Do you need your parent/s to die before April 2026? *MNHQ adding content warning mentions suicide*

[Spatulation]

Absolutely reeling that we're losing the farm that my grandfather bought, my father expanded and my son hoped to takeover.

The budget today means that we'll owe £1000000 in tax and we won't be able to get a mortgage as that's 5 times our annual income and over 35000 times bigger than last year's profit.

We own soil. That's it.

Agriculture has the highest suicide rate in any profession - sadly I can see it hitting an all time high in the next 18 months. My father (83) is already talking about it.

And how will they raise the, what, £6 million? For a business whose profit might be £30,000? Who's going to lend the money?

And where are all these bright energetic young things queuing up to be farmers with no farming experience?

It will be a combination of the housing value, the machinery (a combine can easily be worth £100k) and then the land. If you have a farm house worth £500,000 then £200,000 of machinery you don't need a lot of land to tip over the £1million threshold.

Vast majority of folks will be fine so don't count your chickens there is no budget where everyone is happy loads of people are pissed off with how this country is broken so things need to be helped which takes money. This budget isn't on incomes it's on assets and wealth that's the fairer way to do it. Mow I keep saying folks are ignoring me that on lbc james o Brian had fact checked and 85 percent of farms will be OK. And if folks have forgiven what the bastard tory arseholes did to this country then they are fools

Ah ok. Not trailering feed out to livestock or towing sheep or anything like that then?

FFS.

This is quite specific to be used as a sweeping judgement against all farmers.

last time I was in hospital the nurse was an utter cow and had me in tears but I don’t think all health care workers are awful

I totally agree and although the farms are worth a huge amount of money, unless the farm is sold the money is tied up. My house might be worth £500k but unless I sell it, I don't have £500k sitting in my bank account - and even then iv got a mortgage which comes off. Farms will have loans against them for machinery etc to all come off. Im sure many farming families would be well off if they sold their farms but as the Op has said they don't want to sell their farm. No one will want to buy a farm to farm it with these rules so all our farm land will literally become housing. We will become even more relent on foreign imports and ultra processed foods. This is a horrific policy. I hope labour don't last the term and the next gov reverse this asap

How many farms / farmers are like this?

Is it hate a farmer week?

I suspect what will end up happening is that the IHT will be rolled until the land is sold and a gain is realized or there will be some kind of government back loan scheme so that the new farmers essentially buy the farm over time. This feels like an area where there is more refinement to come. This would help eliminate those who buy farms for tax avoidance.

I think it is a surprising number of small farm estates. As I have posted above I have 4 farms locally where I have bees where the farm has been brought by an investment banker and they don't do a vast amount of "farming". Works well for me since I get somewhere to put some bees with minimal interference.

I can equally say, as a member of a farming family, and as someone who worked in the industry for years, that I can't think of a single farming family that sent their kids to private school. Farms sometimes have good years, and they sometimes have very bad years (most often weather related) which wipe out anything built up in the good years. There is no way there is a consistent flow of cash to support private school fees in the huge majority of cases.

85% of farms will be fine because a family member isn't going to die before the policy is changed because its nuts.

15% of farms WILL not be fine. Thats 15% of our food producing capability.

ARE WE OFF OUR HEADS IN DISMISSING THIS AS AN INSIGNIFICANT % THAT WILL HAVE A POTENTIALLY MASSIVE IMPACT ON OUR FOOD PRODUCTION IN THIS COUNTRY?!

This actually makes it an issue of national bloody security!

Theres some pretty crazy stereotypes of farmers on this thread aren't there?!

It’s not £1m threshold though is it? Agricultural businesses will get extra relief on top of the existing nil rate-up to an extra £1m.

There must be lots of other farmers in a similar situation, farms do tend to get handed down through the generations. Can you get the NFU to step in and help, find a loophole etc - they have certainly recognised the impact of the budget. https://www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-information/budget-blow-for-british-farming-says-nfu/ Maybe get your local MP onto this and see what they can do?

