Finance (No. 2) Bill

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dan Tomlinson]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have read the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report—we had a bit of extra time to read it this year. He will know that according to that report, investment—both overall, whole-economy investment and private sector investment—has outpaced the OBR’s forecast from March this year. I look forward to returning to those points later.

The Budget delivers choices that were fair and necessary—choices that deliver on the public’s priorities, and that bring about the change that this Government promised. This Government have chosen to cut the cost of living, delivering £150 off energy bills and freezing train fares and prescription charges. This Government have chosen to cut NHS waiting lists, delivering 5.2 million more appointments and announcing in the Budget 250 new neighbourhood health centres. This Government have chosen to lift 550,000 children out of relative poverty in this Parliament, by removing the two-child limit, and by expanding free breakfast clubs and free school meal eligibility.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The Government have chosen to absolutely decimate family farms across the whole United Kingdom. The Prime Minister was questioned yesterday by members of the Liaison Committee, and he was told that farmers have said that they might be better off dying before this tax change comes in. I feel that we need to let the reality of that sink in. His response was that Governments have to bring about sensible reform, but sensible reform is not someone lying in an early grave to avoid the break-up of their family farm. He also claimed that this policy was not targeted, and was merely a change to the tax regime, but when this Finance Bill decimates family farms, it certainly—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. The hon. Lady’s intervention is far too long.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore]

I absolutely agree. This Budget has an impact not only on our farming community, but on the wider agricultural supply chain and the many businesses that support our farming community. Why? Because bringing in a threshold of £1 million will impact nearly every family farming business.

Let us look at the figures. The average size of a farming business in England is about 200 acres. When valuing farmland, there may be a farmhouse, a cottage or two, livestock, agricultural machinery, growing crops and crops in store, which will put it well above the £1 million threshold, thereby exposing the farming business to an IHT liability that kicks in at 20% of the value over and above £1 million. The Government will say that they have permitted some allowances, but that does not take into account the value of those businesses. This is going to have a hugely detrimental impact not only on those family businesses, but on the wider agricultural supply chain.

[Carla Lockhart]

The hon. Member is passionate about this issue, and I commend him for the stand that he has taken. I know that he is an expert on valuation. Does he agree that Northern Ireland will be harder hit because of the land valuations and the price of land in Northern Ireland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

I want to begin by endorsing and agreeing with the very articulate and passionate contributions from Members right across the House. It is encouraging that there have been speeches from those on the Labour Benches attacking the cruel death tax on family farms—that is the only way to describe it. It is cruel, no matter what way you look at it.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) laid it out very clearly, as indeed he did yesterday in the Liaison Committee when he put the Prime Minister on the spot and the Prime Minister had no answer. A Prime Minister with no answer needs to change course. The Government have lost the argument on this issue. It is no answer to simply say, “We have the numbers to drive it through”. This needs to be done on the basis of equity and what is right. Having lost that argument—and so patently lost it—they need to face up to that. Just as the Prime Minister lost the argument yesterday in the Liaison Committee, so the Government need to face up to that point on this issue as well.

I want to make some comments about the Bill that are particularly pertinent to Northern Ireland. In any fiscal landscape, critical to being a part of a United Kingdom is the reasonable expectation that there will be the same fiscal ground rules across that United Kingdom—that if business is given advantage in one part, it will equally have that advantage in another. Yet when I come to this Finance Bill, particularly clauses 13 to 15, I discover to my dismay that businesses in Northern Ireland are not to have the same advantages when it comes to the capacity to scale up, as is provided for in clauses 13 to 15 regarding enterprise investment schemes, venture capital projects and enterprise management incentives. That is because the hideous tentacles of the Windsor framework have reached right into this Bill.

Because of the Windsor framework’s imposition on Northern Ireland business of EU state rules, we find in clauses 13 to 15 the exemption of Northern Ireland companies from the advantages to be given to others under those clauses. That removes the fiscal level playing field that should operate in any UK internal market. That undermines the UK internal market, because under those clauses companies in Great Britain will rightly be able to maximise state aid so that they can maximise their trading power, but an alike company in Northern Ireland has the benefit it can obtain from those scaling-up opportunities capped by EU state aid rules. That means they are not on a level playing field when it comes to competitiveness in respect of the capabilities in the Finance Bill.

That causes me to challenge the declaration that the Bill has no effect on GB-Northern Ireland trade. It most patently does if some companies in GB can scale up using these enhanced benefits from investment and venture capital unfettered by any state aid rules, while the same type of company in my constituency has the benefit it can draw fettered by the imposition of EU state aid rules. That is neither fair nor right, and it is but the latest manifestation of the Windsor framework and our continuing subjection to foreign laws.

These are not laws that we make here. EU state aid rules are not set here; they are set in a foreign Parliament that no one in this United Kingdom elects by a combination of Ministers from 27 other countries who have no accountability to anyone in my constituency or any constituency in this Parliament—and yet those rules are traducing and impeding business in Northern Ireland.

[Carla Lockhart]

The hon. and learned Member is making a passionate contribution, and he is absolutely right. In truth, clauses 13 to 15 all increase support for businesses across the UK, apart from those in Northern Ireland. It is not that we have been overlooked; the clauses expressly, explicitly and deliberately exclude us. That amounts to discrimination. It has to end.

[Jim Allister]

It has to end. It is discrimination at the behest of a foreign power. It is Brussels saying, “You must impose state aid rules on Northern Ireland.” The product of that in these clauses is a foreign Parliament dictating to this Parliament what we can and cannot give to our own businesses in this United Kingdom. That is so fundamentally offensive to our constitutional integrity that it goes to the very heart of what it means, or what it should mean, to be part of a United Kingdom.