Suffolk farmers head to London to fight 'unfair' new tax

There was outrage in the county when chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that farmers' inheritance tax relief would be slashed in order to make up a £22bn hole in the public finances in her October 30 Budget.

Now National Farmers' Union (NFU) members will join a national mass lobby in Westminster on Tuesday, November 19, to press for a rethink.

They will be demanding a meeting with their local MPs - and will be hoping to persuade them to take up their cause with the Treasury.

They think officials have badly miscalculated - and that the figures they are quoting to justify the change are based on faulty thinking.

Their focus will be on Suffolk's backbench Labour MPs - most of whom have slim majorities - Peter Prinsley, Bury St Edmunds (majority 1,452), Jack Abbott, Ipswich (7,403), Jess Assato, Lowestoft (2,016) and Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, Suffolk Coastal (1,070) as well as Green and Conservative members.

Separate to the 1800-strong NFU gathering, there will be a mass rally organised by the British Farming Union which will be addressed by NFU president Tom Bradshaw, who farms at Fordham near Colchester.

Suffolk and Essex farmers' leaders are keen to avoid chaos and disruption which they fear might alienate those sympathetic to their cause and are imploring farmers to leave their tractors in the farmyard.

Suffolk NFU chairman Glenn Buckingham - who will be among those lobbying their MPs - said farmers felt their traditional businesses were threatened by the chancellor's decision to cut Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR). 

Glenn Buckingham (Image: Lucy Taylor) They are currently largely exempt from inheritance tax (IHT) but from 2026, after the first £1m, they will have to pay 20% IHT.

The move took farmers' leaders by surprise because of previous reassurances from Labour and a commitment to food security in its manifesto.

The new measures were causing heartache and could lead to the break-up of family farms, Mr Buckingham warned.

"Should this legislation go through there will be consequences for all. There will probably be consequences for farmers of all sizes and that's disruptive to the industry."

The Suffolk branch of the NFU held its annual general meeting on Thursday (November 14) and there was a sense of "quiet determination" on the issue, he said.

"There's undoubtedly a very angry feeling out there in our farming community," he said. 

But they were strongly advising people not to turn up with their tractors, he said. "Tractors are not going to be there. We do not wish to cause any disruption to society - but there's an element who want to do that."

Suffolk farm chaplain Graham Miles said since the Budget the number of farmers contacting him for support had hit the roof. These were worried about the future of their farms.

"I think it's had a great impact," he said.

Hedgerow layer Richard Negus of Finningham, near Stowmarket, said he would be joining the protest - even though the inheritance tax change would not hit him directly.

But overall, it and other measures such as capping farmers' delinked payments to £7,200 would have a profound effect on the wider rural community - and businesses such as his, he said.

Richard Negus (Image: Charlotte Bond) He and business partner Richard Gould were planning to take on two apprentices in the business, but this was now on hold.

"The issue for businesses like mine it's lack of liquidity," he said. "I'm going with some of my customers basically - some of my farmers who I lay hedges for."

Farmers were asset-rich but cash-poor, he said, and would be put under severe pressure by the measures. "It's caused a lot of distress and upset," he said.

As well as feeling empathy for their situation, his own business was reliant on farmers' ability to spend money on environmental improvements on their farms.

"Although this is very much focused on the farmers, I think here in Suffolk the wider economy is so reliant - some people don't even realise," he said.

"It's the whole rural economy of Suffolk that's being hit. I think it's a vindictive Budget. I think they are hitting people who to the layman they think are rich but actually they are not."

Tom Bradshaw said he had attended the Suffolk NFU branch meeting this week and found members were behind what they were doing.

(Image: NFU)

"It was incredibly supportive of what we are doing but very much a sense of: 'This is the first step - if we don't get them to understand next week what comes next?'" he said.

There were "huge concerns" about the government's stance, he added. "There's clearly this sense of betrayal that the government does not understand but also that it went against what it said it was going to do. That's very difficult for the industry to forget about."

Margins in food production were very thin, he warned, and there was a human angle to it - and mental health issues that could surface as a result. There was also anger about the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) cuts, he said.

"I think there's still a sense of shock - they can't quite believe the government is going to do this," he said.

"Mental health - it's a huge problem. It's uncertainty and uncertainty from an industry who have had a very difficult 18 months particularly from the weather. The eight years since Brexit have been very volatile."

He was hoping for a "peaceful, passionate protest bringing that strength of feeling to the capital", he said.