Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief Debate
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Andrew Pakes
Main Page: Andrew Pakes (Labour (Co-op) - Peterborough)Department Debates - View all Andrew Pakes's debates with the HM Treasury
Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief
Andrew Pakes Excerpts(3 days, 22 hours ago)
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Dan Tomlinson
The Government have set the thresholds for tax policies over the period of the OBR’s forecast, and it would not be right for me to comment on the changes that may or may not happen after that. May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that throughout the time that Margaret Thatcher was in power, we did not have a system like the current system, so he is not quite right to say that this relief has always been there? It was not there when the political hero of many Conservative Members was in power.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
Happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, and to all your team. I welcome the Minister’s comments. I thank DEFRA and Treasury Ministers for engaging with farmers and National Farmers Union members in my constituency, and for listening to their views. Farming has had a terrible decade—much longer than 14 months—with rural services cut, farming budgets unspent, failed Brexit plans and trade deals that sold out British farmers. Does the Minister agree with me that with the changes that we have made to APR, the findings of the Batters review and the funding that this Government are putting in place, we can now turn a corner on that terrible decade for British farming?
Dan Tomlinson
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend’s powerful contribution. He made important points about how the trade deals negotiated by the previous Government undermined British farming and that there was no consistency of investment and support for farmers up and down the country. What do rural communities think about that? At the last general election, they turfed out hundreds of Conservative rural MPs and elected over 150 Labour MPs to represent rural and semi-rural constituencies. Labour Members are now the mainstream voice of rural communities up and down the country.