Rachel Reeves's 'vindictive' farmer tax causing 'food and farming emergency'

The Tories will declare a "food and farming emergency" on Monday because of Rachel Reeves's "vindictive" inheritance tax raid on farmers.

Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins is also set to announce that the Conservatives could scrap the biggest green quangos, including Natural England and the Environment Agency, as part of their attempts to slash red tape and make life easier for farmers and rural communities.

Speaking to the Daily Express ahead of her speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Monday, she said: "We are in a food and farming emergency because the vindictive family farm and family firm tax has had already a devastating impact on the rural economy and on farms. We're seeing record farm closures.

"We also know that this affects us all because, clearly, if our farmers aren't growing food for us, then that has an impact for us buying food. We know that food price inflation is not only rising for the fifth month in a row, it's going to continue rising. And part of that rise is because of measures in Labor's last budget. So we are in an emergency and my focus at this conference will be to deal with the urgency of this situation because it's only going to get worse."

The Government has insisted it is steadfast in its commitment to Britain's farming industry.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that from April 2026, combined agricultural and business property assets up to £1 million will still receive 100% relief but anything above that will be taxed at an effective rate of 20%.

Asset rich farmers who are cash poor fear they will have to sell off their land - making it unviable for food production - to foot the tax bill.

The Daily Express has campaigned for the Government to U-turn on its inheritance tax raid through the Save Britain's Family Farms crusade.

Ms Atkins said the Tories will review the 34 quangos, or arm-length bodies, that report into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

The government has also said ministers will consider the future of the biggest environmental quangos as part of a push to slash regulations before the budget.

Ms Reeves has demanded a fresh attempt to make a significant reduction in the 438 quangos operating in Whitehall, which a report has said cost the taxpayer £376 billion a year.

Ms Atkins said: "The system of regulation and regulators, which has evolved over many, many years and has always been built on the very best of intentions, that this system now has become unworkable for many people.

"We very much accept that this system built on the best of intentions has led to an army of quangos totalling some 34 for all reporting into DEFRA and so, we want to look at that again. Not with a view to removing regulation completely absolutely not. Of course, we want to ensure that the very, frankly impressive environmental targets that we have set and met when we're in government that those continue to be met, but we want these regulators to work with the grain of rural and coastal society. Not against it."

Ms Atkins was also quizzed on the Tories' decision to repeal the Climate Change Act if her Party returns to power.

It was put to her that farmers are facing devastation caused by extreme weather events, which are fuelled by the emission of greenhouse gases.

She said: "The Climate Change Act obviously was brought into force with near universal support and we fully acknowledge that climate change is happening today.

"We have to look at this piece of legislation that is 20 years old and ask ourselves, what has it achieved? Because whilst we can be very proud of our record of cutting emissions in the United Kingdom, when we look overseas, sadly, there are other countries that are by far the largest contributors to emissions. And this act has had no impact on them whatsoever.

"And so what Kemi[Badenoch] and Claire [Coutinho]are looking at is whether the legislation, as it stood 20 years ago, is fit for purpose in doing what we want it to do today. They have concluded it is not."

Ms Atkins did not believe that repealing the legislation would lead to the UK losing its status globally as a leader in the fight against climate change.