In a thundering address, David Catt, a veteran farmer, warned the government that the protest movement would intensify without a policy U-turn.
“Listen Mr Starmer, if you do not have a rethink of this ill-thought-out budget, things will get worse.”
The 67-year-old farmer from Boughton Monchelsea in Kent, added: “We can bring this country to a standstill in minutes. You have only got to see the kit that we have here today. The police, the army, no one could stop us. If we wanted to stop the country, we could do it. We don’t want to. We don’t want to. So listen to us before we have to.”
Farmers descend on London
‘They want to destroy the countryside’
Chants of “out, out, out” rang out over Whitehall after Liz Webster, one of the protest organisers, promised to continue her fight until the prime minister and chancellor were out of power.
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The founder of the group Save British Farming likened the crisis facing the sector to the end of the coal mines in the 1980s.
“The government wants to destroy the countryside like they say Thatcher destroyed the coal mines,” she said.
Old or ill farmers may take their lives, leader warns
Some very old and ill farmers may take their own lives to avoid their estates being hit by inheritance tax changes, a farming leader has suggested.
Speaking to a committee of MPs on Wednesday, Tom Bradshaw, the National Farmers’ Union president, said that he wanted to talk about the most “severe human impacts”.
“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 on April [20]26,” he said. Along with other farming groups, he called for the policy to be paused.
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‘This is a war’
Standing on the back of a pick-up truck overlooking Downing Street, Matt Cullen, one of the protest organisers, is addressing dozens of attendees.
“This is a war we will win and the government will do a U-turn,” he declares, to cheers.
Listen: what could happen if farmers escalate their protests?
Farmers united in anger
Both sides of Whitehall are now crammed with tractors.
Farmers of all ages — from teenagers to retirees — are standing together in a sea of flatcaps, tweed and steel-toe boots, directing their anger in unity towards the government. Dogs, and even the occasional ferret, are among the attendees.
Changing climate hitting UK’s crops, report warns
Extreme weather events are having a “significant effect” on Britain’s ability to produce food, a government report has warned.
The food security report, which is published every three years, said that arable crops, fruit and vegetables were particularly badly hit.
The warning comes after one of the wettest winters on record. Rainfall linked to climate change has led to crops left to rot underwater and farmers being unable to sow seed.
However, the report found food security in the UK was stable. The amount of homegrown food consumed in the UK last year rose slightly to 62 per cent, up from 61 per cent in 2021.
Cleverly lends support to farmers
James Cleverly, the former Tory leadership candidate, is among the opposition MPs who have turned up to offer support.
The MP for Braintree posed with farmers in front of a tractor, before asking them if he could take a selfie video. He urged Labour to reverse the “stupid mistake”.
‘It is going to ruin us’
Hattie Betchley, 17, who has travelled from her family farm in Horsham said that the inheritance tax change “will ruin” her future prospects as a farmer.
She has been helping her father tend to their 100-acre arable farm for the last three years. The family are relatively new farmers, having purchased the land 27 years ago.
Betchley, who had travelled to the capital with her friend, Martha Goodall, 17, said: “It sounds bad but my father is not going to be here forever and somebody has got to take over the farm. It is just going to take us out if we don’t sort this. I’m not going to get the opportunity to take over what my dad has built for us. It is going to ruin us.”
Farage joins the protest
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has met farmers protesting against changes to inheritance tax outside the Houses of Parliament.
The MP for Clacton was involved in the first protest last month, telling the media the protests were “not just about tax” and were in response to an “urban elite” who did not like them.
Speaking to reporters then, he said: “We’ve got a Clacton contingent here, and all representing your typical family farm, and these are 250-300 acre farms. They make very little money at the moment and yet land values have been massively inflated because a lot of millionaires have bought up farm land to avoid paying IHT. I just think someone in the Treasury has done their sums wrong.”
However, it was reported that organisers did not want Farage to speak because they were trying to keep the event “non-political”.
‘My dad can’t afford to die’
“My dad can’t afford to die while Labour are in power,” said Phil Cookes, 38, who is protesting with his wife Katie, 41, and their five-month-old daughter.
The family drove from their home in Solihull in the West Midlands to protest at what they believe is the scapegoating of farmers.
Cookes’s mother died earlier this year and left their 200-acre third-generation farm in his elderly father’s name, ending an allowance that could mean a married couple can pass on a farm worth up to £3 million.
“It’s all been a bit too much,” he said, adding that the family faces selling off a large proportion of their land.
Why are farmers protesting?
The government’s planned changes to inheritance tax will mean that farms worth more than £1 million would have to pay a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate from 2026. The tax would be payable in instalments over ten years interest-free.
At the moment Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief are available at a rate of 100 or 50 per cent — based on eligibility — with no cap on the total amount of relief.
The changes, Rachel Reeves said, were designed to prevent wealthy individuals from investing in farmland to reduce their tax liabilities upon death and will raise £520 million by 2029-30.
The Treasury said that 75 per cent of farms will not be affected but this is disputed by the National Farmers Union (NFU) who said that about three-quarters of commercial family farms will have to pay. Currently about 60 per cent of the food consumed in the UK is domestically produced.
500 tractors expected in protest
Matt Cullen, a Kent-based farmer and one of the protest organisers, said that up to 500 tractors are expected to descend on Whitehall for the protest.
At present, about 200 vehicles are backed up on one side of a Whitehall, with many brandishing Union Jack flags.
A flatbed truck is loaded with British farm produce. Tractors are carrying signs reading: “No farmers, no food”.
Farmers ‘would consider cutting off food supplies’
Farmers could hold back food supplies so the public “wake up” what the government is doing on inheritance tax, the organiser behind today’s protest has said.
Liz Webster, the founder of Save British Farming, told Sky News that cutting off food supplies could be an option come the New Year. “We would consider holding back supplies to show what we do,” she said.
“So yes we will go to those efforts because we want the country to wake up to what the government are doing and if we reply on imported food you will be looking to pay a lot more for lower quality food. And if there climate events, a war then we are at risk of real problematic food shortages.
She said this wouldn’t be over Christmas time but into the New Year, and added: “It’s just to show what the government are doing.”
‘This is a warning shot’
This is a show today of solidarity and a warning shot.” said Jeff Gibson, 47, a farmer from between Canterbury and Dover in Kent, who travelled to London after waking at 5am today.
Addressing Downing Street, Gibson warned that the protests will only escalate if the financial issue is not addressed.
Gibson, who farms cattle, pigs and potatoes over 250 acres, said that it “would be the easiest thing in the world for farmers to bring this country to an absolute standstill. We don’t want to do that, we don’t want to be Just Stop Oil.”
Tractor horns sound out in Westminster
The air is loud with the sound of tractor horns in the heart of Westminster.
Dozens of agriculture vehicles are beginning to amass on Whitehall, brandishing placards targeting the Labour government and the chancellor’s inheritance tax change for farms announced in the budget earlier this year.
A sign on a John Deere tractor reads: “We can live without politicians. But we cannot live without food.”
Farmers protest in London
Farmers protesting against Rachel Reeves’s changes to inheritance tax have descended on Westminster for the second time in weeks.
The protest, which is organised by the group Save British Farming, will see hundreds of tractors conduct a slow drive around central London. There will also be speeches at just after noon as prime minister’s questions get underway.
As part of the autumn budget, the chancellor announced reform to agricultural property relief and business property relief.
From April 2026 under the plans inheritance tax relief for business and for agricultural assets would be capped at £1 million, farms worth more face a tax rate of 20 per cent. Farming groups say this could kill the family farm, forcing many to sell.
