A British farmer has claimed he can “no longer afford to die” following Labour’s inheritance tax raid on the agricultural industry.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled her plans for the tax in Wednesday’s Budget announcement, which has been branded “disastrous” by the National Farmers’ Union.
NFU President Tom Bradshaw said Labour’s Budget “not only threatens family farms, but will also make producing food more expensive”.
He added: “This means more cost for farmers who simply cannot absorb it, and it will have to be borne by someone.”
Rachel Reeves has been criticised for her ‘bonkers’ reforms on agriculture by British farmers
PA / GB News
Reacting to the reform, which will affect the Agricultural Property Relief from April 2026, farmer Olly Harrison claimed that the future generation of farmers “will not be able to pay the tax bill” when inheriting his farm.
Harrison told GB News: “I can’t afford to die basically. The tax bill that my children would end up with is not able to be paid through farming.
“The agricultural industry at the moment is on its knees. We’ve had some really bad weather patterns over the last five years, and there is no profit to put to one side to pay a 20 per cent tax bill.”
Noting his family’s history with his farm, and how he is the fourth generation farmer in his family’s business, Harrison fumed that the Labour government “now own 20 per cent of my farm”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves outlined Labour’s in the Budget announcement on Wednesday
GB News
Harrison told GB News: “I’m the fourth generation on this farm. We were tenants originally, and mum and dad paid a mortgage for a long time to be able to pass it on to me – I will probably now end up with a tax bill on some of it.
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“And now the tax bill would be many hundreds of thousands if I was to die and pass it on to my children. And the profit is not there in agriculture to be able to pay that.”
Noting the £1million threshold for the inheritance tax clampdown, Harrison stressed that although it “sounds like a lot”, no farmer “has that amount in liquid, it is an asset”.
Harrison expanded: “No one owns a farm. We look after it to the next generation, and by the time you take in a farmhouse and a farm yard and maybe some buildings that have got development potential, you obviously use them for agriculture.
“Suddenly you’re at £1million. So with all the land value, you’re then paying 20 per cent on your farm just to stay farming. It’s not affordable.”
Farmer Olly Harrison claimed he ‘cannot afford to die’ following the Budget announcement
GB News
Citing how the agricultural industry is “already on its knees”, Harrison fumed that farmers have been “hoodwinked” by the Labour Budget, and the Government has “spun us a line”.
Harrison raged: “We’ve been 100 per cent hoodwinked, they just spun as a line. They told us what we wanted to hear and then just completely went in the opposite direction. It’s bonkers.
“The annoying thing is, is farms are there to produce food for the nation. Without them, we’ve got to import everything. We need a UK food supply and at the moment the industry is just completely on its knees.”
He added: “We saw what happened in Covid when food supply got fragile, and they’ve just basically made it so that the next generation of farmers can’t afford to carry on.”