A fourth-generation farmer has warned that British agriculture “will not be the same” if Labour fails to revise its inheritance tax raid on farming estates.
Rob Harris told GB News his family farm faces an inheritance tax bill of around £600,000, payable over ten years, under the new rules.
“It’s just not viable,” Harris said, emphasising that farmers cannot afford to pay the inheritance tax under current profit levels.
After receiving support from supermarket chain Morrisons for their ongoing protests, Asda also publicly declared its support for farmers in a strongly-worded statement backing the agricultural sector.
Farmer Rob Harris has said the inheritance tax changes are ‘not viable’ for family farms
GB News
An Asda spokesman stated: “Farming is a vital part of our supply chain. We need a confident farming sector which is able and willing to invest in its future.”
The supermarket giant also confirmed it would support the National Farming Union’s campaign calling for a pause in the implementation of Agricultural Property Relief changes.
Speaking to GB News about the protests and the support of Asda and Morrisons, farmer Rob Harris stressed that there needs to be “pressure put on the Government” about the fragility of food security.
Harris explained: “Hopefully we can all put pressure on the Government to take food security seriously.
Farmers have been staging protests outside supermarkets across the country
GB News
“They’ve just got a mindset that they can get their food from anywhere across the world, and they don’t take food security serious at all. They can just buy it in cheaper from anywhere else, and it doesn’t take much to remember back during Covid, what happened there.”
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Harris warned that without changes to the inheritance tax policy, many farms could be forced to sell land for alternative developments, as they “cannot afford” to pay the bill.
He told GB News: “We’re not we’re not against paying tax, but we can’t afford to pay the inheritance tax. We don’t earn enough profit.
“I’m a fourth generation farmer here, and if the proposal, if something happened and one of us died, we’ll be looking at an inheritance tax of around £600,000. And you’ve got to pay that over the ten years. It’s just not viable.”
Predicting the next steps in negotiating a possible U-turn or compromise with Labour, Harris claimed that there needs to be more “joined up thinking” in the industry.
Harris told GB News that Labour must take food security ‘seriously’
GB News
Harris said: “The future of farming in this country, if they don’t change their mind, we will have to see more joined up thinking with the supermarkets and really try and put forward a fair price that we’re getting paid, because if we don’t, agriculture will not be the same.
“It’s all happened so fast. We haven’t had time to restructure, and nobody knows which way we’re meant to be heading and going. You can’t change your farming business overnight.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has so far rejected calls to modify the tax, despite warnings from farming groups about its impact on family farms.
The Government maintains that only a few farms will be affected, suggesting many family farms will fall below the threshold.
