The Autumn Budget is "a massive missed opportunity, with no breathing space for Britain's food production", according to the National Farmers' Union (NFU)

Reacting to the Autumn Budget, NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “Today was an opportunity for government to act on the warm words it made over the summer.

According to Bradshaw, the Office for Budget Responsibility has highlighted that the food price inflation outlook is "significantly higher" than previous forecasts.

"Yet the government has failed to link domestic food production to food-price inflation, has missed the opportunity to deliver on its commitment that ‘food security is national security’ and failed to give farm businesses the ‘breathing space’ that the Chancellor said that this Budget was for," Bradshaw added.

While he welcomed the extension to the red diesel relief, the NFU president said that fuel prices today are 65% higher than a year ago, so the extension will "offer minimal relief to the cashflow crisis facing farming businesses".

He said: "This feels like tinkering while Rome is burning.

"Action could have been taken on extending the Annual Investment Allowance to include infrastructure such as on-farm reservoirs or new poultry housing.

"Action could have been taken to ease the dire cashflow impacting farms and our food producing businesses, and action should have been taken to reverse the investment-stifling family farm tax.

"It’s failed to respond to the concerns of those across retail, food manufacturing and the wider supply chain serving 29 million households."

Bradshaw also mentioned that while the 2026 budget was pitched as the ‘Budget for the working people of Britain’, "armers and growers will not be feeling this extends to them".

"Today the phrase ‘food security is national security’ feels nothing but a hollow promise.”