Farmers outside Parliament over tax raid (Image: Aaron Newbury)
A desperate farmer in her nineties has demanded Sir Keir Starmer tell her when she must die to save her family farm from Labour's inheritance tax raid. The heartbreaking letter, handed to the Daily Express by her son Roger Denton as he protested outside Parliament on Tuesday, lays bare the devastating human cost of Rachel Reeves' family farm tax.
In an emotional plea to the Prime Minister, the elderly farmer writes: “My husband and I, now 90+ years old, with a growing family and now grandchildren, have built up a viable dairy/corn farm on virgin land producing food.” She continues: “We now need to know as soon as possible the date we need to die by, to avoid paying the unfair inheritance tax that will be forcibly put on our offspring, to have to sell/split up a good producing farm, and do what? I await the date.”
Her 62-year-old son Mr Denton, who has worked as a farmer and agricultural contractor his entire life, told the Express: “We are being absolutely crucified.” He urged Ms Reeves to scrap the family farm tax entirely as she delivered her Spring Statement on Tuesday, warning her recent U-turn does not go far enough.
Despite the Chancellor announcing a partial climbdown in December, raising the threshold at which families will be hit by the tax from £1million to £2.5million, Mr Denton said it does not get the job done. Branding the tax a “lottery”, he said: “If my parents were to pass away we would be slapped with a tax I could not afford, forcing me to sell parts of, or the entire, farm.”
Read more: Labor at war with countryside while pretending to understand rural Britain
The devastating admission came as farmers once again massed outside the Palace of Westminster to protest against the Chancellor's tax raid on agricultural land. Mr Denton told the Express he could not borrow money for his business because banks “won't let you because they can see there's no future”.
Labour's plans have caused widespread uncertainty in the farming sector, which campaigners say has hammered business confidence and left families in limbo over their futures. The Daily Express has been campaigning to end the family farm tax since it was announced after Labor took office in July 2024.
Campaigners said the threshold increase was a welcome step but did not undo the “catastrophic financial and mental health costs” of the tax. Some farmers have reportedly taken their own lives to avoid passing on farms to relatives who would be forced to sell land to pay the Treasury.
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Roger Denton handed letter to Express outside Parliament (Image: Getty)
Johnnie Furse from the Countryside Alliance said the Government needed to “apologise and listen to continued concerns from within the farming community over the policy and its wider impact”.
Shadow DEFRA Minister Victoria Atkins MP said: “I have warned the Government again and again about the terrible impact of this vindictive tax on rural communities. For 14 months, they dismissed farmers' concerns outright, producing dodgy numbers and refusing to acknowledge the terrible consequences.”
She added: “Their partial U-turn, snuck out just before Christmas, did not undo the months of distress, pain and panic that their taxes have caused families. Many farmers are still on the line for huge bills, and even those who are not will not easily forgive Labour.”
Ms Atkins said: “It is only the Conservatives who will scrap the Family Farm and Family Business Taxes in their entirety.”
A DEFRA spokesperson said: “We have listened to farmers and business owners across the country and have made changes to inheritance tax relief to protect more family farms.”