The Defra Secretary has said that farmers are 'in it for the money' because they are 'businesses that need to make a profit'.
Steve Reed was speaking in the House of Commons during a session with MPs looking at the so-called 'family farm tax', which was announced in the budget.
Made on Wednesday (19 December), the comments are likely to infuriate farmers as mass tractor rallies and protests continue across the UK.
Mr Reed told MPs: “The shadow secretary of state, as well as the former prime minister, keep telling farmers they’re not in it for the money. We know that they are.
“They’re businesses that need to make a profit, and our new deal for farmers, including increasing supply chain fairness, is intended to make farms profitable and successful for the future, in a way that they were not under the previous government.”
The government's farm inheritance tax plans will impose a 20% inheritance tax on farm assets worth £1m or more from April 2026.
But during the parliamentary session, the Environment Secretary said that the vast majority of agricultural property relief (APR) claimants 'will not pay anything'.
"This government, unlike the previous government that thought farmers were not in it for the money, wants them to succeed," he said.
Responding, Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesman Tim Farron warned that farmers were 'genuinely devastated' by the government’s 'family farm tax'.
Mr Farron, who represents a rural constituency, said the move would 'affect many in my patch who are on less than the minimum wage.'
Touching on a serious matter, Shadow Defra Secretary Victoria Atkins said that 'not everyone will be able to celebrate Christmas' this year as a farmer recently 'killed himself'.
"The message he left his family, who wish to remain anonymous, is that he did this because he feared becoming a financial burden to his family because of changes to inheritance tax.
“This is the human cost of the figures that the Secretary of State provides so casually. What does the Secretary of State say to that grieving family?”
Mr Reed replied: “I send my heartfelt sympathies to that family but I think it is irresponsible in the extreme to seek to weaponise a personal tragedy of that kind in this way.
"Where there is mental ill health then there needs to be support for that, and this government is investing in it."
He concluded in saying: “She knows from the last year for which data is available that the vast majority of claimants will pay absolutely nothing following the changes to APR.”
It comes as the NFU said today that its campaign against the inheritance tax was a 'fight we will not abandon', as its new banner campaign gets well underway.
This week marked the beginning of the next phase of campaigning to stop the so-called 'family farm tax', as the 'Big Banner' initiative was unveiled.
