NFU Conference 2025: Family Farm Tax is ‘morally wrong’
25th February 2025
NFU president Tom Bradshaw has opened this year’s NFU Conference by saying that the Family Farm Tax is “morally wrong” and calling on the government to keep the promise Labour made to farmers amid general elections.
Mr Bradshaw said: “Our conference this year is framed around the foundations for the future. However hard things are, we must meet the challenges ahead.
“[…] There were only 87 words in Labour’s manifesto about farming, but some of those words gave us hope, and even belief for the future.
“Promises on imports, binding targets for British food for the public sector, a recognition that food security is national security.
“On most of these we’re still hoping, although 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.”
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‘Cruel’ Family Farm Tax
Mr Bradshaw has called the changes to the inheritance tax a “morally wrong and economically flawed” policy.
He added: “Today, I worry about the tenant farmer whose home and livelihood may be taken away, because a landlord is often better off taking their land back in hand.
“I worry about former tenants too. People who have scraped everything together, risked it all to finally buy their farm. They are now facing an unpayable bill.
“I worry about the next generation, whose entire future in the industry is now in question. Most of all I fear for elderly farmers.”
The NFU president said that it is difficult for him to hear that many older farmers are now facing the very real dilemma that, unless they die before April 2026, their children will face a Family Farm Tax bill that they simply do not make enough money to pay.
“What a cruel position to put elderly people in with no warning, by way of a broken promise, and one the government must urgently correct,” he continued.
‘We will not stop’
Mr Bradshaw stressed that public support is “absolutely critical”. He also said that this morning three generations of the same farming family delivered toy tractors to the Treasury.
“Every single one sent by a farming family, which will be devastated by this awful tax, and everyone carrying a heartfelt message.
“As for me, I have repeatedly asked the Chancellor to meet me. Rural Labour MPs have asked her to meet me. The Chair of the Efra Select Committee has said it’s unacceptable she hasn’t met me. I suspect the Secretary of State would like her to meet me too… Perhaps if I offered to meet her in Davos, she might finally say yes.
“What the chancellor has said, is that nobody has offered alternative solutions. So, last week, all the UK farming unions and several other organisations took a solution into Treasury, after being summoned to meet ministers.
“And what happened? They simply sent us away, with the sound of a slamming door ringing in our ears. Conference, they were not interested.”
Mr Bradshaw concluded by saying that NFU Conference 2025 sends a clear message: ‘We will not stop, we will not give in. We will fight the family farm tax until ministers do the right thing’.
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