Vast majority of folks will be fine

Only people who are too thick to realise that that the cost of this budget will be directly passed on to them. Employers costs have gone up massively. Who is going to pay for that do you think? All of us - by reduction of the work force (cutting numbers of employees) and by increase in the charges for the business whatever it is - a cup of coffee, the cleaning contractors, the accountancy firm. Doesn't matter. We will all pay more.

Credit to the Labour party for the budget though because it's definitely one where the dumb sheep will think ' vast majority of folks will be fine' because it looks like it's all about other people, not my back yard. Presentationally attractive to the masses but only if you are stupid.

I know… evil farmers right?? Absolutely batshit crazy some of these posts!

Hi OP, I'm really sorry about all this. I have written to Mrs Reeves at HMT in protest as I really fear for family farms.

James O Brien on LBC has absolutely no idea whatsoever. He would support the Labour budget whatever they did - if they imposed a 100 per cent wealth tax on all private school parents except James o brien, he'd be cheering it on wildly. Up to £2m is very little in farming for all land and all machinery.

I hope he does get involved. I'm not particularly a Clarkson fan but he's been great at putting farming on people's radar and highlighting just how difficult and precarious it is. I think if he spearheaded a campaign about this it could be very effective.

@MrsJoanDanvers

It's £1m plus your nil rate, yes. What if you've lost a spouse a long time ago? It's still very little in farming terms.

@Spatulation I'm so sorry. I grew up in a farming community and know how much sacrifice goes into farming. None of the farmers I knew were holidaying in Barbados or New York.

Two family farms I know aren't getting split up between the children. For each of those farms one child will inherit and the rest will have some cash. It's a huge sacrifice for families but it's the only way the farms can stay financially viable.

I’m not saying anyone is awful. What I am saying is that there has always been a lot of tax breaks open to farming that aren’t open to other small businesses. It is difficult for people to understand how people can complain when driving around in £100k vehicles. You might not like that point but it does happen. Equally, why should my children have to repay student loans when my neighbours kids get a full grant because they are “poor” <<farmers>> and clearly the life style they lead is similar to mine and they have the benefit of sitting on £1.5 million worth of assets? I come from a farming background by the way so can see both sides. I don’t agree with the inheritance tax.

I'm really worried about food security. Will all the farm land end up owned by shareholders abroad, who coukd divert food grown here to wherever they like. Like feeding soldiers on a front line.

Tin foil hatting for a moment, indulge me…

Farm needs to be sold to pay death duties, question is who’ll buy and what will they do with it?

1. Another farmer - unlikely as they too would need to sell on death.
2. Mega / Corporate farm - possibly, economies of scale and all that. May mean a change to the look of the farm, large prairie-style fields instead of smaller ones and one dominant crop for ease of planning and cultivation. Likely most profitable and unlikely to be heritage varieties or things that require lots of nurture and intervention, or indeed organic. Reduction in choice of UK grown food.
3. Conglomerate to concentrate on farming biofuels. As we move to majority electric vehicles tax takes will fall on petrol. Grow biofuels tax take is doubled - from sale of farming product plus fuel duty. Biofuels used instead of fossil fuels keeps pledge to move towards net zero, plus useful energy infrastructure back up for generators at essential sites such as hospitals and days when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
4. Building plot - possible. Angela Rayner has a target for house building and greenfield sites are cheaper to develop than brownfield. Government have massive majority so laws restricting land use changes can be amended to suit.
5. Solar farms - Ed Miliband has ambitious net zero targets and energy generation at scale is considered of national importance so permission would likely be granted irrespective of impact on local community - see Sunnica 2500 acres.
6. Mineral extraction - lots of farmland sits on beds of gravel which is essential for building projects. See point 4. Also considered to be of national importance.

And what of food if the former productive farmland is covered in solar/housing/gravel pits?

I seem to recall Keir Starmer making a speech about ‘ripping up red tape’ to encourage international trade.
Build on farmland, buy in food. What could possibly go wrong?

Ooo yes, farms being owned by investment bankers that sounds like a GREAT step forward for food security and reducing inequality.

Can't see what would go wrong with that.

I mean, the feudal system worked so fucking well.

Not stupid I get all that but it's a gamble she's done we shall see . What other ways woukd raise what is needed as I say winners and losers all the time