Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has issued a fierce statement to Labour following Rachel Reeves’ Budget, stating how a new farming tax is having a severe impact on the wellbeing of farmers – after a farmer tragically took his own life in fear of the attack on the industry.

Reform’s Deputy Leader, Richard Tice, took to the Commons on Tuesday 5 to ask the Minister of State if he is aware of the fatal impact that the new inheritance tax is having on British farmers.

After Labour responded with a blunt and bewildered 11-word sentence, the Ashfield MP reiterated Tice’s question online.

Lee Anderson furiously responded to the situation on the social media platform X, saying: “Shocking. When @TiceRichard stated that farmers would take their own lives over this cruel tax he was shouted down in the Commons.

“One day later and sadly Richard has been proved right.

“How many more of the people who’ve spent their lives feeding us will take their own lives? Shame on @UKLabour.”

The MP for for Boston and Skegness posed this question to the Governemnt on Tuesday: “Is the Minister, Secretary of State and Chancellor aware that so serious are the consequences of this policy that the heads of farming families in their 80’s and 90’s are seriously considering committing suicide before this policy comes into place?”

Daniel Zeichner, the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, issued a strikingly short response: “I find it hard to respond to a question like that.”

It comes after a farmer has tragically taken his own life in fear of the Government’s inheritance tax raid, his son told The Telegraph.

John Charlesworth, 78, was found dead at his farm in Barnsley, Yorkshire, on Tuesday 29 October – 24 hours before the Budget.

His son, Jonathan, said the father-of-two took his own life after being “eaten away” at the thought of his family losing their £2m estate, which has been owned by the family since 1957, because of Rachel Reeves’ tax increase.

From April 2026, inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m, which were previously exempt, will have to pay inheritance tax at 20%.

The £1m cap does not just account for the value of land, but also livestock, farmhouses, sheds and machinery. The Country Land and Business Association predict that more than 70,000 farms could be impacted.