Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster on Tuesday to protest against the inheritance tax changes for farming businesses introduced in last month’s Budget. The changes mean inheritance tax of 20% will apply to combined agricultural and business property worth more than £1 million. The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) also held an event at Church Hall, ahead of their meetings with MPs. Report by Jonesia. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Millions of people love our farmers, let's all stand together.
00:30This year, you are going to get louder, because I think this time, we are going to win.
00:51We are here today to show the government how much we really care about British agriculture,
01:07and how much it really means to us.
01:09These farms go back a long, long way, deep in generational roots,
01:14and we really need to make sure what they want to do doesn't go through,
01:20because it will damage the infrastructure of agriculture in the UK as we know it.
01:25There's no surplus of profit in farming, so it's very, very hard to survive anywhere with everything that's been thrown at us,
01:34and here we are with just one budget, we're in a situation where we're all panicking.
01:39Flying all the food in and different things like that just doesn't work out.
01:43If you want organic, you know, if you want properly, ethically reared things,
01:48and you want it cheap and environmentally friendly, you should support your local farmers.
02:04Please back down, please, please, please back down.
02:10It takes something extraordinary to get us to react like this.
02:25I don't think I've ever seen the industry this angry, this disillusioned, this upset.
02:32This is sorry stuff.
02:34It's also what happens when you launch a policy without consulting anyone who knows anything about it.
02:40Farmers and the public deserve better.
02:44Ladies at the farm.
02:49Everyone on me, and here we go.
02:53And one more this way.
03:00What this tax change will mean is that family farms are split up, they're sold.
03:05We will have tenanted farmers, because this Labour government seems to think that all farmers own the land they farm.
03:11No, we don't. There are many, many tenanted farmers who will not be able to continue their livelihoods over many generations
03:17because these family farms are going to be sold off by landowners because they have to pay their tax bill somehow.
03:31This government is on the side of farming. We've just allocated £5 billion to farming.
03:36That's the biggest budget in our country's history for sustainable farming.
03:40The vast majority of farms will not be affected by these changes to inheritance tax,
03:44but it's only right we ask the very wealthiest to pay their fair share.
03:48Otherwise, we can't fix services like the National Health Service that farmers rely on
03:53and people living in rural communities just like everybody else.