Labour gives farmers 'slab of anxiety' as they 'struggle' to survive

A farmer forced to sell part of his land to afford Rachel Reeves's inheritance tax raid warned of a "struggle" ahead to keep his business alive. Richard Brooks, who has a Royal Warrant for supplying hay to the Monarch, is between £500,000 to £1million over the Government's new threshold for inheritance tax.

The third-generation grower of premium horse food, based in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, told how his family has farmed the land for 108 years, but its future is at risk. He said: "My grandfather rented the farm when he came out after the Great War, and then my father subsequently bought it. It's definitely something that I want to pass on to the next generation.

"We want to make it to 250 years. But a combination of economics and policies at the moment make it a struggle."

He added: "My wife and I have to say that prior to the U-turn on the threshold, we were really looking at the viability of whether it's time to call it a day, which would have been tragic because my own son wants to come back and farm."

Father of two Richard, 61, spent around £10,000 navigating the policy change and selling 42 acres of land to afford the Chancellor's tax hike on farmers, which was set to come into force in April.

But quietly, Labour's watered-down plans will now see the relief threshold for farmers raised from £1million to £2.5million.

This followed months of protests and warnings over farmers contemplating suicide to avoid the taxes as they pass their businesses from generation to generation.

Farmers raised alarms about the impact of the policy on their community, which already faces disproportionately high rates of suicide because of intense pressures like financial instability, isolation, long hours and unpredictable weather.

The Daily Express had also demanded a U-turn through the Save Britain's Family Farms crusade.

A higher threshold, which will take effect in April, will allow spouses or civil partners to pass on up to £5million in qualifying agricultural or business assets between them before paying inheritance tax - on top of existing allowances.

Eurobale's Richard, who was granted a Royal Warrant in 2010 for supplying haylage to the Royal Studs at Sandringham, said: "It's a very, very welcome reprieve, and I would just say that I can't help but feel there was a little element of class warfare or a cultural divide. Left-of-centre MPs not really understanding the agricultural community.

"Because the amount of money that it would raise to cause all that anguish is very, very minimal.

"I don't think any farmer would have any objection to saying, 'look, scrap the inheritance tax, but if somebody inherits and sells it subsequently, yeah, plop them for the full amount'. That's fair enough."

Richard, who owns half the farm with his 91-year-old father Geoff, hopes the reprieve means his son Harry, 26, will take over the business.

The family owns 400 acres but farms 1,100 acres in total.

Richard, who has been married to his 57-year-old wife Roseanna for 30 years, said: "My father's 92 in March, so this was another aspect that I don't think everyone grasped.

"People talked about the seven-year gifting rule. But when your father's 91, that's quite a problem. With the best will in the world, when you're at 91 doing seven-year giftings, quite a difficult proposition. But my father was very sad that we sold some land.

"Land only comes up once in a generation. We loathe to part with it, having worked to gain that, then parcel it off and sell it again.

"And particularly, as it turned out, I could probably have managed without [selling] it."

In most circumstances, there is no inheritance tax on the value of gifts given seven or more years before someone dies.

But if a person dies within seven years of gifting money or another asset from their estate, then their loved ones may have to pay inheritance on the value of those gifts

Richard already owns half the farm that was left to him by his mother but stands to inherit the remaining half.

Richard said: "I'm quite a relaxed individual. I am not someone that lives on my nerves but farms are under financial pressure already at the moment, and there will be many because agriculture is in a difficult place at the moment."

Talking about the inheritance tax raid, he continued: "That legislation led to another big slab of anxiety for these farmers."

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds ruled out further concessions over the introduction of inheritance tax for farming businesses.

Speaking at a conference in Oxford on Thursday, she said the Government had listened to the concerns of farmers over the controversial plans to levy inheritance tax on their businesses and had "significantly increased" the threshold at which they would have to pay the tax.

As farmers protested outside the conference venue and sounded their tractor horns, she said: "May I also say, with the greatest respect to those outside, it's the people in this room who have engaged with us constructively, and relatively quietly, that have had an influence on this process, and not the people sounding their horns."

Richard's family farm will diversify to try to shield it from future policy changes.

He added: "I don't think they quite understand that in agriculture, you can't put your prices up."

The farmers also warned against damaging the local sector and relying on cheap food imports from abroad.

He said: "If we outsource all our food production to the cheapest possible and lowest denominator, we're really laying ourselves open for catastrophic consequences if something does go wrong in the global order.

"As long as we don't have any more interesting interventions from Government, I would say my position is safe, although anxiety levels have probably gone up a degree.

"There's very little cushion. There's very little fat in anything. For what I do, I'm extremely weather reliant. And you know two very difficult harvests in a row would push us into an uncomfortable position."

He plans to "build in some resilience" and develop "alternative revenue streams" by exploring solar farms and other forms of diversification

Richard added: "But what's a shame is doing all this is taking away the food resilience of the UK and relying more and more on imports."