Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

Yes, not bad, but I have to say that the tie runs in a close second—that is pretty shocking too.

I now turn from the substance of the Budget to the chaotic pantomime that we had in the run-up to the Budget? We had every possible kite flown by the Treasury as to which taxes were potentially going up. We had so many kites that they blotted out the sun, and the long shadow of all that chaos swept across businesses who stopped investing, and consumers who stopped spending. Members should not take my word for that; Andy Haldane, the former chief economist at the Bank of England, observed that all that speculation made businesses and consumers “hunker down”. It had real economic consequences.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Sir Mel Stride]

I will take one final intervention, and there is none better than my right hon. Friend.

[Dr Murrison]

My right hon. Friend is being very generous. The truth is that through dither, delay and changing their mind, the Labour Government in the run-up to the Budget had a real impact on people’s lives. Does he agree that pensioners in particular were encouraged to withdraw funds from their pension funds, which will have an impact on them for many years to come? What does he think of the remarks of Michael Summersgill, the chief executive officer of AJ Bell, who said that millions and billions of pounds were withdrawn from pension funds precisely because of the changing mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer expressed before the Budget?

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why that behaviour was so irresponsible. There are people who would have drawn down on their pensions because they were extremely concerned about what was being briefed out by the Treasury as to what changes may be coming down the line, and about their ability to do so after the Budget. We also had people leaving the country because they were worried about an exit tax, which was another kite flown by the Treasury. That grossly irresponsible behaviour had real-life impacts in the real economy.

When it comes to misleading, there is much to consider in the complete mismanagement of the run-up to this Budget. That is not just my view. Indeed, a member of the Cabinet was quoted in the press saying,

“the handling of this Budget has been a disaster from start to finish.”

The impression that has been given is that there was a deliberate attempt to paint an inaccurate picture of the public finances, designed to give political cover for Labour’s plans for more taxes and more welfare spending. The Chancellor delivered a pre-Budget statement in Downing Street on 4 November in which she said that the OBR would be downgrading its productivity forecast, meaning lower tax receipts, but she failed to mention that in reality the OBR’s forecast had already shown her four days earlier that overall tax receipts were £16 billion higher—not lower—than previously thought. To quote the OBR’s Budget report:

“In isolation, the reduction in productivity growth could have lowered revenues by around £16 billion in 2029-30. However, the boost to receipts from higher inflation and changes to the composition of nominal GDP growth…more than offset this.”

Ministers have pointed out that there was a need to increase headroom, but that was not the justification for tax rises that was being made before the Budget, and it is an admission that the headroom that the Chancellor left in her first two fiscal events was inadequate and irresponsible. Crucially, it also fails to acknowledge that a significant proportion of the increase in taxes was used to fund policy decisions to spend more on welfare.

On 14 November, the media were briefed that a plan to increase income tax rates had been dropped following an improved forecast from the OBR. We now know that that was simply untrue. The finalised pre-measures forecast came weeks before this, on 31 October. That is why it is vital that the Financial Conduct Authority investigates the briefings and leaks that went on, and I have written to it again this week on that matter. Even after the Budget, in a Guardian interview, the Chancellor said that income tax rises had remained on the table well into November,

“because we didn’t know the size of the downgrade, the productivity”.

Again, that is simply untrue.

We now know that at no point was there a deficit of the scale suggested to the media. We know that because the OBR felt it necessary to take the unprecedented step of publishing its forecast rounds in full. The question remains as to why Ministers seem to have been so unconcerned about what was appearing in the press, when the OBR has now revealed that the alarm was being raised before the Budget. The reality is that the briefings and leaks were a smokescreen designed to distract from the real reason that taxes were going up, the utter weakness of this Labour Government and the need to buy off their Back Benchers with yet more welfare spending.

In the process, the uncertainty and speculation fuelled by the Treasury had an impact on families and on growth. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) rightly pointed out, people made decisions about their finances. They locked in higher mortgage rates, and businesses put off making investments and hiring workers. The British public have been left worse off and they have been misled. They deserve an apology, and they deserve much better than this weak and irresponsible Government.

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[James Murray]

The right hon. Gentleman had a very long time to comment earlier in this debate—I may give way to him later.

[Dr Murrison]

The Minister is a reasonable man, and I imagine that he would subscribe to the Government’s much-vaunted duty of candour that they are selling in their Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which is currently in Committee. The Bill is so important to the Government that the Prime Minister himself had to introduce it on Second Reading. Will the Minister examine what has happened over the past couple of months? Does he really believe that the Treasury, and in particular the Chancellor of the Exchequer, can truly be said to have discharged that duty of candour in their dealings?

