Prime Minister Keir Starmer left a planned visit to a housing development early in Buckinghamshire today (Thursday 13 February) due to protests.
The PM was later interviewed by Sky News and ITV about his reaction to the protests and the government’s inheritance tax policy.
In response, NFU President Tom Bradshaw has said: “However high feelings are running in the farming community, today’s actions by a group which deliberately disrupted a major speech by the Prime Minister were misjudged and, clearly, have been massively counter-productive.
“This was not an NFU event.
“Since last October, the NFU has been leading a campaign to mitigate the damaging and inhumane impacts of the proposed changes to inheritance tax on farms, building independent evidence, huge public support and political backing across Parliament.”
Proposals for the Treasury
Referring to the PM’s interviews, Tom added: “While we understand, and share, the Prime Minister’s frustrations today, he is not right to say that APR (Agricultural Property Relief) and BPR (Business Property Relief) are ‘a tax break for farmers’.
“He knows they are policies designed to ensure family farms can stay in business and enable them to deliver for the nation. It’s also not reasonable to suggest that raising between nothing and £500 million – the varying estimates of what the new tax will bring in – will determine the future of the NHS or UK schools.
“The NFU has spent months trying to meet the Chancellor, more recently to share and discuss what we believe is a revenue neutral change to the family farm tax which helps the government in its aim of raising money, but also protects family farms and removes the elderly from the eye of this storm.
“Since last October, the NFU has been leading a campaign to mitigate the damaging and inhumane impacts of the proposed changes to inheritance tax on farms.”
NFU President Tom Bradshaw
“We have meetings with the Exchequer Secretary next week where we hope that, despite today’s events, he will welcome and consider these proposals properly.”
The NFU has been invited to a meeting with the Treasury on Tuesday 18 February to discuss proposed changes to inheritance tax policy.
“Events like today’s are not the way to achieve policy change,” Tom continued.
“The NFU represents 44,000 farming businesses in England and Wales and we will speak with their voices next week – calmly and constructively.”
