Victoria Atkins MP, Shadow Agriculture Secretary, announces Food and Farming Emergency

Today [6 October 2025] Victoria Atkins MP, Shadow Agriculture Secretary, announced the Conservatives plans to combat the Food and Farming Emergency in the UK.

A record 6,365 agriculture, forestry, and fishing businesses closed in the past year, and over 1,100 pubs and restaurants have shut their doors since the Budget – equivalent to two per day. Food prices rose by 5.1% in August 2025, and the British Retail Consortium expect food price inflation to reach 6% by the end of the year.

This comes before the Family Farm Tax is introduced, which is expected to make the situation even worse.  80% of farmers now worry about their businesses surviving, and over 60% have considered selling their farms and leaving farming entirely.  The crisis is urgent, and requires immediate action.

Speaking today at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Shadow Agriculture Secretary, Victoria Atkins MP, announced that she will host an emergency summit for farmers, fisherman, and food producers to come up with the urgent solutions those industries need to restore their confidence and safeguard British food security.

The Shadow Secretary of State announced she is putting party politics to one side and offered to work with the Government in implementing any policies that are agreed.  To reflect the scale of the crisis, the summit will be held before the Autumn Budget on November 26.

In her speech, she also launched a Conservative review into the EU-era army of Arm's-Length Bodies (ALBs) within the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), with a view to scrapping and streamlining regulations and regulators that work against the grain of rural life.

A future Conservative Government would take the findings of this review to reset the relationship between Whitehall and the countryside on day one of a new administration.  The regulators of the future must protect food and water security, as well as wildlife and the environment – but must also deliver value for money and democratic accountability.

Only the Conservatives will listen to farmers and food producers about what they actually need and work in the national interest to implement it.

Speaking before her speech, Rt Hon Victoria Atkins MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said:

“Food prices continue to rise under this government due, in part, to higher taxes and business costs in Labour's last Budget. 

“The emergency facing food and farming is urgent.  It starts with the Family Farm Tax, but the problems run much deeper than that.

“To all those who have been left feeling betrayed by this Government's destruction of rural communities, I have a message: we hear you, we get it, and we have your backs.

“Our priority must be to put food production back at the heart of policymaking, and to strengthen the rural economy.  A strong countryside creates a strong country.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• The Labour Government's own statistics have shown that farmer confidence is dwindling in Labour. Only one in three farmers in England feel positive about their own future in agriculture, according to DEFRA's April 2025 Farmer Opinion Tracker for England. The percentage of farmers feeling optimistic about their own business's future has plummeted from almost half (47 per cent) three years ago to just 33 per cent at present. The NFU said that confidence among British farmers was at ‘rock bottom' and that these latest Defra findings reinforced that. (Farmers Weekly, 31 July 2025, link, DEFRA, Farmer Opinion Tracker for England: April 2025, 30 July 2025, link).

• The NFU said the Labour Government have cut £100 million from farming and countryside programmes in the Spending Review. The NFU have said that the Labour Government have cut £100 million in farming and countryside programmes. These programmes include Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship, Landscape Recovery and capital grants (NFU, 12 June 2025, link).

• Labour pulled the rug from farmers by pausing the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) with no warning, and then U-turned after Conservative pressure to allow those who were halfway through their application to complete it. Due to Conservative pressure, the SFI scheme was reopened to those that were in the middle of applying for the scheme, but Labour has still failed to reopen or replace the scheme for new applicants (DEFRA, Blog, 11 March 2025, link, Hansard, 12 May 2025, HCWS626, link).

• The Labour Government Introduced the Family Farm Tax and family business tax. The 2024 Autumn Budget cuts the 100 per cent rate of relief to 50 per cent after the first £1 million of combined agricultural and business assets from April 2026, as well as ‘bringing unspent pots into the scope of inheritance tax from April 2027'(HM Treasury, Autumn Budget 2024, 30 October 2024, link).

• 88 per cent of respondents to an NFU survey said that the phasing out of direct payments would impact their businesses. In the NFU's Farmer Confidence Survey, 88 per cent of respondents said that the phasing out of direct payments would negatively impact their business (NFU, 12 March 2025, link).

• 80 per cent of farmers are concerned for the survival of their business and 60 per cent have considered selling their farm according to a Country Land and Business Association survey. A Country Land and Business Association (CLA) poll found that 80 per cent of farmers are worried their business will not survive the next decade while over 60 per cent have considered selling their farm and leaving the industry (CLA, 26 August 2025, link).

• A record 6,365 agriculture, forestry, and fishing businesses closed in the past year, the highest number since quarterly data was first collected in 2017. According to the Office for National Statistics, a record 6,365 agriculture, forestry, and fishing businesses closed in the past year, the highest number since quarterly data was first collected in 2017 (Farmers Weekly, 25 July 2025, link).

• Over 1,100 pubs and restaurants have closed since the tax rises in the Autumn 2024 budget. According to CGA and AlixPartners, over 1,100 pubs and restaurants have closed since Chancellor Rachel Reeves's tax hikes last October, with venues closing at a rate of two per day (The Sun, 5 August 2025, link).

• The cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks grew at an annual rate of 5.1 per cent in August 2025. In August 2025, food and non-alcoholic drink prices in the UK rose by 5.1 per cent in the 12 months to August 2025 (BBC News, 17 September 2025, link).

• The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned that food inflation will be up six per cent by the end of the year. The BRC has predicted that food inflation will be up to 6 per cent by the end of the year. This will pose significant challenges to household budgets, particularly in the run up to Christmas (BRC, 31 July 2025, link).