A Labour MP has warned his party’s inheritance tax changes are making farmers wish for early deaths.
Steve Witherden, who represents Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr in Wales, said a tearful farmer and his wife told him “if only I could die now” to avoid the raid.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans in her Budget to limit the current 100% inheritance tax relief for farms to the first £1million of agricultural and business property.
Farmers have argued the bills will prevent their children being able to continue the business.
The Government has faced an ongoing backlash for imposing the change. The Daily Express’s Save Britain’s Family Farm crusade has demanded a U-turn on the proposals.
Mr Witherden called on ministers to rethink the controversial policy, which is due to come into force in April 2026.
Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday, the Labour MP said he was emotional because “when you sit with an elderly farmer and his wife, and both are fighting back tears, and they tell you ‘if only I could die now, if only there were some sort of pill I could take now, so that my children won’t have to worry about this’, it does have a profound effect on you”.
He urged the Government to look at raising the threshold, saying: “If this policy is to target those who buy farms solely to dodge inheritance tax, then let’s make it so.”
He also called for an exemption for farmers who are “too late in life to plan for this proposed change”.
Mr Witherden told MPs: “In the 21st century we see individual plutocrats and super-wealthy multinationals buying up agricultural land to avoid paying inheritance tax, with no intention to use it for farming.
“This reduces our farmed land, which we can ill-afford when we have a fast-growing population in an unstable world.
“But the proposed changes to agricultural property relief for farmers come off the back of this and more, and feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“Changes to agricultural property relief risks having a deeply detrimental effect on working family farms.”
