Northern Ireland MPs and peers call for rethink of agricultural inheritance tax

Northern Ireland’s MPs and peers person agreed successful a plea to the Government to rethink planned changes to inheritance taxation for farmers.

In a missive to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, DUP MP Carla Lockhart warned it could endanger the generational transportation of farms, disrupt agrarian communities and undermine the semipermanent information of the cultivation sector.

The Stormont Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has estimated that astir a 3rd of farms successful Northern Ireland volition beryllium affected.

It comes arsenic farmers program to instrumentality portion successful an Ulster Farmers’ Union rally successful Lisburn, Co Antrim, connected Monday evening.

A large-scale protestation is expected to instrumentality spot astatine Whitehall connected Tuesday.

Ms Lockhart has urged the Chancellor to reconsider her plans to axe historical cultivation spot alleviation (APR) connected inheritance taxation announced successful the caller Budget.

From April 2026, APR volition lone use to the archetypal £1 cardinal of the estate, with thing implicit that worth taxed astatine 20%.

The letter, which was circulated to the Treasury, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Defra curate Daniel Zeichner, has been countersigned by each sitting Northern Ireland MPs and members of the House of Lords.

Ms Lockhart described a “strong agreed connection connected this issue”.

“Agriculture isn’t conscionable a cornerstone of Northern Ireland’s economy, it is simply a cardinal portion of section communities and agrarian life,” she said.

“With much than 26,000 farms, the agri-food assemblage supports tens of thousands of families crossed the region, providing captious economic, societal and taste contributions.

Unlike different types of businesses, farming is asset-rich but often cash-poor, making inheritance taxation liabilities peculiarly hard to conscionable without important restructuring, borrowing, oregon plus disposal

MP Carla Lockhart successful missive to Chancellor

“The removal of Agricultural Property Relief volition spot a important and unfair fiscal load connected household farms, jeopardise their quality to walk connected these assets to aboriginal generations and hazard the sustainability of family-owned farming operations.”

Ms Lockhart said the program risks exacerbating existing pressures already faced by the cultivation sector, including rising operational costs, challenges from changing commercialized conditions and the uncertainties associated with clime policies.

She said astatine slightest a 3rd of each farms successful Northern Ireland are acceptable to beryllium affected, and 75% of dairy farms.

“Whilst astir £14,000 per acre is reported arsenic the mean price, onshore values successful Northern Ireland alteration massively, depending connected determination and sector, but are successful the main much costly than elsewhere successful the United Kingdom,” Ms Lockhart wrote successful her missive to the Chancellor.

“Unlike different types of businesses, farming is asset-rich but often cash-poor, making inheritance taxation liabilities peculiarly hard to conscionable without important restructuring, borrowing, oregon plus disposal, perchance starring to fragmentation oregon nonaccomplishment of productive land.

“We recognise and enactment the request for a just taxation system, but we powerfully judge that removing APR volition inadvertently endanger the generational transportation of farms, disrupt agrarian communities and undermine the semipermanent information of our cultivation sector.

“We powerfully impulse the authorities to reconsider this determination and to sphere APR for cultivation properties to guarantee that the adjacent procreation tin proceed to enactment and thrive successful this indispensable industry.

“We would invited the accidental to prosecute further with you connected this substance to sermon imaginable approaches that tin enactment some the government’s fiscal objectives and the viability of the cultivation assemblage successful Northern Ireland.”