At kitchen tables up and down the country families are talking about the Budget, apprehensively waiting to see what the Chancellor announces.
For farming families, up at 4am to milk the herd or out in all weathers checking their crops, the fear is not of what might come, but what they already know is in store.
At the last Budget, farming communities were rocked by the Government’s decision to tax estates when farmers die instead of letting them pass to the next generation. For many, it was the final straw.
We see Britain’s food story from both sides. One of us represents the farmers who grow and rear the nation’s food. The other buys those products for millions of customers every week. And we’ve come together with one simple message for the Chancellor ahead of this week’s Budget: think again on inheritance tax for Britain’s family farms.
Mowed down: Farmers protested against the tax changes over the summer
Tax isn’t the only problem farmers face. The weather is increasingly extreme, with this year’s harvest hit by one of the driest springs in a century. Not to mention huge global instability, continuously high energy and fertiliser costs, and planning red tape that is holding back vital infrastructure such as reservoirs, greenhouses and barns.
Against that backdrop, changes to inheritance tax have injected even more uncertainty and hammered confidence to the lowest levels ever recorded.
Family farms might look wealthy on paper, but most of that value is tied up in land and buildings that are passed from generation to generation – the value never actually hits their bank accounts.
But now, when a loved one dies, the tax bill will need to be paid in hard cash. That’s money most farms simply don’t have.
United we stand: Tom Bradshaw President Of The National Farmers’ Union (above right) and Alex Freudmann Managing Director Of M&S Food
It’s an unacceptable position to put our elderly farmers in, particularly those who aren’t expecting to live for the next seven years and have no ability to plan to prevent their children being saddled with crippling tax bills. Bills which would destroy the farm they’ve worked so hard to build.
Even for those farms that might be able to scrabble together the cash to pay, it comes at the cost of vital investment in the food and farming sector – worth £153 billion to the economy and providing 4.2 million jobs.
Worse still, farmers could be forced to sell some or all of their business to pay, making many farms unviable for the future. Ultimately, these changes make it harder to get affordable, fresh food to families across the country. Why would we want to risk our food security in this way and make feeding ourselves so precarious?
The Chancellor has options. Independent tax experts have proposed a common-sense safeguard: a ‘minimum share rule’. Under this, if a farm makes up the majority of a family’s estate, it would be protected from inheritance tax.
If the ‘farm’ is just a token slice of a broader investment portfolio, it wouldn’t be.
That’s fair. It enables genuine, working family farms to continue producing food for the nation, while ensuring tax reliefs aren’t abused. And it could raise the same funds for the Treasury. A rare win‑win.
Chancellor, this is in your hands. Think again on inheritance tax. Save our family farms, safeguard our food security, and send a clear message that this country still backs the people who feed it.
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