Watch as farmers on tractors convoy through Somerset town in protest

Farmers have taken to the streets in parts of Somerset today as well as heading to London to protest changes to inheritance tax announced in last month's budget.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) is holding a mass lobby of MPs with 1,800 of its members – three times as many people as originally planned – to urge backbenchers to stand up to the Government’s plans to impose inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million .

Farmers have reacted with anger and dismay to the inheritance tax changes for farming businesses, which limit the existing 100 percent relief for farms to only the first £1 million of combined agricultural and business property. For anything above that, landowners will pay a 20 percent tax rate, rather than the standard 40 percent rate of inheritance tax (IHT) applied to other land and property.

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As well as the protest in London, farmers on tractors took to the streets in Crewkerne to protest. A slow moving convoy through the town centre took place on Tuesday morning.

TV presenter and journalist Jeremy Clarkson said Rachel Reeves has used a “blunderbuss” to hit farmers as he arrived in London to protest against changes to agricultural inheritance tax.

Walking towards the protest in Westminster on Tuesday morning, he joked that he was in London to do “a bit of Christmas shopping” before telling the PA news agency: “I’m here to support the farmers, it’s that simple, because they need all the help they can get really, even from me.”

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the Government “broke its promise” in imposing inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million.

Speaking at a photocall of Tory MPs and farmers as a large-scale protest kicked off in London over the changes, Mr Stride told the PA news agency: “We’re doing this to show solidarity with our farmers.

“We believe that this Government doesn’t understand the countryside or farming, broke its promise when it said that it would not be imposing inheritance tax on farms, it has now done that.

“That’s going to have a devastating impact on the farming sector up and down the country with family farms broken up.”

Environment Secretary Steve Reed has insisted that only a few hundred farms would be impacted, rather than the tens of thousands claimed by critics of the inheritance tax change.

He told the PA news agency: “The Government’s been very clear: about 500 farms will be affected and the vast majority of farms will pay nothing more under the new scheme.

“That figure has been validated now by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility and by the independent financial think tank the IFS.

“There are all sorts of other figures flying around that I don’t recognise.

“If farmers look at the facts they will see the vast majority of them will pay nothing more under the new scheme than they did under the old scheme.”

NFU president Tom Bradshaw told members: “We know that the public are overwhelmingly supporting farmers, the second most trusted profession.”

“They want to buy more British products but this policy undermines your ability to produce more food,” he said, urging farmers to thank members of the public for their support.

“But your key job today is to look your own MPs in the eye, make them understand what this policy means to you and the price they will pay politically if they toe the party line, in Westminster, in Cardiff, in Edinburgh, in Belfast, this policy has to be changed.

“Our request is very simple, this is a policy that will rip the heart out of Britain’s family farms, launched on bad data with no consultation, and it must be halted and considered properly.”