Northumberland MPs defend imposing inheritance tax on farmers

Under the controversial changes put forward as part of the budget, inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m, which were previously exempt, will have to pay inheritance tax at 20%. The rules will come into play in 2026.

The move has been met with considerable resistance from the sector, with farmers in Northumberland staging and joining protests.

The Conservative Party urged the Government to change course in a Commons motion last week.

Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Victoria Atkins said: “The Government has undone its promises to farmers, and is seeking to punish them with Inheritance Tax bills of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of pounds by cutting Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief.

“The Government has provided conflicting information on the number of farms that will be affected, and has not conducted an impact assessment of this approach. This Government have driven farmers to despair.

“The Government have added a death tax to that: the family farm tax, which is seeing families across the United Kingdom worry about whether they will be able to hand on their farms to their children, as generations before them have done.”

North Northumberland MP David Smith accused the Conservatives of “ignoring” farmers for “many years”.

He continued: “Farming has been battered for 14 years under previous Governments. It would be convenient for the Conservatives if farmers across the UK were to forget about the past 14 years and blame all the current difficulties on a Government who have been in office for just six months.

“There is a need for continued constructive engagement around the recently announced proposed reforms. Every farmer I have spoken to welcomes the proposal to end taxpayer subsidies for the super-wealthy buying up land in order to avoid inheritance tax.

“After many years of ineptitude, neglect and the doling out of crumbs by the Conservatives, it must be Labour that truly becomes the party of farming and rural life.”

Hexham MP Joe Morris added: “This is an unserious motion brought by an unserious party; one that fails to understand the countryside and fails to understand why it lost seats that it had held – in the case of Hexham, for 100 years. The Conservative party undermined the confidence of young people to remain in the communities where they grew up, and it cried foul at any attempt to provide housing in my local community.

“Ultimately people in my constituency were sick of the chaos. When I speak to my farmers, I hear a real cry for security and genuine forward-planning from a Defra that listens and is not turned into a political football, as it was too often by the Conservatives.

“I know, having grown up in a rural community alongside the children of farmers, that they value roads that are not full of potholes, a stable economy and libraries that are not falling down – exactly the public services that every one of us expects.”

The Government insists the majority of those claiming agricultural relief will not be affected by the changes, and argued the changes are fair and balanced.