Victoria Atkins has demanded an apology to farmers by the Labour Government after U-turning on their inheritance tax raid.

Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Environment Secretary declared Labour can “never be trusted again” and slammed their “disgraceful” handling of British farmers.

Confirming the decision, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Emma Reynolds announced that the inheritance tax threshold will rise to £2.5million for farmers and businesses.

She said: “So we’ve listened to farmers and businesses across the country, and we want to protect more family farms and businesses. So we’re announcing today that we’re increasing the inheritance tax threshold for individuals from £1million to £2.5million.”

Reacting to Labour’s U-turn, Ms Atkins told GB News: “It’s taken 14 months of relentless campaigning by farmers up and down the country, coming to Whitehall, marching, bringing their tractors.

“A couple of them got arrested a couple of weeks ago when they were trying to protest during the Budget.

“And all along through this campaigning, we Conservatives and farmers have been putting the real figures to the Government and Government ministers have been arrogantly saying 75 per cent of estates won’t be affected.

“But we have known from our conversations and our work with farmers just how devastating this vindictive tax has been.”

She added: “Not only has it come at a huge economic cost already, investment has been massively down on what it should be, business confidence has plummeted.

“We also know that it’s also had a huge human cost. And only last Thursday, I read a letter out to the farming minister from a 90-year-old grandmother, Mrs Denton, who was asking the Prime Minister the date by which she should die.

“And the farming minister, who must have known that these changes were in the offing, the farming minister chose instead to dismiss my question and failed to answer Mrs Denton’s question.

“So I accept this partial U-turn and I thank the farmers for their campaigning, but I think the conduct of this Government has been disgraceful through all of this.”

Criticising Labour’s timing of the announcement, Ms Atkins said: “They had the Budget a couple of weeks ago, and Rachel Reeves could have stood at that despatch box and announced this, couldn’t she? But instead, they’ve snuck this out the day before Christmas Eve.

“It shows how little this Government cares about farming, the environment, food and rural affairs, because we had deferrals on Thursday where we she could have made this announcement. She chose not to.

“They snuck out Minette Batters’s report on take out the trash day on Thursday. No scrutiny, no ability for us to ask questions on it. And today they sneak out this announcement about inheritance tax.”

She added: “So it is very clear that for this Labour Government, anything relating to the countryside is an irrelevance and it’s sneaked out where nobody’s watching.

“We Conservatives have been absolutely trying to help farmers and rural communities throughout all of this, because we know only too well the terrible impact it’s had.

“We had 350,000 people sign our petition to stop this tax, and after 14 months, eventually this Labour Government has made a partial U-turn.

“But the devil will be in the detail, because if we know one thing from these socialists, they love raising taxes. So they’ll get their money and their pound of flesh somehow.”

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Demanding an “apology” from Labour to the farmers for implementing the “vindictive” tax in the first place, Ms Atkins told GB News: “This is no way to run a Government. No wonder, frankly, people are just in despair at the way that this Prime Minister is running his Government. It is not a fit and proper way to run a country and run a Government.

“And so we as Conservatives, we will continue holding this Government to account. We will be asking these difficult questions.

“I don’t expect to get any answers in the chamber because we never do from Labour ministers, but we will be asking these difficult questions about how exactly now they’ve revised their maths and got there, worked out that they were wrong all along.

“But I’m also going to ask Emma Reynolds for an apology, because I think she and Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer and Steve Reed and all of the junior ministers who have leapt to the defence of this vindictive tax, every single one of them needs to apologise to the farming community and to rural communities.”

Recalling the heartbreaking case studies she has heard and put to the Government of the true impact of the tax, the Shadow Environment Secretary said: “I put three examples that the agricultural Chaplain of Suffolk had given to me of people taking their lives.

“He had tried to raise these cases directly with the Secretary of State and with ministers, and he got no response.

“And they included a father with small children who had taken his life, they included an elderly lady who was also contemplating taking her life.

“And the third one, which still pulls at my heartstrings, the teenage son who walked in on his father. I put those cases to Emma Reynolds, and she had nothing to say to it.

“And I this is why I think a lot of us, of course, we welcome the partial U-turn, but this has come at an enormous cost and an unforgivable one.”

Criticising the Government further, Ms Atkins concluded: “It is outrageous that such a significant fiscal U-turn has happened not just during the holiday season when Parliament is not sitting, but it’s happened outside the fiscal event, which for those who care about parliamentary procedure, is a really big deal.

“Does this mean that this chaotic Chancellor, after the shambles of the six months ahead of her Budget of broken promises, does this now mean that she’s going to be making fiscal announcements as and when it pleases her in the political arena?”

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