'Pause disastrous tax'

A FARMING leader has urged the Government to pause its “disastrous” reforms to agricultural inheritance tax in order to deliver on food security and growth.

National Farmers’ Union president Tom Bradshaw said he had never before seen the “anger, despair and sense of betrayal” prompted by ending the 100% exemption from inheritance tax on qualifying business and agricultural assets worth more than £1 million.

In his new year message, Mr Bradshaw said Labour’s first budget, which brought in the proposed changes, had capped a “wretched year” for farming, which had suffered volatile costs, one of the wettest periods in decades and a reduction in subsidies.

He described the inheritance tax changes as an “indefensible family farm tax”, although the Government has repeatedly defended the move, saying the vast majority of farmers will not have to pay it.