Charlie Dewhirst
Main Page: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)Department Debates - View all Charlie Dewhirst's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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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.
James Murray
What has driven the Government in making the decision to reform agricultural and business property relief is the overwhelming priority of fixing the public finances in a fair and sustainable way. That is why the statistics to which I just referred, about how agricultural and business property relief have come to be used in recent years, are important for understanding the context in which we decided that the time for reform was now.
