Dave Doogan
Main Page: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus and Perthshire Glens)Department Debates - View all Dave Doogan's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 days, 2 hours ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I welcome the work that my hon. Friend does on the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. As I announced in October, the UK Infrastructure Bank has now become the national wealth fund and it will expand its team and be headquartered in the brilliant city of Leeds, to realise our ambition on the national wealth fund. The national wealth fund will also have a strong regional focus, working with the mayors, including Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire, so that we can realise the potential of all our regions, including Yorkshire. Further details on the national infrastructure and service transformation authority’s governance and location will be confirmed in due course.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
One of the economic investments that we do not want to see in Angus and Perthshire Glens, or anywhere else in Scotland, is foreign multinationals buying up farms because farmers have given up under the weight of the taxes introduced by this Government. This would destroy local supply chains and make larger farms that are less responsive to consumer demand. What has the Chancellor seen in her impact assessment of the agricultural property relief changes to allay those fears?
Rachel Reeves
One of the current challenges, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is that agricultural property relief is often used for tax avoidance. People are buying farmland not because they are family farmers but because they do not want to pay any inheritance tax. That is why we are reforming the system to bring in much-needed money to fund our public services, and to have a fair system with a 50% discount to inheritance tax paid on agricultural property and a 10-year period to pay that inheritance tax, interest free.