Shropshire's furious farmers en route to Westminster to join protest over Inheritance Tax reforms

Kier Starmer's Labour government has been engulfed in criticism following the announcement that, starting April 2026, agricultural assets valued over £1 million will no longer be exempt from the tax.

Under plans unveiled in the autumn Budget on October 30, Inheritance Tax would be levied at 20 per cent on agricultural assets above £1 million, which includes livestock, farmhouses, sheds, and machinery - although Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that in some cases the threshold could in practice be about £3 million.

According to the Government, the change will deter investors from sidestepping the tax by purchasing farmland, after Labour's analysis revealed a decline in the amount of agricultural land actively used for farming and a significant recent increase in wealthy individuals and institutions acquiring farmland across England.

But farmers who have already been hit by Covid, Brexit, the cost of living crisis and a year of poor weather warn that the change could spell the end for farms that have been in families for generations.

In response to the plans, dozens of farmers from Shropshire were heading to Westminster on Tuesday morning to join a protest that has been organised to coincide with a mass lobby being held by the National Farmers' Union (NFU), who will meet MPs to make the case for reversing the tax decisions.

We met one coach in the snow as it pulled into Telford Services off the M54 at around 5.30am, to pick up a handful of awaiting farmers.

Among those were father and son Neil and Adam Baylis from Haughton House Farm. Neil is the fourth generation farmer in his family, with Adam keen to become the fifth.

Their 300-acre farm is worth around £4 million, but the family say paying an additional tax would force them to sell off land.

Neil said: "A million pounds is nothing in farming, a house with 30 acres is a million pounds.

"I don't get a wage, [Adam] doesn't get a wage, my wife doesn't get a wage. You just roll over, you just survive. The accountants told us yesterday you've lost £24,000 this year.

"Hitting people this hard in any business, it's not good, especially when they want businesses to carry on.

"Our land, in the end, will go for building. I don't want it to go in my lifetime. I love my land. But if it has to go, it has to."

NFU East Shropshire group secretary, Neil Wagstaff, was also hopping on board to take the four-hour coach journey to the capital.

He said: "Farmers don't see farms as a £4 million asset - this is the tools of the trade for them to be able to work. All that is, is land for them to feed their cattle, to grow their crops on - it's not money in their back pocket.

"These businesses are so fragile now. A lot have been impacted by the weather - two bad summers of weather, yields are down, prices are suppressed. If people start cutting back any further there will be a shortage, and shortages mean a price increase.

"There's such a swell of feeling here today, and this weather will not put people off. They're farmers - they are used to this."

Shrewsbury farmer Ed Tate said he was taking "an ill-afforded day from work" to attend the protest in support of Shropshire's more than 3,600 family farms.

Mr Tate said family farms, who had been "battered by neglect from the last Conservative administration" and were now "reeling from a Labour budget shock which stands to tip many over the edge and into insolvency".

He added: "[The Budget] if not amended, will undoubtedly cause terminal hardship and unfathomable pain to over half our farms and the families who work them.

"Farmers provide a vital service, after all we all rely on someone who grows food three times a day. In spite of this, many in the agricultural sector are poorly remunerated with the majority of small family farmers receiving below the national living wage for the long hours they work.

"Sadly, recent years have seen many farms actually losing money due to bad weather, huge inflation, poorly implemented national policies and the importation of cheap food not produced to the environmental standards rightly expected here in the UK.

"In short, the majority of family farms are hanging on by a thread. There is no available cash to pay extra taxes."

NFU Shropshire county adviser, Edward Garratt, joined around 40 farmers on board the coach and said there was a lot of passion in the county for the cause.

He added: "There's passion about farming full stop, we wouldn't do this job if we weren't passionate about it. The fear that this will kill off family farms is really real.

"There are hundreds coming from Shropshire and there will be tens of thousands of people in London today."

By 10.30am on Tuesday, tractors began arriving in the city as protesters with placards began to gather - joined by Top Gear star turned farmer, Jeremy Clarkson.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Clarkson said the tax could be "the end" for farmers, and asked the Government to "please back down".

Environment Secretary Steve Reed insisted that only "about 500 farms" would be impacted, rather than the tens of thousands claimed by critics.