Taxes

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

There were many great things that the previous Government did, not least creating employment as a job-making machine and, despite the Russia-Ukraine war, bringing inflation down at the back end of 2022 from 11% to 2%—bang on target—on the day of the general election. Where is inflation now? It is almost twice that level. We also improved education in our country beyond all measure; Labour is now undoing those reforms, and we will see the consequences of that for generations to come. We did many things of which we should be proud, not least getting us through covid and through the inflationary times. On the day of the general election, we had the highest growth in the G7, we had near record levels of employment and a near record low level of unemployment, and we had seen 13 consecutive months of improving real living standards. That is not a bad record.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

So far, Labour Members do not appear to have mentioned covid. We reduced the deficit by 80%, which enabled us to spend £373 billion to support households and businesses during those years. I have businesses in my constituency that would no longer be in business had it not been for that support. What does the shadow Chancellor think would happen if, God forbid, we had a similar event right now? The answer is, as I suspect he is about to tell me, that the Government simply would not be able to sustain households and the economy in the way that we did.

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. The conclusion that one must draw on the mess that this Government have made of our economy is that it has become brittle, fragile and vulnerable to the kind of external shocks that it was able to withstand when the Conservatives were stewards of it.

While per capita growth is almost on the floor, unemployment is at a five-year high; as we know, every Labour Government in history have left unemployment higher on leaving office than it was on entering office. Inflation is high and business confidence is at rock bottom. In a recent survey, the Institute of Directors found that business confidence among its members was the lowest in history. My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) refers to covid—according to the IoD, business confidence is even lower now than it was during covid, when the economy contracted by more than 10% overnight. That is how bad business sentiment is out there.

Stamp Duty Land Tax

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We see that in inflation, which is running at about twice the Bank of England’s target and about twice the rate that this Government inherited from us on the day of the general election. Within that, we see food inflation rocketing up at over 4%, damaging and impoverishing the very people that Labour claims to want to stand up for.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we also see hypocrisy? An example would be Cabinet Ministers who say “Build, baby, build” while at the same time writing letters to the Mayor of London trying to block homes in their constituency.

[Sir Mel Stride]

As usual, my right hon. Friend makes a characteristically poignant point.

There is another act of damage that this Government have created: some of the most successful high net worth wealth creators in our country have simply gone; they have left. It is estimated that 16,000 have gone over the time that this Government have been in office. Socialists will say, “Who cares? Good riddance!”, but they should dwell on the fact that the tax paid by those 16,000 people is probably equivalent to between a third of a million and half a million people on average earnings. Hard-working people up and down our country are paying the price of Labour’s policies.

There are choices; it does not have to be like this. We can reduce taxes if we get on top of and control Government spending. At my party’s conference, we set out £47 billion-worth of savings across Government, including £23 billion in savings across the welfare budget. What did the Government do when they tried to tackle the welfare budget? They showed us that this is a Dad’s Army of a Government with a Captain Mainwaring of a Chancellor. They are no match even for the rabble behind them.

We know that we need to have responsible tax cuts. That means that they need to be funded and they need to lean into growth. That is why we have announced that, were we in government, we would be abolishing stamp duty on primary residences. It is one of the worst taxes in our tax system. The OBR states that a 1% increase in stamp duty would lead to a decrease of between 5% and 7% in the number of transactions, yet on this Government’s watch, the stamp duty due on a home valued at £300,000 will have doubled during their time in office.

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[James Murray]

The right hon. Lady is attempting to bring some humour to the Chamber by pretending that the Opposition have some kind of a plan for their proposal. To call their motion half-baked would be not to go far enough. In fact, it shows the recklessness in their approach to the economy. It may be Halloween on Friday, but the ghost of Liz Truss is here today, because the economic recklessness that the former Prime Minister embodied is back in front of us in this Chamber. We have a half-baked motion from the Opposition, built on the wholly unworkable premise of more unfunded tax cuts. Three years on from their disastrous mini-Budget, they have learned precisely nothing.

[Dr Murrison]

rose—

[James Murray]

I will be interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s link.

[Dr Murrison]

I will be interested to hear what the Minister intends to do to un-gum the housing market. I think he will accept that it is an important part of our economy and he says that he is very keen on growth, so what will he do to un-gum it? And what does he say to those legions of tradespeople—electricians, plumbers and kitchen fitters—who are all looking to the Government to provide them with some relief in the months ahead?

