In his first New Year’s message as National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president, Tom Bradshaw has assured the farming community that the “fight is far from over” on the proposed changes to inheritance tax.
The farm leader said that “it is impossible not to reflect on the stark picture of the challenges faced by UK farming over the past 12 months”.
He referenced volatile input costs, commodity prices at record levels in some farming sectors and on the floor in others, a reduction in direct payments and one of the wettest periods in decades that resulted in a disastrous harvest.
NFU fight on inheritance tax
Bradshaw continued: “To cap a wretched year, we saw a Labour government, which, after 14 years in opposition, promised to reset its relations with British farmers and deliver a much-needed lift to farmer confidence.
“Instead, it delivered an inflationary budget and all but removed the tax reliefs for agriculture property and business property.
“In all my years in the industry, I’ve never experienced the anger, despair and sense of betrayal following the chancellor’s announcement to changes to inheritance tax, which has long protected farming’s ability to pass on the farm business to the next generation, thereby protecting food producing businesses and the nation’s food security,” he added.
Farm organisations united in their opposition to the budget changes by staging a number of protests and rallies throughout the UK.
The NFU president has said that the fight against changes to inheritance will continue into 2025.
“We are keeping up the pressure on government, targeting those rural labour MPs with a powerful, visual reminder from the banners going up all over the UK that the fight is far from over,” Bradshaw continued.
“Ultimately, this needs to be sorted out by the Prime Minister and chancellor Rachel Reeves with a solution sought that will mitigate the extreme human impacts of this indefensible family farm tax policy on the current holders of those businesses, for whom, up until 30 October, the best tax advice was to hold their farm until death.”
Food security and fairness
In hi New Year address, the NFU president also addressed food security and fairness within the food supply chain.
“A robust system of core standards for food imports is essential to protect farmers and consumers from imported food that would be illegal to produce here and allow the economic marketplace to function properly rather than our members being constantly undermined,” he said.
“There needs to be vital legislation to boost promised public procurement of British food, and a planning system in place that enables us to invest in on-farm infrastructure that delivers for food production and mitigates environmental risk.
“These are the building blocks needed to secure UK food security and provide Britain’s farmers and growers the confidence they desperately need to invest for the future and deliver on our joint ambitions.
“That is, to produce more sustainable, affordable homegrown food, while creating more jobs and delivering for nature, supporting greener energy security and climate-friendly farming,” he added.
The farm leader also highlighted some positivity in the agricultural sector over the past 12 months such as new legislation on dairy contracts after “more than a decade of campaigning that provides fairer and more transparent supply chains”.
He also welcomed the code of practice for tenant farmers and the move by eight major retailers in the UK to back the NFU’s long-standing call for ‘buy British’ tabs to be added to their websites.
