Farmers’ protest live: Thousands set to march on Westminster in fury over Starmer’s inheritance tax hike – UK Times

Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins has condemned the Government’s “economically illiterate” approach to tax.

She told GB News: “If any of us care about our countryside, if we want to see the picturesque views that we have – across my home county of Lincolnshire, but (also) across the country – if we care about the quality of our crops, if we care about animal welfare, then family farming in the United Kingdom is critical to achieving all of these aims.

“And this claim that Labour has come up with today to try and divert attention away from the march, that somehow this inheritance tax and this rise in national insurance is to pay for the NHS, is economically illiterate.

“Because, as we know, this is going to raise a fraction of what, in fact, we put into the NHS and are proud to do so.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Environment Secretary Steve Reed have said the reduction in inheritance tax relief offered to farmers would “ensure that wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services”.

Labour has “destroyed” a “contract” between farming and the government dating back to the Second World War with its changes to inheritance tax, the president of the National Famers’ Union (NFU) has said.

Tom Bradshaw told Sky News: “There’s always been an understanding, a contract, between farming and society, farming and the government, ever since the Second World War, and this Labour Government have just destroyed that contract with the changes they proposed to the inheritance tax.”

He said NFU members are “asset-rich but cash-poor”.

“We’d love to pay more tax,” Mr Bradshaw continued. “If we get proper margins from food production, and we end up swelling the Treasury coffers, bring it on.

“But at the moment the supply chain doesn’t give us those returns that enables us to save the money to pay the inheritance tax that this Government now wants to take.”

He added that Environment Secretary Steve Reed said when he was in opposition that the Government would not change agricultural property relief.

“This industry has been betrayed,” Mr Bradshaw went on. “They said they wouldn’t make this change and suddenly they’ve gone ahead and done it.”

NFU is putting on coaches for farmers to attend a mass lobby at Church House from 9am.

It will see 1,800 registered members engage with their MPs in a series of meetings where they will aim to get their opposition across on the changes in inheritance tax.

The NFU is also aware of the larger protest taking place from 10am from Richmond Terrace, with president Tom Bradshaw expected to give a speech.

“Our focus for the 19th November remainson supporting our members by holding a mass lobby so they can meet their MPs to stop the family farm tax that stands to cause so much harm to British farming as we know it,” a spokesperson said.

We’re 15 minutes into our journey from Cirencester to London, via a stop at Wantage, when Chris Farr, NFU Gloucestershire county adviser, issues the first rallying call of the day.

Standing between the seats on the half-full coach, Mr Farr said: “As President Eisenhower said on D-Day, this is the day of all days.”

He tells farmers attending the mass lobby that it’s important for everyone to have their say.

“This is incredible personal,” he says. “It is different for everyone, those with big or small farms, we all have a story, and we need them to listen to us.”

I’m on board a coach taking around 20 farmers from Cirencester to head to London for a mass lobby aimed at reversing a government decision to introduce inheritance tax for some farms.

The coach is one of five put on by the NFU in the southern region, with groups also leaving from Exeter and Dorchester.

It’s an early start but the coach is full of chatter ahead of today’s action.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said the union’s mass lobby at Westminster will aim to get MPs to push the government to reverse the changes, which had left older farmers in particular in the “cruellest of predicaments”, unable, for example, to take advantage of the seven-year exemption for gifting assets.

Speaking ahead of the event in which three groups of 600 NFU members will have the opportunity to speak to MPs in Westminster, he said: “It’s absolutely unacceptable, the human impact of this, the pressures they have put on these people who have given everything to this country.”

The NFU president added: “There’s a complete disillusionment and distrust, and feeling of betrayal, that [the government] doesn’t understand food production or even want to understand food production.

“Farmers are cross, they’re worried, they feel they’ve nothing to lose, I don’t know where this ends,” he said, adding it was within the power of the government to take the next step.

“I don’t believe the Government have any choice but to rethink this policy,” he said.

Olly Harrison, one of the organisers of the rally in London, said of the government: “They don’t know their own figures, they have not done any homework whatsoever.

“It’s embarrassing for them, how little research they’ve done on this before they brought it in.”

He warned the move could destroy UK food production, with family businesses in food processing and retailing, as well as farming, at risk from the changes.

Tuesday’s rally aims to show “this is what we do, this is what we produce, this is whose future is being taken away”, said Mr Harrison.

Environment secretary Steve Reed has hit back following a storm of criticism over the government’s plans to extend inheritance tax to family farms, claiming the “vast majority of farmers will not be affected at all”.

He blamed “misleading headlines” for the backlash to the tax, saying “only the richest estates” will be affected.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Reed said the government has taken a “fair and balanced approach that protects family farms while also fixing the public services those same families rely on”.

Our political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:

Northern Ireland’s MPs and peers have united in a plea to the government to rethink planned changes to inheritance tax for farmers.

In a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, DUP MP Carla Lockhart warned it could threaten the generational transfer of farms, disrupt rural communities and undermine the long-term security of the agricultural sector.

The Stormont Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has estimated that around a third of farms in Northern Ireland will be affected.

It comes as farmers plan to take part in an Ulster Farmers’ Union rally in Lisburn, Co Antrim, on Monday evening.