Rachel Reeves must make family farms exempt from the inheritance tax raid or risk destroying communities, farmers have warned.
Minette Batters, former president of the National Farmers’ Union, has accused the Chancellor of doing ‘her level best to pull the rug from under our struggling farmers’.
She has called for the Treasury to ‘weed out the multi-millionaire chancers who buy land pretending it’s for farm use’ and save the genuine farmers from her plans to limit inheritance tax relief for farms to £1million.
She writes in today’s Mail on Sunday: ‘The changes will destroy communities. It is not good enough to say that farmers could sell a few fields in order to pay the bill. Farms need to be a certain size in order to be viable.
‘While many farmers might be asset-rich, they are often cash-poor, in many cases extremely so.’
She also called on the Treasury to publish a full impact assessment on what the plans mean for farming and food security.
Meanwhile, a Gloucestershire landowner said the changes had left him ‘terrified’ and he was already cancelling planned projects for his land as a result of Ms Reeves’ Budget.
He told this newspaper: ‘I have put all projects on ice and stopped all investment on the farm. I have spoken to 50 farmers in three days. Everybody has dropped their plans. Why would you invest when it would only increase the value of your assets?’
He added: ‘It’s going to put farm workers out of jobs.’
The landowner, who owns a 2,000-acre farm but struggles to break even, said the Government risked permanently turning farmers against it.
The third-generation farmer said: ‘Labour is entering into territory of not just losing the rural vote next time, but for ever.
‘Unless they listen to the sector, there is no chance a farmer would ever vote Labour again.’
Calling on the Government to reverse the plans, he added: ‘It’s a level of disrespect that we haven’t been exposed to before. We’ve been suddenly put into the same category as investors – even though, aside from growing food, we look after the land.’
Jeremy Clarkson also expressed his fury and said the changes ‘could be the last straw for farmers who are already struggling to cope’.
The presenter of Clarkson’s Farm writes of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in today’s Sunday Times: ‘If the word on the rural grapevine about a farmer’s suicide is accurate, their policy, born of bitterness and envy, may already have tipped one man over the edge.’
It comes after a father was feared to have taken his own life after the Labour tax grab on farmland.
An anonymous Facebook post said the landowner was unable to face his children footing a 20 per cent inheritance tax bill and reportedly killed himself.
The National Farmers Union said it could not confirm the claims but farmers have claimed the looming tax changes risk making some desperate.
The union has called for the Government to U-turn on the family farm tax.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed has said: ‘I understand farmers’ anxiety at any changes. But rural communities need a better NHS, affordable housing and public transport that we can provide if we make the system fairer.’
A Conservative Party source said Labour’s changes were a result of ‘the politics of envy’.
‘Farming is not some money- making goldmine. It is hard graft. The profit margins are not great. At the end of the day farming is a way of life.’
Another Tory source said that the Conservatives previously looked at changing inheritance tax but ruled out doing so because of concerns about the impact on farmers. ‘I don’t think they fully understood land value,’ the source said.
‘A whole bunch of Labour MPs have won in large farming communities who this weekend will be having a really hard time.’
Downing Street said this weekend: ‘We’re committed to supporting farmers.’
My family have toiled our land for eight generations – now Rachel Reeves’ budget means I am having to rip up my plans to pass it down to my son
ByAnna Mikhailova Deputy Political Editor
Family farmers who have toiled the land for generations fear Labour’s massive tax raid will finally force them out of business.
Robin Milton, 63, the eighth generation of his family to work a sheep farm near Withypool on Exmoor in Devon, said he may face a £1million tax bill after last week’s Budget.
‘I had done all my succession planning to pass the farm on to my son – now all of that will have to be ripped up,’ he said.
‘What annoyed me more than anything is hearing Rachel Reeves tell us that if we do proper tax planning it shouldn’t affect us.
‘In which case, why do it? Why not be honest and admit that you’re hitting farmers to bring in cash?
‘The result will be that corporate investors will move in and buy land that farmers are forced to sell. They will leverage its carbon offset value – plant trees and walk away.’
Jilly Greed, 69, who runs a 600-acre beef farm near Thorverton, in Devon’s Exe Valley, feels betrayed after Sir Keir Starmer promised the National Farmers Union conference last year that he would protect farmers.
She said: ‘Maybe Rachel Reeves does want to hit big businesses which take advantage of the agricultural tax break.
‘But that net also pulls in farms run by decent, hard-working people which have been in the same family for generations.
‘These are not wealthy folk. Many will have to sell some of that land to pay death duties, ultimately making their farms unviable.
‘For years governments have told us to diversify. We borrowed heavily and restored barns to create a centre for small businesses. Now that will be caught up in this tax raid.’
