Plaid Cymru call for farm inheritance tax ‘to be scrapped’ ahead of Budget

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Plaid Cymru has called on the Labour UK Government to scrap their ‘devastating’ changes to farm inheritance tax – and add it to the ‘long list’ of the Government’s U-turns.

Speaking at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Winter Fair, Plaid Cymru’s rural affairs spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd MS has hit out at the Labour Government’s changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief, which he says is set to ‘devastate’ family farms.

Despite the UK Government’s earlier insistence that a “vast majority” of Welsh farmers would remain unaffected, previous analysis from the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) suggests up to 48% of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) recipients in Wales could be affected by the inheritance tax proposals.

The recent publication of the Welsh Affairs Committee report found the proposed inheritance tax reforms have created a “an unnecessary climate of uncertainty and confusion has emerged in an industry central to the cultural, environmental and economic fabric of rural Wales”. The cross-party committee has called for a Wales-specific impact assessment before the changes are implemented in April 2026, highlighting the need to fully understand the potential effects on Welsh family farms and rural communities.

Plaid Cymru rural affairs spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd MS, said: “This UK Govt Budget is fast becoming a U-turn budget. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap was out, now it’s in. Hiking income tax was in now it’s out. A hokey-cokey budget from a Government that’s in power but clearly not in control.

“There’s at least one other policy where I’d welcome a further U-turn. That’s on farm inheritance tax. I’ve stood up in the Senedd on countless occasions to highlight the folly of the proposed changes and the adverse impact it will have.

“It’s a policy that will do lasting harm to our small Welsh family farms, that targets the very people who feed us, who care for our land, who are in the frontline of the fight against climate change and reversing the loss of nature. They are the ones who sustain our rural economy and who underpin the social and cultural fabric of our rural communities.

“Most of our family farms are cash poor and many live a hand-to-mouth existence. They don’t have the capital to shoulder this huge tax burden. It will force the sell-off of land making farms less viable and less sustainable as they pass on to the next generation.

“My message to Rachel Reeves is that if you can U-turn on income tax then you can U-turn on farm inheritance tax as well. The family farm tax needs to be scrapped and the UK Budget next week is the perfect opportunity to do that.”

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