New NFU Scotland President Andrew Connon will meet with Treasury officials in Westminster on Tuesday 18 February as momentum behind the campaign to #StopTheFamilyFarmTax continues to build.
Working alongside fellow UK farming unions – NFU, NFU Cymru and Ulster Farmers’ Union – there has been united opposition against the proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) announced in the UK Government’s autumn budget on 30 October 2024. The proposed changes to inheritance tax, brought forward with no industry consultation, are due to take effect from 6 April 2026.
The UK Government has claimed that 520 farms will be affected across the UK in 2026/27. However, numerous independent studies have subsequently set out the more likely implications in stark terms for Scottish farmers and crofters (see attached briefing paper).
Alongside the other Unions, NFU Scotland has sent several requests to meet with Treasury to discuss these deeply damaging proposals. On Tuesday, President Andrew Connon will meet Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray MP alongside Treasury officials.
The Westminster meeting next week will be President Andrew Connon’s second trip to London in the #StopTheFamilyFarmTax campaign since being elected on Friday 7 February. On Monday (10 February), Mr Connon, who farms near Ellon in Aberdeenshire, joined other farming union Presidents at a gathering of thousands of farmers and more than 1600 tractors in Whitehall. There, they briefed politicians ahead of a Westminster Hall debate on the inheritance tax proposals that evening.
Ahead of the pivotal Treasury meeting on Tuesday, NFUS will meet other UK farming Unions on Monday evening.
Mr Connon said: “The UK Government and Treasury officials have grossly underestimated the number of hard-working family farms and crofts that will be undermined by its damaging taxation proposals.
“It has taken an intensive period of lobbying and public events, including nine tractor rallies the length and breadth of Scotland on 1 and 2 of February, to get Treasury round the table and we will use this opportunity to highlight the detrimental impact these changes will have on our agricultural sector.
“I will go to that meeting with a crystal-clear mandate from our members and the wider agricultural community. We will look to the Treasury to fully engage with UK farming unions. Without change, its proposals for inheritance tax (IHT) reforms will put growth and employment in the agricultural sector into reverse; Scotland’s wider rural economy will stall and fail and the contribution of farmers and crofters to the nation’s food security will be placed in jeopardy.”
