Farmers feel 'betrayed' and 'angry' over inheritance tax shake-up under Labour

Farmers in England and Wales feel betrayed by inheritance tax changes, a union has said. The president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has said that farmers in England and Wales feel “betrayed” by changes from the new Labour Party government.

Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president, told Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips show that many hoped to meet their MPs “to tell them from the heart what this means for them, their family, their farm, their future”. “I have never seen the united sense of anger that there is in this industry today,” Bradshaw said. “The industry is feeling betrayed, feeling angry. The government said that this wouldn’t happen.”

“Unfortunately, there are many who already have lost a spouse, that are in the twilight of their careers, that have given everything to producing this country’s food, and they have absolutely no way to plan through that. That is the betrayal that I’m talking about. The human impact of this is simply not acceptable," he said.

READ MORE: WASPI women issued 'both distressing and tragic' update over DWP compensation

READ MORE: Warning issued to UK households who have a bank balance of £11,600 or more

READ MORE Santander paying out 12 payments worth up to £25,000 before Christmas

after newsletter promotion

“That is not an NFU tactic,” he said. “We do not support emptying supermarket shelves. But I do completely understand the strength of feeling that there is amongst farmers. They feel helpless today and they’re trying to think of what they can do to try and demonstrate what this means to them. I understand their strength of feeling, but we are not supporting that action.”

Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, defended the budget changes during her appearance on the same show today. Speaking three weeks on from the Budget, she said: “Look, none of us came into politics in order to leverage tax on the farming community, but we were left with a very difficult fiscal inheritance.”

She said wider changes to farming set out by the environment department would benefit the industry overall.