Farming leaders have been left with “boiling blood” after meeting the Treasury on Tuesday as the government stands defiant to rethink changes to the inheritance tax on farms.
MPs have stood firm and will continue to introduce the 20% inheritance tax rate on agricultural and businesses worth more than £1 million.
Most farmers are cash poor and those who are asset rich will be forced to sell their farms and farmers who are elderly will have no time to plan for their future.
Farmers have been protesting over the months over the inheritance tax introduced by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Labour refuses to reconsider this as it comes into effect from April 2026.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw told reporters following the meeting, “The Government resolutely believe that they are correct and that they are generous in the exemptions they are giving us.
“They don’t care about the human impact. They don’t care about the intergenerational impact.
“They don’t care about the impact on tenant farmers and the geopolitical situation that the world faces today.”
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Bradshaw said the government rejected their proposed “clawback” mechanism which would allow famers to face tax charges only when they sell assets.
He said, “The door is shut from the Treasury,” adding, “The reaction from our members is going to be one of fury, one of real anger, one of desperation that we’ve seen over recent months and it’s what we all feel here today.”
Victoria Vyvyan, the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) president said, said: “I looked around the room and thought, ‘I’m not sure that there is anybody in this room who really understood when Tom was talking about what a balance sheet looks like’.
“They were just adamant and deaf to what we were trying to say, and I think we all came out slightly with boiling blood about it.”
The Chancellor is yet to meet with farming representatives and has shown “arrogance” as she is not justifying the policy she announced in the Budget.
Bradshaw said, “If the Chancellor believes this policy is right, if the Chancellor is willing to own the outcomes of this policy, if the Chancellor is willing to run down our rural economies, to risk the future of domestic food production, then the Chancellor should look us in the eyes and tell us that she’s right.”
The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), George Dunn chief executive, said the meeting was “one of the most unproductive meetings” he has ever had in 28 years in his position.
He said, “They were clearly unprepared and unwilling and arrogant enough to say: ‘We’ve done all of the thinking. We don’t think we have to ask any more questions. Job done. We’re not making any changes’.
“So the battle continues because we do think they’ve got this severely wrong.”
Bradshaw said, “I don’t think we know what to do next, quite genuinely.
“We’ve done our best to try and work with Government. We’ve gone in there today offering a solution and yet they’re saying: ‘No, we are right’ without any comprehension of how the industry really works.”
Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins said: “The Government has been endlessly warned of the economic and emotional damage their family farm tax is having across the countryside, but once again they’ve arrogantly ignored the warnings and stuck pig-headedly to their ideological dogma.”
A Government spokesperson said: “Our reforms to agricultural and business property relief will mean three-quarters of estates will continue to pay no inheritance tax at all whilst the remaining quarter will pay half the inheritance tax that most people pay, and payments can be spread over 10 years, interest-free.
“This is a fair and balanced approach, which fixes the public services we all rely on.”
