Ministers and Treasury officials showed no interest in discussing alternatives to damaging family farm tax proposals at meetings held in London today (18 February).
In what felt like little more than a pointless tick-box exercise, today’s meeting with farming representatives, agreed after multiple requests, was fruitless and left participants angry and frustrated.
Farming organisations, including all UK farming unions, attended the long-awaited meeting with Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray MP and Food Security Minister Daniel Zeichner MP with a willingness to discuss alternatives to the UK Government’s deeply damaging proposed changes to inheritance tax, due to take effect from 6 April 2026. Those alternatives were dismissed without discussion.
NFU Scotland President Andrew Connon, who attended on behalf of Scottish farmers and crofters, said: “The dismissive attitude of Ministers and Treasury officials made this a deeply frustrating day and one that has left all involved very, very disappointed.
“Sticking to its own flawed evidence, the UK Government and Treasury officials have grossly underestimated the number of hard-working family farms and crofts that will be undermined by its damaging taxation proposals. The fact that they choose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the growing number of independent studies that highlight the real number of family farms and crofts that will be hit by their proposals is bewildering.
“The fight goes on. Without change, this Government’s proposals for inheritance tax (IHT) reforms will put growth and employment in the agricultural sector into reverse; Scotland’s wider rural economy will stall and fail and the contribution of farmers and crofters to the nation’s food security will be placed in jeopardy.
“Worse still, the UK Government and Treasury unwillingness to engage and blank refusal to consider any compromise will continue to inflict mental anguish and turmoil on thousands of hard-working farming families up and down the country. The blame for that sits squarely on the UK Government’s shoulders and, on today’s evidence, they do not seem to care.”
Accompanying the President to Westminster, NFU Scotland Director of Policy Jonnie Hall added: “Today was less about Treasury disputing the evidence and more about its total unwillingness to even consider possible alternatives that would still generate tax revenue but without hammering family farm businesses, food security and rural communities in the process.
“The UK farming unions fully believe there are alternative solutions that could deliver on UK Government’s objectives but by failing to engage, this is a stalemate that’s entirely of the Treasury’s own making.”
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Contact Bob Carruth on 0131 472 4006