The government is being urged to “do the right thing” over its plan to bring in inheritance tax for farm businesses worth more than £1m, following months of protests by farmers.
Ministers are being encouraged to “reset” their relationship with Britain’s farmers, ahead of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) conference on Tuesday.
President Tom Bradshaw is set to give a highly critical speech, accusing the government of breaking promises with what he called a “morally wrong” policy on inheritance tax.
He is expected to urge ministers to “do the right thing” and reverse the tax policy, announced by the Treasury at Rachel Reeves’ October Budget.
Bradshaw will also criticise the “botched” agricultural transition from EU-era subsidies mostly for the amount of land farmed to payments for delivering public goods such as nature habitat and clean water, inherited from the last government.
And he will blame bad policy, geopolitics and “unprecedented weather” for leaving some sectors of the industry facing their worst cashflow crisis for generations.
“Many farmers are genuinely worried about how they’ll make it to the end of 2025,” he will warn.
It comes as no environment secretary Steve Reed is also set to address the central London conference, where he is expected to outline a series of policies the government hopes will boost profits for farmers – and improve relations with the sector.
This is set to include new requirements for government catering contracts to back British produce, a multimillion-pound investment in technology, extending the seasonal worker visa programme, strengthening controls on animal disease, and protecting farmers in trade deals.
Reed will say: “The underlying problem is that farmers do not make enough money for the hard work and commitment they put in.
“I will consider my time as secretary of state a failure if I do not improve profitability for farmers across the country.”
Ensuring farming is more profitable is “how we make your businesses viable for the future… [and] how we ensure the long-term food security this country needs,” Reed will stress.
The seasonal worker visa route will be extended for five years, with annual reviews, while £110m will be invested in new technology such as electric weeders that cut chemical use.
But Bradshaw will use his first speech to the annual conference as NFU president to reiterate opposition to the so-called “family farm tax”, which has prompted multiple protests by the sector since the move to introduce inheritance tax for farm businesses was unveiled.
“There were only 87 words in Labour’s manifesto about farming, but some of those words gave us hope for the future; policies on imports, binding targets for British food for the public sector, a recognition that food security is national security,” Bradshaw will say.
“We recognise these are still early days for a new government, but new ministers had hardly found their way to their offices when they broke their first promise.
“And it’s one which overshadows all else, wiping out our ability to plan, to invest and, often, to hope. It hangs over our farms, our families, our futures: the family farm tax.”
Bradshaw will criticise the Treasury for not taking up the NFU’s alternative solution to the inheritance tax policy, and warn “we will not go away, we will not stop, we will not give in”.
“We will fight the family farm tax until ministers do the right thing,” he will say.
He will call for an uplift in payments for more ambitious environmental schemes, known as higher level stewardship, and to prioritise food security amid geopolitical and climate change.
And he will launch new policy blueprints, the NFU’s vision of how to “underpin confident, sustainable, profitable farm businesses, while producing food for 70m British people”.
The conference will also hear from business group the CBI’s chief executive Rain Newton-Smith who will warn that the drive for growth in new tech and clean energy will “fall flat at the first hurdle” if the country does not back sectors such as farming.
She will say: “Farming is a vital part of the everyday economy – the true job creators and community builders… you can’t get growth unless you start by backing sectors like this.”