The best way to keep people fed is to remove barriers

Tom Bradshaw, The Independent

In the final days of 2025, the government did the right thing. It listened to farmers and growers, it listened to its own Labour backbenchers, and it raised the threshold of Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief from £1m to £2.5m. The change has taken 14 months of persistent campaigning by the NFU and its members, hours of calls with Labour backbenchers, those representing rural seats, resulting in a rebellion with nearly 40 abstentions from the vote on Budget Resolution 50, and the sight of thousands of farmers and their families digging in deep, standing up for what they knew to be right.

Dubbed the family farm tax, the changes announced in last year’s Budget saw the removal of Agriculture Property Relief and Business Property Relief for assets over £1m. Those changes came as a huge shock to the farming community. Until that moment, the best tax planning advice was to hold on to your farm until death and pass it on to the next generation, who could continue to run a viable farming business and help to feed the nation. While relief of £1m may sound like a lot of money, in practice it meant many family farms facing unplanned tax bills of hundreds of thousands of pounds, decimating years of hard work, killing investment plans, and leaving many food-producing businesses unviable in the process.

For some, the most elderly and vulnerable, who were trapped by age and an inability to take advantage of gifting rules, this tax was cruel, pernicious, and terrifying. I took calls from anxious relatives about their elderly parents and grandparents who were literally staring into the abyss, questioning their future before the tax became law in April next year. While there will still be new IHT taxes to pay, the changes announced to extend the tax relief to £2.5m will remove the majority of small, family farms from the eye of that storm. From the start, the government said it was trying to protect the family farm, that instead it wanted to target those using farmland as a tax shelter by taking advantage of this relief. Sadly, it was never going to work that way and, despite options put forward by the NFU and others, this policy was not for changing. Until now.

I am thankful common sense has prevailed and government has listened. I have had two very constructive meetings with prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and dozens of conversations with Defra secretary of state Emma Reynolds. She has played a key role in underlining the human impact of this tax. I am grateful to the prime minister for being willing to listen to members’ concerns and act on them. Combined with the spousal transfer announced in November’s Budget, significant change has been achieved. It’s change that is much needed. We have worked from the start to hold this government to its promises to rebuild its relationship with rural Britain. It would be an understatement to say the past 14 months have not been the best start, far from it.

But, as we start 2026, I am hopeful we have firmer ground from which to move on. Farming is the backbone of Britain. Our farmers grow and produce the raw ingredients that supply the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, food and drink, worth £155bn at the last count. It provides jobs for nearly four million people. But much more than that, farms are the beating heart of our rural communities, home to the working people of the countryside who have shaped our iconic landscapes for generations.

From the stone walls of Northumberland to the rolling pastures of Cornwall, British farming and its wares keep us fed. And in the future, there will be more food needed with the UK population set to reach 70 million in the coming year.

From today, I hope we have a government that understands the best way to keep people fed with affordable food is to secure its production at home, create policies and remove barriers to much-needed investment in this great British success story. Because that’s what British farming is.