2 Sisters Food Group owner Ranjit Singh Boparan has slammed the government’s budget as “a disaster for business” that has dealt a “fatal final blow” to British farmers.
In a withering attack on the budget’s much-derided tweaks to inheritance tax eligibility, Singh this week warned it had the potential to “force many farms out of business, restrict supply and drive inflation”.
The overall impact of the budget, including increases in employer National Insurance contributions and the national minimum wage and living wage, would cost the poultry giant “tens of millions”, added the so-called Chicken King.
And all the government’s proposals did was “reduce confidence and increases the chances of closures or selling to private equity, for example, which invariably generates less tax”, Singh warned.
As part of a push to raise £40bn via tax increases, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced changes to the rules on IHT eligibility for farm businesses on 30 October, through amendments to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR).
The changes, planned for April 2026, will see 100% APR and BPR capped at £1m, with the relief above this level reduced to 50% – meaning businesses will pay an effective IHT rate of 20% on assets above the £1m mark, having previously paid zero.
Reeves and the government have insisted the changes are required and are a “fair and balanced” way to help fill the government’s financial black hole.
Some tax experts, such Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates have also suggested the £1m figure is “misleading”, adding some 87% of inherited agricultural property used less than £1m of APR “and so will remain completely exempt”.
Meanwhile, agricultural consultancy The Andersons Centre has argued, from an industry-wide perspective, “the direct impact of these changes may be more contained. Farmland is likely to remain within agricultural use, even if ownership changes hands”, it claimed.
Read more: Why is the budget such bad news for the UK’s farmers?
However, Singh – adding to a growing clamour from across the food sector in opposition to the changes – said they would devastate an already beleaguered farming sector.
“This budget was a disaster for business and will deliver a final fatal blow to the thousands of small family-owned farms we in the food manufacturing sector rely upon day in, day out,” Singh said.
“They provide security of supply. This move will create food inflation and food insecurity. It will mean less people investing in food production in the UK.”
2 Sisters relies on a network of “hundreds of independent, family-owned farms” for the supply of poultry into the UK retail and foodservice sector, with the government’s proposals having the potential to “severely compromise” supply, he warned.
“Farmers have been hit with massive inflationary rises in costs in recent years like feed, energy, and labour, then we had a couple of particularly challenging years with high levels of avian influenza and the war in Ukraine,” he pointed out.
“All this has pushed British poultry to breaking point, and I see this latest inheritance tax rise as the issue that will push thousands of farms over the edge. It really is quite unbelievable given what they’ve had to endure.”
The proposals also “make a mockery of the government claiming to want a self-sustaining farming sector that champions British-made food”, he claimed. “This tax rise does the exact opposite of that – it kills the sector, stifles supply and ultimately prices will rise.”
The budget had done “very little to encourage business owners to invest and build”, Singh added.
“Some businesses will find these changes a burden and it makes it more difficult to keep running smoothly and maintain value. Privately-owned businesses are the backbone of the UK economy and take a different view on long-term investment.”
Singh’s comments come amid an increasingly febrile mood across the farming sector, with farmers gearing up for a series of protests over the coming weeks over what has quickly become known as the ‘family farm tax’.
Read more: Furious farmers prepare to protest over ‘awful’ tax raid
A planned “mass lobby” of MPs in parliament by the NFU on 19 November is expected to be accompanied by gatherings of protesting farmers across Westminster.
Elsewhere, analysis published by the Country Land & Business Association today revealed a typical 200-acre farm owned by an individual with an expected annual profit of £27,300 would face an IHT liability of £435,000 under the government’s proposals.
If spread over a period of 10 years, this would require the farm to allocate 159% of its profit each year to cover the tax bill. To meet this bill, successors could be compelled to sell 20% of their land, the CLA said.
Similarly, a 250-acre arable farm owned between a couple in the way the Chancellor expects to be possible (by combining relief allocations) with an expected annual profit of £34,130 would face an IHT liability of £267,000, amounting to 78% of its profit each year over a decade.
The CLA’s modelling “highlights that family-run farms – typically asset-rich but cash-poor – would be forced at best into a cycle of stagnation, asset sales, or debt to cover this tax burden, threatening the long-term viability of the UK’s rural landscape and food security”, it said.
“Either the government isn’t being honest with the public about the true impact of these reforms, or they don’t understand the nature of rural businesses,” said CLA deputy president Gavin Lane.
“I’d like to believe it is the latter and that they are prepared to listen to our input rather than continually trying to dismiss it,” he added.
“While they frame this as a tax on the wealthy, the reality is that ordinary family farms will be hit just as hard. Asking farms to use their income to pay a huge capital tax bill over 10 years, if indeed it is possible, will threaten the future of investment and the viability of the business.”
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