Overview
- The government confirmed April implementation of its revised inheritance-tax plan for farms, lifting the relief threshold to £2.5 million per person with couples able to pass £5 million before tax, then offering 50% relief above that and a reduced effective rate of up to 20%.
- Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds told the Oxford Farming Conference there will be no further concessions on the tax changes, responding to months of farmer unrest since the original 2024 proposals.
- Reynolds pledged no more sudden closures of payment schemes and outlined a revamped Sustainable Farming Incentive with application windows in June for small farms under 50 hectares and those not already in a scheme, followed by a wider window in September.
- Defra is considering limits to spread funding, including fewer SFI actions, constraints on how much land can enter each action, a cap on SFI payments, and regular updates when application windows near full subscription.
- New targeted support includes a £30 million farmer collaboration fund, a three-year extension of the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme with £30 million for the next year, and two years of local design work in Dartmoor followed by Cumbria.