Iceland Foods executive chairman Richard Walker has become the latest supermarket boss to criticise the government’s inheritance tax raid on farmers.

The changes, which were first outlined in the Autumn Budget, will see a 20% levy against inheritance agriculture land worth more than £1m from April 2026, which farmers have argued will put the security of farming and the UK’s food sector at risk.

Walker told The Telegraph that while the Treasury “is right to look at levelling the playing field on tax,” that it had “parked its tractor in the wrong place going after hard-working British farmers”.

“Let’s stop messing around and make online sales tax reform the priority. High streets and farmers are the bedrock of this great country, we need to get behind them.”

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Walkers’ comments came after campaign group No Farmers, No Food hit out at him for not following in the footsteps of other UK supermarket bosses in standing behind farmers.

The group said: “It’s heartening to see the majority of major supermarkets supporting farmers in their campaign against the Government’s inheritance tax on family farms. But why haven’t Iceland Foods done the same? It’s time for all our major supermarkets to unite for farmers.”

Earlier this month, Morrisons sent a message to the farming community, offering support and sharing its concerns for the government’s proposed changes to inheritance tax, with head of agriculture Sophie Throup having said: “We understand your anger and your frustrations at the inheritance tax – and we’re with you.

The following week, Tesco chief commercial officer Ashwin Prasad expressed the supermarket giant’s support for the National Farmers Union (NFU)’s calls for a pause in the implementation of the proposed change to inheritance relief tax.

This was swiftly followed by support for farmers from Waitrose, Ocado, Lidl and Aldi.

It comes as farming campaigners have demonstrated against the new measures, with groups threatening to blockade supermarket depots, following a Morrisons facility in Somerset being blocked by dozens of tractors earlier this month.

However, Morrisons has since filed a High Court injunction after its depots were blocked, in a bid to avoid further disruptions to its supply chain.