Hundreds of tractors brought roads in central London today (Wednesday, December 11) to a near standstill in support of the “RIP British Farming” protest.
Chants of “No farmers, No food” rang out as frustrated farmers gathered on streets near Westminster to highlight their concerns about changes to inheritance tax in the UK, which were unveiled in the autumn budget 2024.
An estimated 500 farmers supported the protest, organised by the Kent Fairness for Farmers and Save British Farming groups, which aimed to communicate directly to government the depth of anger and concern over the government’s “anti-farming policies”.
Protest
In the autumn budget 2024 the government announced changes to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) from inheritance tax.
This means that from April 2026, inheritance tax relief for business and for agricultural assets would be capped at £1 million and inheritance tax would charged at 20% above this level.
According to William Taylor, co-ordinator of Fairness for Farmers in Europe, the aim of today’s protest is to “create a huge presence of the countryside in London to remind the government that the pressure is on them and will stay on them until this tax is reversed”.
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has described the tax changes as “unfair and destructive”.
NFU president, Tom Bradshaw, believes it is clear that “this is a bad policy, built on bad data, and would mark the end of many family farms. It needs to be halted, at the very least for a proper consultation”.
Inquiry
An emotional Bradshaw today gave evidence to the UK Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) inquiry on the future of farming.
The inquiry intends to examine the policies “driving one of the agricultural sector’s most significant periods of change in years”.
Commenting on the new inheritance tax rules Bradshaw said he had been contacted by what he described as “middle-aged farmers” who are concerned that their parents or parent” will not be able to avail of arrangements which outline any “transfers to individuals more than seven years before death would continue to fall outside the scope of inheritance tax”.
He said these parents may “not have seven years to plan” and this has put them in an “awful, awful , unacceptable position”.
“A lot of these people have spent the very best money on tax planning advice and until the chancellor sat down the correct advice was to keep the farm until death.
“Now they don’t have any way to plan through that and yet they’ve given everything to producing the food for this country in that period post second World World War they they really deserve a lot more respect than they have been given by the changes that are proposed,” Bradshaw said.
The NFU president also spoke about the “most severe human impacts” from the new tax rules .
Bradshaw, who was visibly upset said: “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 26.
“Now no policy should ever be published that has the unintended side side effect now, what I’m being told by some people is that money doesn’t trigger this and I may agree with them the money doesn’t trigger it – but it’s not money, this is a lifetime of of work, it’s the heritage and the custodianship of that farm”.
The inquiry took evidence today from a number of different sources including Victoria Vyvyan, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and Robert Martin, national chair, Tenant Farmers Association (TFA).