Concerns raised about suicide risk among farmers after inheritance tax changes

Concerns have been raised in Parliament about the suicide risk among farmers after changes to inheritance tax on agricultural land were announced in the Budget.

Two peers in Westminster said they had heard from elderly farmers that it would be better if they died before the changes came into effect in April 2026.

The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Alan Smith, who is the son of a farmer and president of the Rural Coalition, emphasised the mental stress farmers are under.

Mental stress

He said: “Even though there are many, many successful go-ahead farmers, there is nevertheless a huge level of mental stress on our farmers and that’s a phenomenon that has been true for many, many years.

“Indeed, sadly there is a extraordinarily high number of suicides amongst the farming community.

“And yet, as one elderly farmer put it, ‘Many of us are feeling so depressed, because these announcements suggest we’re not wanted and we’re worth more dead than we are alive’, pointing out that, if he manages to die before April 2026, his assets are going to be passed on, if he doesn’t, probably the farm is not going to survive.

“This cost on the mental health of so many of our farmers should not be underestimated.”

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Northover described a conversation she had with a Cornish farmer, who works a 350-acre farm owned by her 87-year-old mother.

Lady Northover said: “Her daughter’s voice broke as she told me her mother thought she was better off dying before the change comes into effect in April 2026.

“And the debates over assisted dying and the elderly potentially feeling that they are a burden came horribly to mind as I listened to her.”

Lady Northover, whose father was a tenant farmer and mother came from a family of farmers, added: “I know from my own extended family how extreme financial pressures in farming can play out.”

Explaining the stressors on farmers, she said: “Weather, disease blights, the prices that supermarkets are willing to pay, government policies, global events that drive up the cost of fuel and fertiliser – there are so many aspects over which the farmer has little or no control.”

Shocked

The former Coalition minister added that she was “shocked” that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves had not agreed to meet the National Farmers Union.

She said: “If she is so sure of what she’s doing, she should have that confidence.”

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), said the Government would do “everything we can” to protect the mental health of farmers.

She said: “I absolutely recognise that farmers face challenges on many fronts and we will do everything we can to safeguard the mental health of people working in the sector.

“Access to mental health support can be very important to farming families, who can find themselves often isolated and who sometimes struggle to ask for help.

“The Government is working to improve mental health and access to services – and I pay tribute to all those who work to raise awareness of these issues and encourage those farming families who are struggling to reach out for help.”

For mental health support, contact the Samaritans on 116 123, email them at [email protected], or visit samaritans.org.