Farmers’ protest live: Police probe tractors breaking barrier as Clarkson says inheritance tax a ‘hammer blow’

Lucy Harding, a fifth-generation dairy farm in Somerset, told The Independent: “A lot of us don’t make money we do it because they enjoy feeding the nation. We have no money and we will have to sell up with this tax.

“So many people have had to sell their livestock that they love and care about even before all this.

“There have already been so many suicides and there could be more. Farmers aren’t good at talking about their feelings.”

Asked if she could work in an office if her family were forced to sell up, she said: “I’m bred to be a farmer like how a breeding cow is bred to breed.

“I’m too hyperactive I genuinely don’t know what else I could do. The future is shady with all the regulations, all the other countries like New Zealand we have to compete with don’t have the same standards and can then undercut us.”

My Dad could remember my granny tucking him into bed during the Second World War and saying: “There you are. Your tummy is full, you are warm in bed with a roof over your head. There is no more that I can do for you.”

In that war, this country relied on Atlantic convoys to bring in food which was not available. “Dig for Victory” was the saying as everyone started to grow vegetables at home.

This was the time that my Dad was taken out of school, at the age of eight, to help with the harvest, and when the government learned the importance of food security.

A lot of people wouldn’t get out of bed for the money we make. We’re born farmers. It isn’t about the value of the land; it is about legacy. When my Dad died in 2021, he believed that the farm would be passed to the next generation. His reward for a lifetime of hard work and investment would be the opportunity for his grandson and those beyond to continue and build.

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After the peaceful march on Whitehall some farmers were unsure as to what effect it would have on the Government.

Asked if their tactics have to evolve to get their message heard, one female dairy farmer from Essex said: “We see France and Germany and how effective they are. Their farmers get stuff done. I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Other farmers spoke glowingly of tactics employed by groups like Just Stop Oil to get attention.

One said: “If you go back in history you see the farmer’s revolt coming to London with their pitchforks and axes and all that.But that’s not the way it is anymore.

“Just Stop Oil everyone hates them. They are tiny - under one percent of population but they get so much attention.”

The government wants farmers to pay the tax on assets above £1m apiece at a new rate of 20 per cent - less than the 40 per cent most others will pay. Yet before the Budget, they paid nothing on land under agricultural property relief with no limit.

The allowance comes on top of the £500,000 a typical homeowner gets if they leave their home to their children or grandchildren, so a married couple can shelter up to £3m from HMRC, a sum which will exclude most farms.

The NFU says the change, which will come into effect in April 2026, will force many farmers to sell their family farms to pay the tax bill. It claims that the change was pushed through without any consultation from the farming community.

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I got into farming because I love it. But it’s got so hard now to make enough money, I’m looking to get a second job.”

Chris Callow started raising livestock as soon as he left school, aged just 17. Now, aged 37, he and his wife, Jaz, own a small farm raising cattle and sheep near Axbridge in Somerset.

The couple have ambitions to expand the business and pass it on to their six children – but all is not going to plan.

Farmers tell Alex Ross that Rachel Reeves’ Budget ‘tractor tax’ is the latest blow to a family industry struggling to survive:

The general secretary of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has hinted that more extreme action could be taken if the government does not backtrack on its plan to extend inheritance tax to agricultural properties.

Asked “what happens next” following Tuesday’s planned events – which has seen an estimated 20,000 people descend on Westminster to urge the government to backtrack on the levy – Tom Bradshaw said: “I think you’ll have all seen the media reports about what farmers across the United Kingdom think they should be doing next.”

It comes as farmers have threatened the government with “militant action” over the policy, which they argue will cause food shortages and the breakup of family farms.

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The Environment Secretary has said many farmers protesting in Westminster over changes to inheritance tax are “wrong” about the policy.

Appearing before MPs in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Steve Reed was told there are “a lot more than 500 (farmers) here saying they’re going to be affected” and asked whether they were wrong.

He replied: “Well, assuming these projections from HMRC, validated by the OBR and IFS, are correct then many of them, probably happily, are wrong because there are things that they can do to plan their tax affairs as most businesses or asset owners would do to limit their liability.

“The numbers I’ve heard bandied around are enormous and very, very frightening if people were to believe them.”

He said figures being used by critics were based on Defra data on the value of farms “and then people have drawn a straight line to an inheritance tax liability, but you can’t do that, because ownership is much more complex than one person, one farm”.

He added: “Of course we want family farming to continue, just as it always has done.”