Marks & Spencer is urging ministers to rethink proposed changes to inheritance tax relief for farmers.
Bosses at the FTSE 100 retailer want Emma Reynolds, the new environment secretary, to back Britain’s farmers after a backlash from rural communities.
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“We support our farmers’ calls on the government to do more to support farming, and that includes supporting their call for a rethink on inheritance tax,” Alex Freudmann, managing director of M&S Food, said.
M&S has previously supported pleas by the National Farmers’ Union to extend a consultation into proposed reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief.
The tougher language comes as a signal of intent that M&S is prepared to fight Sir Keir Starmer’s administration on the proposals.
The government insisted it was “working with farmers to build a more profitable farming system with food production at its core and that helps restore nature in an uncertain world”.
This weekend’s invention follows a period of silence from Reynolds’ predecessor, Steve Reed. M&S wrote to Reed on June 19 after taking soundings from key farmers and growers to warn him of “doubt … that there was a genuine national commitment to increasing the domestic supply of food”.
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A letter from Freudmann read: “A clear and concrete target to increase the proportion of indigenous foods eaten in the UK that are grown in the UK would galvanise cross-government action. If it was set down in law, like targets around net zero or nature protection, it could also tilt the balance towards farmers and growers in decisions around planning or access to water. I hope to see a clear and concrete commitment to domestic food production.”
Reed did not respond, sources said. Reynolds travelled to a pig farm on Saturday.
A spokesman for the government said: “Our reforms to agricultural and business property relief are vital to fix the public services we all rely on. Three-quarters of estates will continue to pay no inheritance tax at all, while the remaining quarter will pay half the inheritance tax that most people pay, and payments can be spread over ten years, interest-free.”