By Grâçia Ada Obi
A farmer has taken his own life in fear of the Government’s inheritance tax raid, his son has said.
John Charlesworth, 78, was found dead at his 70-acre farm in Barnsley, Yorkshire, on Tuesday, 24 hours before the Budget.
His son Jonathan, 46, said the father-of-two ended his life after being “eaten away” at the prospect of his family losing the £2 million estate, which has been owned by the family since 1957, because of the Chancellor’s tax increase.
He told The Journalist that hearing in advance of the Budget about Labour’s plans to end the practice of letting all farmers pass on estates without inheritance tax was the “final straw” for Mr Charlesworth, who had been caring for his sick wife.
In a message to Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, Charlesworth’s son said: “I would tell them they’ve killed my Dad. He didn’t know the details but all the scaremongering around it beforehand frightened him to death.
“He was the most kind-hearted person you’d ever meet, my Dad. He wouldn’t take any nonsense. He would do anything for anybody, I don’t think anyone had a bad word to say about my Dad.
“The battles we had guided me for the future. You couldn’t ask for better really.”
Last week, Ms Reeves used her Budget to place a 20 per cent tax on agricultural property assets worth more than £1 million, instead of allowing them to be inherited tax-free.
Ms Reeves said the move was taken to stop wealthy people from buying up agricultural land to avoid inheritance tax but it has led to fears that scores of ordinary farmers could be forced out of business.
Concerns have also been raised about the impact the policy will have on farmers’ mental health.
Speaking on Friday November 1, Richard Tice, the Reform UK Deputy Leader shared concerns that “heads of farming families in their 80s and 90s are seriously considering committing suicide before this policy comes into place.”
Following the Budget, Luke Evans, the Tory MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, said: “Farmers are one of the people who suffer the most from mental health, given the problems of having such a tough harvest.
This is a concoction that’s come together under this Government’s making.”
A survey by the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, a farming charity, in 2021 revealed that 36 per cent of farmers in the UK were probably or possibly depressed, while 47 per cent were constantly struggling with anxiety.
In the wake of Ms Reeves’s announcement, charities advertised mental health helplines and support available for farmers.
Soon after the Chancellor’s Budget on Wednesday, Mr Charlesworth’s son wrote an anonymous Facebook, which later went viral, revealing his father’s death.
The post, was verified, said Mr Charlesworth’s death was the “human cost of government policy or potential government policy”.
Mr Charlesworth, also known as Philip, who leaves behind six grandchildren, had acted as a full-time carer for his wife as she battled dementia.
Jonathan’s father bought the farm in 1957 before his son later took over.
Speaking from the family farm in Barnsley, Yorks, Jonathan added: “He [John] was at a low ebb but the Budget was the final straw.
“There’s no cash and there’s no way of borrowing cash because we don’t have the income, we still don’t have the income to borrow that sort of money.
“It was really eating at him, this Budget, because nobody knew what was going to happen. I think he just woke up in the morning and thought, ‘you know what, the Government aren’t taking our farm, I’ve worked too hard to keep this for not just me but my kids and my grandkids.
“And I think he’s just woken up in the morning and thought ‘I’m going to pre-empt the Budget, I’ve had a good life, my wife is on the way out…
“There are two houses on the farm, with 70 acres. We theoretically, with cash, could have £2 million there. If you put a 40 per cent tax over half a million, which was mooted by some people… well it’s impossible, you can’t do it.
“My advice would be that all farmers had a week and didn’t sell anything. I think that would do more than any protest in London. I think nobody appreciates what we do.”
The tax raid was the “final nail in the coffin” for British farming, he said.
The president of the National Farmers’ Union has warned that farmers want to be “militant” in response to the inheritance tax raid.
Tom Bradshaw, the president of the union, which represents more than 46,000 farming and growing businesses, said something “has to change” on the policy.
However, on Sunday, Ms Reeves defended the tax raid, arguing that the public finances were too strained to keep the existing rules.
She told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Last year, the benefits of agricultural property relief – 40 per cent of the benefit was felt by seven per cent of the wealthiest landowners. I don’t think that it is affordable to carry on with a relief like that when our public services are under so much pressure.
“And of course farmers as well rely on good public services, whether that’s our NHS, our roads or our schools. That money will be put back into improving our public services and putting our public finances on a firm footing.”
South Yorkshire Police are understood to have attended the address but do not comment on non-suspicious deaths.
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