Tax the corporations not farmers.
A record number of 6,365 farms have closed in the UK over the past year (as of July 2025), largely due to changes in inheritance tax policies implemented by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. This represents the highest rate of closures since data collection began in 2017, with many farmers citing financial instability as a key factor.
Angry farmers disrupt Minister’s speech with loud tractor tax protest in Oxford
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A record number of farms have closed in the wake of Rachel Reeves‘s inheritance tax raid, new figures suggest.
In total 6,365 agriculture, forestry and fishing businesses have closed over the past year, the highest since quarterly data was first published in 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The chancellor has faced a furious backlash over her decision to extend inheritance tax, which critics warn could sound the death knell for family farms in England.
All the major supermarkets have backed the farmers and called on Ms Reeves to halt her controversial ‘tractor tax’ plan. But ministers have ploughed ahead even though the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned the policy may raise less than the Treasury hopes, with the £500m-a year-revenue forecast given a “high” uncertainty rating and likely to fall after seven years.
Victoria Vyvyan, the president of the Country Land and Business Association, said rural businesses “are being pushed to the edge”.
“Farmers trying to modernise or diversify are blocked at every turn – by red tape, by National Insurance rises, by a government that talks growth while pulling out the foundations beneath it,” she said.
“Still, the countryside carries on. New businesses are opening. People are holding on. But grit isn’t a strategy. What’s needed now is simple: stability, clarity, and a government willing to listen – before more farms are lost and more families are forced out.” —- The Independent Friday 25 July 2025 10:44 BST (this is not old news until the crisis is corrected —SH)
Catholic Critique 