“Protecting working people” - a line heralded time after time in the run-up to, and during last week’s long-awaited Budget statement. However, as the dust settles following Rachel Reeves’ announcement on Halloween-eve, for many hardworking Welsh farmers the consequences of the Budget are likely to unravel as more of a trick than a treat.
At the heart of such anxieties lies the significant reform of inheritance tax relief. “Ensuring that we continue to protect small family farms” was the Chancellor’s promise from the dispatch box - but in practice, such changes have sent shockwaves through our farming families.
Inheritance tax relief through the Agricultural Property Relief (APR) has long supported the very fabric of our rural communities - aiding and incentivising Welsh family farms to pass from generation to generation. This has ensured those who inherit agricultural holdings are not crippled by taxes - thus avoiding adverse effects on rural businesses and employment, and crucially, safeguarding our wider Welsh food production and food security.
Due to the key importance of APR, the FUW has long opposed reforms to its structure - a position that was also previously voiced in November 2023 by Labour’s Steve Reed, now Secretary of State at DEFRA, who less than a year ago ruled out scrapping inheritance tax relief for farmland.
However, despite these previous assurances, the Budget revealed that from April 2026 the 100% rate tax relief will cease for businesses and land worth over £1 million - with an inheritance tax introduced thereafter at an effective rate of 20%.
The Chancellor assured us that three quarters of farms would remain unaffected by the change, but the FUW shares the industry’s wider concerns that these reforms could very well undermine the viability of our family farms, rural communities and the wider need for food security.
Whilst a million pounds may appear to be a huge sum for those outside the industry, for many Welsh farmsteads, even a conservative estimate of the value of accumulated land and infrastructure could see the £1m threshold easily breached. Subsequently, for many farming families, asset rich but operating on slim financial margins, there may well be little choice but to break-up the family farm to meet such death duties.
The emotional, economic and societal consequences of this potential dissolution of Welsh family farms could be significant and will have a real consequence for our food production - impacting the price of food. To this end the FUW will continue to challenge this tax reform and lobby the UK Government for a degree of clarity on changes which appear confused and ill-thought through.
As last week’s announcement inevitably draws farmers’ thoughts and focus towards succession planning and future-proofing, it is worth emphasising alternative avenues of estate planning are available - with guidance and support for farmers readily available from partners of the FUW.
However, in a year that has already seen mass unrest, uncertainty and declining morale within the farming sector, this latest intervention from Government is a further straw on the strained back of an industry already in turmoil.