[James Murray]

I would say to everyone who works in building homes that Labour is the party that is getting on with building: we are making changes to the planning system to get those homes build. Despite his attempt to make a link to my previous comment, I notice that the right hon. Gentleman did not address that fact that this motion is entirely half-baked. It is a genuine shame for British politics that we have an Opposition who think that they can put forward a motion like this for serious debate in the House of Commons. To be fair, the Conservative party is steeped in centuries of being in Opposition and in Government, but it has become deeply unserious by putting forward motions such as the one today. The motion simply says that the Conservatives’ plan to abolish stamp duty is “to reduce public expenditure”; that it is—that is the sum of their plan.

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[Daisy Cooper]

No—for all the reasons that I will come to. The hon. Gentleman was a fraction too early. Here’s the rub: stamp duty raises a lot of money, and that is presumably why the Conservatives did not seek to scrap it at any point during all their years in power.

Stamp duty for primary residences in England and Northern Ireland raised around £4 billion in 2023-24, and it is suggested that it will raise £9 billion in 2029-30. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the cost in 2029-30 will be around £11 billion, with the additional costs in Scotland and Wales taken into account. That means that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences would cost in the region of £36 billion to £44 billion in total over the next five years. For anybody who is not keeping up, that is almost the cost of the mini-Budget, just in slow motion.

The Conservatives say that they want all those cuts to come from public expenditure, but in this motion they do not say where those savings would come from. By my calculations, they could choose to scrap nearly the whole of the Ministry of Justice—given revelations in recent days about prisoners being let out wrongly, it feels like that may already have happened.

The Conservatives could instead decide to end all support for farmers by scrapping the entirety of the budget for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which reached £7.4 billion in 2028-29, including capital—[Interruption.] Well, it does not say that in the motion. Maybe they would want to do away with the cost of clearing the vast majority of the NHS maintenance backlog—a cost they would reach in a single year—or maybe they would want to scrap the £12 billion a year budget for special educational needs and disabilities. It is not clear in the official Opposition motion where the cuts would come from.

There is a strong case for looking at reforming or scrapping stamp duty all together, alongside other property tax reforms and moving to a land value tax. Indeed, some commentators suggest that scrapping stamp duty and council tax together and phasing in a land value tax over time could be one way to move ahead.

[Dr Murrison]

The average price of a property in St Albans is £642,000 a year. Under the proposals of the hon. Lady’s party, how does she think her constituents would face paying ever more taxes, either through stamp duty land tax or the council tax reforms that she and her colleagues propose?

[Daisy Cooper]

As the right hon. Gentleman will understand, I am not setting out proposals; I am commenting on the proposals from his party. For the record, I was not setting out Liberal Democrat policy; I was discussing what some commentators have pointed towards. I am sure that in the next two or three years, as we get closer to the general election, the Conservatives will be very interested to read our tax plans, which are under active consideration.

Even if people cannot agree on what should replace stamp duty, they can agree on this: if we change one tax in isolation, there are knock-on negative effects. Far from giving more people the security of home ownership, this measure in isolation would put it further out of reach. How do we know that? We know it because there was a big surge in house prices during the temporary stamp duty holiday in 2020-21; it had a negative impact on house buyers.

If the Conservatives—and, indeed, the Government—are truly interested in growing the economy, surely they will agree that the best and most immediate way to do so is to reverse the damage of their terrible Brexit deal with Europe. Analysis shows that if the Government did a better deal with the EU, within their own red lines, they would raise an additional £25 billion per year by unleashing the growth potential of our exporting British businesses.

Property Taxes

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend has put it brilliantly and succinctly, and she is absolutely right. In their horror—in their recoil from the inheritance tax changes—that is exactly what farmers and family business owners have been doing: thinking about alternatives. The seven-year rule has been one of those alternatives, and it would be a really heartless and extraordinarily cruel moment if the Government were to shut that down as well.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is explaining the situation in his usual powerful way. If, as seems likely, the Government impose capital gains tax on a person’s principal private residence, will he, as mitigation, consider whether there should at least be indexation allowance to provide some relief from the horror that I fear is about to be inflicted on my constituents? He will remember that the Finance Act 2008 abolished that relief on other property. I suspect that the Government will not be sympathetic to such a suggestion given what happened in 2008, but it would at least take the edge off the imposition of taxes on the sale of a person’s principal private residence.

