Lord Blunkett calls UK farm inheritance tax a mistake to PM Burnham

Countryside Alliance launches rural reset campaign against policies

Lord Blunkett, a former Labour minister who hired Andy Burnham as his parliamentary private secretary in 2004, told the BBC on Monday that the inheritance tax on farms was “a mistake” and called on his former protégé to use his premiership to listen more closely to rural Britain. Blunkett spoke at the launch of a Countryside Alliance campaign in central London for a “rural reset” to reverse what the alliance says is a set of policies “treating rural people as the enemy.”

The 20% inheritance tax on agricultural assets worth more than £2.5 million came into force in April, ending a waiver farms had enjoyed since the 1980s. The levy was first announced in last year’s Budget under Sir Keir Starmer at half the 40% standard inheritance tax rate, with an initial threshold of £1 million. A backlash led the government to raise the threshold to £2.5 million in December. Some rural campaigners argue the higher threshold still hits ordinary working family farms and are calling for the levy to be scrapped.

The government said it was “determined to rebuild trust” with farmers and that most estates were unaffected by the tax hike. A government spokesperson added: “This is the start of a new conversation with farmers and rural communities as we work together to build a stronger future for British farming and unlock growth in rural areas.”

Burnham has not hinted at any change or U-turn on the issue. Lord Blunkett said he was confident the prime minister would “get the message very clearly and act accordingly.”

“I think the family tax, the family farm imposition, was a mistake,” Blunkett told the BBC, adding that it “touched a nerve.” He noted that Labour had not won so many rural seats since 1945 and that around 135 Labour MPs are either rural or semi-rural, and “their voices need to be heard much more clearly.”

He criticised “Treasury economic orthodoxy” and said: “If you’re an urban dweller all your life and you’ve got Treasury economic orthodoxy in your soul, you won’t understand that family farms are only family because they are passed down from one generation to another.” He said the countryside fits neatly into Burnham’s self-professed focus on local postcodes and that urban and rural areas “need each other.”

Blunkett also criticised the government’s planned ban on trail hunting as a mistake, saying the practice was “doing no harm.” Trail hunting was introduced after the Hunting Act 2004 as an alternative to hounds chasing foxes and involves using an animal-scented rag. Labour first announced a planned ban in its 2024 election manifesto. The government said there was strong support for the ban and that trail hunting posed risks to wildlife and pets.

Former Prime Minister Lord Cameron criticised both policies at a separate Countryside Alliance event in Westminster on Monday, calling the inheritance tax on farm assets “stupid” and the trail hunting ban “completely wrong.” Cameron also took aim at the government’s call for evidence on game shooting in England, warning further crackdowns risked eroding all facets of rural life, including pubs and local services. “Some of these things we should be angry about,” he added, a week after being spotted filming an episode of Amazon Prime series Clarkson’s Farm.

The Countryside Alliance said its campaign is a non-political effort to encourage Burnham to work with rural people to address concerns over policies on farming, horseracing and greyhound racing. Farmers have held tractor protests in parts of the country over the past year.