Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State, and indeed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the achievement of the Budget: in 23 years in this House, I have never seen such a degree of unity among farming organisations in their response to it. One point on which there seems to be no disagreement is that the removal of the ringfence around agricultural payments to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a bad move. Nobody asked for it. Why did the Government do it, and what do they expect to achieve with it?

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Carmichael]

I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his statement, but I fear that it illustrates rather well some of the lack of understanding that has brought us to this point. More than any other industry, farming relies on stability and long-term planning. That is why many people in the industry relied on undertakings given by the Secretary of State when in opposition that the Labour party in government would not change inheritance tax reliefs for farming.

Every farming business is capital-rich but revenue-poor. Those businesses also trade in a market that has been more heavily influenced by government intervention than any other. Agricultural property relief is not a loophole; it has been a deliberate policy of successive Governments for the past 40 years, designed to avoid the sale and break-up of family farms. Is that still a goal to which this Government adhere? As the NFU put it, the Government have seemingly failed to grasp

“that family farms are not just small farms, and that just because a farm is a valuable asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy.”

As the Minister will be aware, some of the figures he has just given the House have been vigorously challenged over the past few days, particularly the assertion that only one in four British farms will be affected. Will the Minister and his Treasury colleagues publish the data behind those figures? In particular, does the figure that 73% of farms will not be affected rely on the inclusion of very small holdings?

These changes will have a ripple effect across the whole rural community. Will the Government publish their impact assessment for other rural businesses? Can the Minister also explain why the Treasury has removed the ringfence around farm support to be spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That ringfence was introduced after the Bew review. If it needed a review to introduce it, how can it just be abolished now out of the blue?

The Prime Minister has said in the past, and the Minister has repeated today, that food security is national security. Can the Minister point to one measure in this Budget that makes achieving that aim easier, rather than harder?

Independent Water Commission

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Secretary of State is quite right to point to the role of the payment of bonuses and dividends in bringing us to this point, but he must surely acknowledge that that is far from being the whole story. There are a number of business and accounting practices in companies such as Thames Water that have brought us to the stage we are at today. If he is serious about having a water system that is fit for the future, he has to understand properly what has gone on before. Will he therefore confirm that the commission will be properly resourced with the necessary forensic accounting resource, so that those who have been responsible for the most egregious practices in the past and who now seem to be appearing in other water companies around the country will not be allowed to do the same thing there?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Arguably, and in the view of some of us, ours is the finest Select Committee in the House.

The problems with the uptake of ELMS have been at the heart of a significant departmental underspend. No fair-minded individual would blame the current Government for that, but if that money disappears back into the Treasury, never to be seen again on farms, that blame will be attached to the current Government. In opposition, they said that any underspend should be rolled over into future years. Is that still their position in government, and how will they do it?

Post Office Horizon Scandal

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I also welcome you back to your place, Mr Speaker. It is a genuine pleasure for me, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, to be addressing the House on behalf of the third largest political grouping. My party will use the privilege of that position to hold the Government and Ministers to account. We will not be using it simply to stoke division and manufacture grievance. That is what the people of the United Kingdom, and Scotland in particular, voted for.

At the heart of the Horizon scandal was the culture at the centre of the organisation that failed to respect the work that was being done by sub-postmasters at the frontline. The Minister and the Secretary of State will meet with the chief executive of the Post Office. What evidence have they seen that that culture has actually changed?

Prison Capacity

Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Alistair Carmichael

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Lib Dem spokesperson.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I also welcome the Lord Chancellor to her new position, and thank her for advance sight of her statement.

It has been apparent for months that measures of this sort would be necessary. These are described as temporary measures, but 18 months is a very long time for temporary measures. There would be a real danger of damaging public confidence in our criminal system if the measures were to be extended beyond that point.

The answer surely has to be more than just building more prison capacity. The problem is not that our prison estate is too small; it is that we send too many people to prison, and that the time they spend there does nothing to tackle the problems of drug and alcohol dependency, poor literacy and numeracy skills, and poor mental health, which led to their incarceration. Can we hope to hear in the very near future the Government’s comprehensive plan to tackle the issue of the time that people spend in prison?

Finally, may I bring to the Lord Chancellor’s attention the report published this morning by His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation on the failings of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough probation delivery unit? That report outlined that our duty of care to those whom we lock up should not end the day they leave custody. When will we have a response to that report?