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend raises his point in his usual eloquent manner. That is a question for the Minister, and I hope that, when he rises to the Dispatch Box, he will rule out our concerns in their entirety. In the event that he cannot, perhaps he will choose to answer my right hon. Friend’s inquiry.

Is it not the case that those in the Labour party have a clear misunderstanding because they have no business experience? Those on the Government Front Bench have no business experience in setting up companies or understanding the meaning of business taxes—the experience is simply not there. Labour will talk about taxing wealth, but does it not understand that if we tax wealth, we will get less of it?

It has been estimated that about 15,000 high net worth individuals have left our country in the period in which this Government have been in power. A consequence of that tax just walking out of the door is that we will require somewhere around a third of a million to half a million people on average earnings to make up the difference. This is not a case of good riddance to wealth; the Government should—as the Conservative party would—encourage and turbocharge wealth at every turn.

Regional Growth

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and colleagues from the Liverpool city region on securing £1.6 billion of transport investment. As he will remember, he and I were on a visit together looking at some of the potential for that money to be spent not long ago, including at a roundtable with local employers and workers at the Everton stadium. It was great to be able to see out the window of the office of the Liverpool city region mayor the potential that that investment will unlock in housing, jobs and great opportunities for people in the area. My hon. Friend asks about how the rest of this money will be spent on what sounds like very sensible infrastructure upgrades. As he will know, that is a decision for the mayor of the Liverpool city region.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Chief Secretary’s announcement on regional growth largely omitted the south-west region beyond Bristol. Will he therefore ensure that next Wednesday there is at least a nod to the region in which both he and I have our constituencies? Will he ensure that the signal that this Government sent to the south-west practically on day one by canning improvements to the A303 is corrected? Will he ensure that there is at least a nod to the much-needed Westbury bypass? Can we please have a little investment in the poor country cousin of the rail network in this country, which is the west of England line?

[Darren Jones]

Of course, the announcement today is on funding for combined authority mayors, which is why the west of England combined authority mayor has received two-thirds of £1 billion of transport investment for areas that are part of that boundary. We are still committed to investing in each and every part of Britain, and the details of that will come out in the spending review next Wednesday. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have said to other parts of the country that if they can get together and agree on a combined authority mayoralty, we will continue to support it in the same way that we support the existing mayors in the UK. It will be for local leaders in the region that he and I come from to decide how best to collaborate on these issues going forward.

Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)]

I thank the petitioner and the hundreds of people in my constituency who signed the petition.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) eloquently put it, it is encouraging to see many more MPs present on the Government Benches. I mean that genuinely; previous debates have been a little sparsely attended on those Benches, so I hope this is a sign that things are slowly turning and that there may be change to come.

The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) said that we should not be treating this issue as a political football. That message did not quite reach the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), but I agree that, although it has become a political football, the problem is that the people outside right now feel that they have not been listened to by this Government. The reason there are again hundreds of tractors and thousands of people outside on Whitehall is that people feel their voices are not being heard. That is why we are in here and they are out there: because nobody has listened to them up to this point.

I want to go back to a point well made by the NFU president in front of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee in December. He said that the Government should set the sector the exam question and say what they are trying to achieve here. Then the sector can work with Government to reach that agreed point: either to prevent land banking by very wealthy individuals or to raise revenue to support rural public services. Whichever it is, let us get round the table and find a solution that works for all.

However, I fear that those in the Treasury have become like modern-day flat earthers—holding their position in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whether from agricultural organisations, tax experts, supermarkets or MPs from across the political divide questioning the impact of this tax. We know that the modelling does not take into account the full impact of business property relief. It largely focuses on agricultural property relief claims, but many people, including tenants, family businesses and farming businesses, will only use a BPR claim and not an APR claim. That is why we need to look at this policy again in its entirety.

I ask the Minister once again—dare I say beg him—to please pause this process. Let us get round the table with farming organisations and representatives, and find a better way forwards.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

I hope that colleagues who want to speak are on my list. If you are on the list, that is great, but you must still bob; otherwise, I will assume that you no longer wish to speak.

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[Gideon Amos]

I agree; that would be a very useful statistic. If the Minister is not willing to look it up, I hope he might ask the House of Commons Library to do so, because it would certainly reveal the vast number of farms that would be affected by the scale of the tax that is proposed for them.

