Dear NFU Cymru Member,
Over the past 15 months farmers from across the UK have campaigned tirelessly on the disastrous impacts of proposed changes to inheritance tax (IHT), alongside representative bodies, retailers and stakeholders.
From day one NFU Cymru / NFU has focussed on building political pressure. You, NFU members on the
ground, have led this by building relationships with MPs, MSs and councillors from all political parties, but
critically those that had the opportunity to force change from the Labour backbenches.
Just before Christmas your NFU finally secured a second meeting with the Prime Minister, which culminated in the announcement of a major change to the government’s proposed IHT policy.
The raising of the IHT threshold from £1m to £2.5m, combined with changes previously secured to spousal transfer, removed the worry for a significant number of members as Christmas approached. It was a welcome change and brought relief to many families, and we should all be proud to have made it happen – but it doesn’t help everybody.
This policy remains wrong, and we remain steadfastly opposed to it, which was made very clear to the Prime Minister. In a moment I’ll explain what comes next but first I’d like to reflect on how we achieved the changes we did, together, and thank you all for your steadfast support– because it was you that made this happen and it is a reminder of what the NFU, operating as one, can achieve.
In December, NFU President Bradshaw met with the Prime Minister and again laid out, with clarity, why the policy would decimate family farms. We were able to use the data and evidence the NFU had built, and the moving personal stories courageously provided by members.
But when he walked into that meeting, he did so on the back of a sustained and brilliant lobbying campaign led by NFU and NFU Cymru members. No Labour MP could have been in any doubt about the strength of feeling in their constituency, or that the Treasury’s insistence that farms would not disappear thanks to this policy could be accurate. It started with 228 MPs being lobbied in a single day in London after the 2024 budget and grew from there.
After that first budget ministers thought farming’s anger about this policy would blow out in a few weeks. They were wrong. I said at the time that farmers might get tired, but they don’t give up. The numbers bear that out.
• 279,000 petition signatures from the public
• 18,900 pieces of media coverage including 32 national newspaper front pages
• 1,120 meetings with MPs on farm, in London and at events
• 8,000 letters and more than 1,000 postcards sent to MPs asking for change
• 12,000 letters to MPs from the public, organised by the NFU, after the emotive Countryfile episode on IHT.
• More than 70 questions asked by MPs in parliament, including 12 at Prime Minister’s Questions
• Three reports calling for change from Parliamentary Select Committees
• More than 90 Day of Unity events held across the UK
Thank you for every letter you wrote, every email you sent, every meeting you attended and every farm visit you
hosted. Be in no doubt you drove the change which many said was impossible to achieve. You helped us win the
argument, but we still needed to win the politics to get change.
In unity, there is strength,
Aled Jones, NFU Cymru President
Tom Bradshaw, NFU President
