Minister fails to contact grieving farmer families

Confession follows suicide over cruel inheritance tax

- By Christian Calgie Senior Political Correspondent

ENVIRONMENT Secretary Steve Reed has been slammed after admitting he has not contacted any families left grieving by the suicide of a farming relative.

He made the confession during a radio phone-in yesterday, after he was tackled by a furious caller demanding to know why the Government has not listened to alternative proposals to the family farms tax.

He was asked about the news of a farmer who killed himself the day before Rachel Reeves’s Budget to “save the farm for future generations”.

John Charlesworth, 78, was found dead by his son at their barn in Barnsley, South Yorks, in October last year.

He was said to have been worried about the implications of new regulations around inheritance tax that could see his family lose much of the farm.

Tragedy