In short, I have no objection to the taxing of super-large landowners who use farms as a loophole to avoid inheritance tax—in fact, I would support it. But the irony of this policy is that it will drive more land into the hands of those super-large landowners, because every time farmers have to sell off some of their land, it will go to one of those bigger companies. Seeing that land being sold piecemeal time after time will only damage British farming as a whole. Drawing this tax down to some of the smallest family farms in Taunton and Wellington, and across the country, is unjust. It will not raise the money that the Government say it will. It will mean piecemeal disposal of farms up and down the country. The Government really must raise the threshold for this policy or extend the transitional relief. If they do not do that, the policy needs to go and it needs to go now. That is what the Liberal Democrats would do.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

Colleagues, we have some time available, so I am prepared to give a bit of latitude for the Front Bench speeches. I would suggest an indicative 15 minutes, starting with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Sarah Dyke.

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[Julia Buckley]

On a point of order, Dr Murrison. The manner in which the shadow Minister described the view that a farmer was better off if he committed suicide before April 2026 was highly irresponsible. This is a public debate on a very emotive subject. It is televised and it is being shared across social media in real time. This is not the moment to encourage anyone to consider suicide. Farmers’ anxiety and concerns about mental health are running high, and this is the moment to engage constructively with the Treasury, and with farmers and the NFU, who have been in dialogue, to seek the transition to tapered support that I referred to in my intervention, to avoid the very scenario that the shadow Minister repeated.

Every Member here cares for our farmers; it is the reason that has brought us all from different parties together to discuss this matter in a respectful manner. In the interests—[Interruption.] Dr Murrison, may I finish? In the interests of mature and responsible debate, will the shadow Minister kindly correct the record to show that he does not condone suicide but encourages constructive dialogue?

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. As she probably knows, it is not a point of order, but her remarks are now on the record.

[Robbie Moore]

Further to that point of order, Dr Murrison. In my contribution, I was making very clear the live and real conversations, concerns, queries and frustrations that have been brought forward not only to me in my position as shadow farming Minister but to other Members on this side of the House and, indeed, to organisations that sit outside this House, namely those representing the farming community. These are real live issues and representations that have been brought to us. Therefore, I do think it is just and right to use my role as the shadow farming Minister to bring before this House, in front of the Government Minister, those very live concerns and real conversations that are happening in many family farm homes just now.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (in the Chair)]

The shadow Minister will know that is not a point or order either, but his remarks are on the record.

Growing the UK Economy

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury did a good job of name-checking places across the country that might benefit from growth, except not once did he mention anywhere in the south-west. He is the Member for Bristol North West, so why is that? Does he have no confidence in the potential of the south-west? Will he redeem himself by visiting Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, and specifically the Tech Trowbridge initiative, which is trying to create the conditions for growth? The Government might like to be involved in that.

[Darren Jones]

The right hon. Member is confused. I am enormously proud of my region of Bristol and the south-west, not least because of our heritage and the potential that we have to offer the country. The aerospace industry in north Bristol will benefit enormously from our announcements, which is great for workers and businesses in our region. He may be interested in an announcement from the national wealth fund today of investment in the Cornish economy to get us mining again, so that we get the rare earth materials that we need to fuel development in the UK and create the jobs and investment in the south-west that he asks for.

UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Unless we engage and work with our partners around the world, we will miss out on the opportunities that other countries secure for their businesses and economies. If we miss out on those investment and trade opportunities, we can be sure that other countries will take advantage of them. That is why I was in China, and it is why I will work with counterparts around the world to secure good outcomes for British businesses and jobs here in the United Kingdom.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The Chancellor raised the issue of human rights abuses in China, but did she get the opportunity to raise with her interlocutors the extrajudicial work of the United Front Work Department, particularly in relation to UK institutions, especially universities?

[Rachel Reeves]

I raised a number of issues around human rights abuses, labour and, indeed, rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, including the case of Jimmy Lai. I raised that with all the Ministers I met in China, and I will always stand up for our values and interests.

Employer National Insurance Contributions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The simple fact is that, at the time of the general election, we had the fastest-growing economy in the G7. The simple fact is that the Labour manifesto said it would deliver precisely that, yet we have heard very little about that commitment in recent days and weeks—I wonder why.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to set the facts right? It is important to reflect on the fact that, during our 14 years in government—despite the 2008–09 financial crisis, despite the pandemic and despite the energy crisis—more than 1 million jobs were created, and 4 million people were in employment who were not in employment when we took office.

