Farming and Inheritance Tax

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

I will make some progress.

As I was saying, we could not justify leaving the situation unchanged, with a full, unlimited tax relief benefiting a very small number of estates by a very significant amount, given that there is such an urgent need to repair the public finances and to improve the hospitals, schools and roads on which people across the country depend, including those in rural communities.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

There is a lot of talk from the Opposition, who are getting very excited by this debate, about farms, but we have to remember that farms rely on farm workers. In the name of accuracy, could my hon. Friend put on the record a reminder of which Opposition parties, including the Lib Dems, voted for the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board under the last Government? That actually drove down rural wages, and we should be talking about farm workers. Is it not true to say that when the Opposition refer to exemptions, the only thing they want to talk about is exemption from their own record being under scrutiny?

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[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

That was quicker than I expected, Madam Deputy Speaker, so thank you. It is a privilege to speak in the debate.

Nothing goes to the heart of the health, wellbeing and prosperity of a nation more than being able to feed and look after ourselves. Britain’s farmers and our farming workforce are part of the essential infrastructure that keeps this country going. I am proud to represent a constituency with such a rich food and farming heritage. Farming is in our DNA.

I pay tribute to our farmers and farming workforce. When we talk about any other industry, we recognise the skilled workers that deliver for Britain: the steelworkers, the miners, the nurses and the doctors. We should start every debate on food and farming with the same recognition for farmers. Food security begins with the incredible work of our farmers, and I thank them. We talk about people going the extra mile to look out for each other and care for our communities; farmers do that every day. This should therefore be a welcome debate on the future of farming. It should mention farming profitability and allow the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) to talk about agri-technology and how we increase profitability. I hope that he does so shortly. Instead, what do we get? It is political opportunism from a party that should know better. I am proud to be part of the largest contingent of rural Labour MPs in Britain’s history. Labour Members were elected to protect and support our rural communities, and we will do just that. After 14 years, it is a bit rich of Conservative Members now to claim that they are backing Britain’s farmers.

[Sir John Hayes]

I entirely endorse what the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, said about recognising and celebrating the work of farmers, and indeed farm workers, but does he understand—I am sure that most Conservative Members understand this well—that assets and income are entirely different things? Farmers’ assets are our landscape. Their wealth is our common wealth—something that the Government have seemingly failed to appreciate by imposing a tax on farmers that confuses their ability to make a living with the asset that is essential for them to feed the nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Pakes]

I thank the right hon. Member for being a champion in this House of skills and trade unions, which are sadly too rarely championed by Conservative Members. I recognise his points on our common wealth and the work that goes into looking after and protecting our land, but I also recognise the impact of the last Government on land and our farming communities. Let us look at the Conservatives’ record: 14 years of running down the DEFRA budget; a decade of austerity, which became a decade of insecurity; a Brexit turkey half-cooked; flood funding cut; trade deals that sold out British farmers; a farming budget £300 million underspent. If Conservative Members want to discuss food security and the future of our rural communities, bring it on.

The Conservative party saw more than 12,000 farmers and agribusinesses forced out of business since 2010. Farming has the lowest profitability of any sector in the economy. Conservatives abolished the Agricultural Wages Board and saw rural wages stagnate, as did many Liberal Democrat colleagues, who voted in the same Lobby. Now the Conservatives are defending the status quo when it comes to big business, big landowners and rising land prices. At the start of this debate, I thought that they were literally the last people on earth defending the status quo, but some of them seem to be talking about accepting some kind of policy, while those on the Front Bench seem to be saying that there should be no change whatsoever, so the merry-go-round continues.

The Opposition want all the spending but none of the responsibility. We talk about change. We know the change that this country voted for in our rural and farm communities. People voted for change because public services were broken, with rural schools crumbling, NHS waiting lists soaring, and rural GPs and NHS dentists harder to find. The Government are rightly focused on the cost of living crisis and improving access to GPs in our rural communities. What are the Opposition focused on? They are defending a tax break for estates worth up to £3 million while attacking a pay rise for the lowest paid workers in our rural communities. That says everything that we need to know about today’s Tory party.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

As a fellow Cambridgeshire MP, will the hon. Member give us some examples of farms in his constituency that support the measure?

[Andrew Pakes]

I certainly recognise from door-knocking in rural communities and talking to rural workers that food poverty has gone up in my constituency. People have found it harder to get a bus to go and work on a farm, and people working on farms are struggling with the result of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, which crashed our economy. The reality of the debate that we should be having is that profitability for British farmers goes back a generation, not to 4 July. That is why the Government are pledging to put £5 billion into the farming budget and are committed to working with farmers and the sector to get that money into productive food production. It is why we will use the heft of public procurement to buy British farming produce. Food security goes to the heart of the challenges facing our country. Fixing our public services goes to the heart of rebuilding our rural communities. If the House wants to do both, it will start by rejecting the Opposition motion.

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[Katie Lam]

What I have been told by my farmers, based on the tax advice that they have been given, is that the bills—and not just the inheritance tax on decades of profits—will be completely unaffordable.

Farming is hard. It is not like any other industry: it is a culture and a way of life. It is lonely, revenues are uncertain, profits are tiny and cash is tight.

[Andrew Pakes]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Katie Lam]

I will not, as I am coming to the end of my speech.

It is absurd and shameful that this Government, looking to fund their union pay rises and vanity energy projects, are putting this pressure on those who do the back-breaking work of growing our food. Farmers already have appalling problems with mental health and suicide: the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution tells us that a third of farmers may be depressed and half may be suffering from anxiety. One of my farmers says that his father is now kept up at night by the thought that he will leave his children a crippling debt that will make their lives financially impossible. Another told me that his father says that he just hopes that he dies before the changes come in. This policy is illogical, inconsistent, dishonest and wrong.