Inheritance Tax row: The Yorkshire daughter who returned home to find her family farm in turmoil

“When I heard the Budget I was in a state of complete shock,” says Nick.

“I had that sinking feeling. I was wondering whether I’d just heard it correctly. It was a real stomach punch.

“And the second blow was realising the scale of the liability. It’s a fundamental principle of taxation that taxes should be levied on the ability to pay. When we looked at what the bill would be, upwards of a million pounds, we would have no alternative but to sell land.

“We’ve lived with tax planning. We’ve done that for years and thought pre-Budget that we were set up in terms of succession and inheritance. This pulls the rug out completely.”

Nick was joined on the farm by his daughter Rebecca four years ago. His wife Liz works at Selby livestock market and their other daughter Rosie works at Bentham livestock market. This is a farming family whose income is derived from agriculture in every way.

Rebecca is now the fifth generation to farm at Hunday Field and although she is not about to take over the farm just yet, now finds herself, as with many of her generation, in turmoil.

“Before coming back home I had associated jobs to agriculture which were financially stable and less demanding in terms of hours, but sacrificed all of that to be the next generation to look after the farm as the generations before have done,” she said.

"We want to produce food, which we do through our grain and our sheep, that is sustainable and we want to enhance biodiversity.

“To have that now thrown into turmoil, which is exactly how people my age are feeling, by having to look at an Inheritance Tax bill which could be nearly a million pounds is a massive burden.

“The only way in which it would be paid would be through reducing the size of the farm and reducing the subsequent financial viability of the business.”

The Wilsons’ farm runs to 600 acres of predominantly arable land growing mainly cereals, plus a flock of around 180 breeding ewes shared between Rebecca and Rosie.

“We have around 250 acres of winter feed wheat varieties Champion and Typhoon that we established in autumn,” says Nick. “We will also have 140 acres of spring barley variety Laureate for the malting market for next year’s summer harvest and we store our own grain.

“We’re moving out of growing oilseed rape and only have 20 acres of it in the ground this winter. Flea beetle has been a huge challenge to the crop and it has proven very expensive to grow. Some land is rented out to a neighbouring farmer who grazes our 30 acres of stubble turnips.”

There are 50 acres of permanent pasture and 30 acres of rotational grasses, the rest of the Wilsons’ acreage is now taken up by SFI scheme growing of cover crops across 100 acres with the likes of radishes, linseed, phacelia and vetch, plus 40 acres of herbal leys.

Nick says they are in one SFI scheme already, but going into another, because that’s the way they are being led by payments no longer given for farming for food but for the environment.

“We are farmers and want to produce food. We also want to do environmental things, but it seems strange we have to import food because we are only 65 per cent self-sufficient and taking land out of production.

“But our main role to continue as a farm business is profitability and that means our approach has to be putting more into environmental schemes, because it’s a fact that we can’t make money out of crops. We are de-risking the business.”

Rebecca and Rosie’s flock lambs in January and in the spring.

“We lamb a greater number of the flock in January,” says Rebecca. “They are mainly Suffolk-cross ewes put to the Beltex tup. Our later lambing flock is Scotch Halfbreds put to the Suffolk tup.”

Nick has been monitoring the Government’s position since the Budget announcement made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the subsequent meetings that have been taking place in and around Government.

“Even the Government’s advisers and the tax professionals have been backtracking on the position and saying that the Government has not thought through the implications of what they are proposing.

"One tax chap was asked whether the Government had run a model to ask whether farms could actually pay this new Inheritance Tax? And he said that nothing had been done. That just brought home to me how they’ve made a complete and utter hash of this policy.”

Rebecca felt that perhaps there seemed a glimmer of hope that the Government may backtrack, but that if they don’t then they will find that farmers will continue to pursue the subject until they do.

“After the first London protest it felt like maybe there was a glimmer, with NFU President Tom Bradshaw talking with Keir Starmer, but we have to be wary of the Government saying they are listening, because we can’t have them listening without action.

“Our only real hope for all farms is to get a complete U-turn from Government of what they are proposing, and there is still time.

“I don’t think the Government had really bargained for farmers not going away. I don’t think they understand how culturally and emotionally tied we are. These protests are on a process of escalation. We’re not backing down.

“It is very disappointing that this new Labour Government are not showing their faces on the ground, but perhaps they will when consumers start to be affected. This may happen, if farmers cause disruption the supply chain, because we have the power to do so, although we are desperate not to do it.”

“We need engagement with politicians now,” says Nick. “They have shown a complete lack of understanding of farming so far.

“I am hoping the reasoned arguments coming forward from the NFU and CLA will have some impact and the Government will say, let’s pause, take a step back and review this.

Sue says that understanding can only truly come from seeing life for what it really is like on farms.

“If politicians could see the actual real-life challenges we face every day when something goes wrong, something breaks, the weather’s against you. There Isn’t a day in the year when we don’t do something on our farm.

“The easiest thing for us, if we wanted to be wealthy, would be to sell up and live off the proceeds but that’s not what we and other farmers want to do. The value of the land is meaningless to us. It’s our shop floor that we use to produce food.”