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our record on employment shows that we were a job-creating machine after 2010, and the statistics he cites are quite right.

When it came to business—this is a killer worthy of a stand-up comedy routine—the manifesto said:

“Labour will…support business through a stable policy environment”.

Of course, we know that all sorts of businesses have been hit by this tax increase, including many that directly support our public services: our hospices, our GPs and our pharmacists. Marie Curie has said that it is about to get a tax bill for an additional £3 million. Just think of the impact that will have.

The question that many are now feverishly and worriedly asking is whether there is more to come. Are the Government going to run out of road with their approach to our economy, and will they come back for more? Well, the Chancellor recently told the CBI that the Government will not be

“coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.”

Yet when the Leader of the Opposition put this assertion to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions today, we heard no answer. When I twice asked exactly that question of the Chancellor yesterday, we heard no response. Currently, these businesses do not know whether the Chancellor’s assertion that there will be no more borrowing and no more taxes is true or false.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that some of the features of the current inheritance tax relief system mean that it is an attractive vehicle for tax planning to reduce inheritance tax liability. People who have wealth who have never been farmers and do not intend to become farmers have been using it as a way to avoid inheritance tax. In fact, reducing that should take some of the pressure out of agricultural land values and, I would hope, help to make a more sustainable farming sector in the future.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is important to get the facts right and to get the right number of farms in frame. The Minister must know that the CAAV has said that the Government estimate is down by a factor of five. According to its impartial independent review, 75,000 farms will be in frame for this tax, not the figure the Minister is relying on.

[James Murray]

My response to the right hon. Gentleman is the same as that to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I believe he is looking at the data for the total value of farms, rather than for inheritance tax claims. The two are different things. For instance, a farm worth £5 million owned in equal shares by five individuals would have no inheritance tax liability because of the way claims work. That is where I think some of the confusion has come from. There is different data around the value of farms and around the value of inheritance tax claims. For the purpose of today’s debate, it is the inheritance tax claims that are the right data to focus on.

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[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I must begin by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I rise to support the land-based and agrifood sector in my constituency, a sector that stands bewildered at what this Government are doing to it—a Government who it thought had its back, and that were going for growth. A farmer constituent wrote to me shortly after the Budget, saying:

“All these changes have meant that our already tight margins are non-existent. The next few months are going to be spent calculating if it would be better to just sell up and no longer farm.”

That is hardly surprising, given that the average salary of a farmer in this country is a little over £22,000, although farmers are described by many as being multimillionaires.

My constituents’ disappointment is heightened by the Government’s assurances before the election, and the specific promise that they made on APR and BPR. I think that, if I may say so without damning his career too much—I see that he is no longer in the Chamber—the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) did us a service by reminding us of that promise. However, we should not be surprised. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) have already drawn attention to John McTernan, who very helpfully allowed the mask to slip when, referring to farmers, he said that we should

“do to them what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners.”

He went on to say that farming was

“an industry we can do without… we don’t need small farmers.”

I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate, he will do us a service by distancing himself completely from those sentiments.

The Government’s estimate of in-scope farmers is either incompetent or tricksy and duplicitous. Setting aside Ministers’ apparent confusion over what constitutes an acre and what constitutes a hectare, we are of course indebted to the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, which says that 75,000 farms over a single generation will be affected—five times the Government’s estimate. I think the Minister should reflect on that, because there is no shame in admitting that the Government and their officials have got this wrong. There is time to fix it, and there is time to look at such independent sources, to compare and contrast their data with the data that the Government’s officials have produced, and to tack accordingly. Were the Minister to do so—I appreciate the Treasury pressures that he is under—his stock among the farming community would rise substantially in these early few months of his tenure.

I have a helpful suggestion: the Government have picked the wrong target. I think that many Members of this House would be perfectly happy for this Government or any Government to target those who have, over years, used land to avoid inheritance tax, particularly institutional investors, hedge fund managers and oversea investors, who have artificially put up the price of land in this country, which forces new entrants out of the market and distorts it. That is a perfectly legitimate thing for any Government to do, but what this Government are doing is picking on small and medium-sized farms, many of which have been in families for generations. The Government are doing the productive sector of our land economy in this country a massive disservice and, frankly, are acting in a way that is unfair and unworthy.

I implore the Minister, who I know is a good man, to think again. He should talk to the Treasury, and turn his fire on individuals and institutions using land to avoid tax, which forces up land prices. Hands off our family farms!