Domestic Farming and Food Supply

Debate between Edward Morello and Carla Lockhart

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Carla Lockhart]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member’s assessment. I cannot be clearer: the family farm tax should be scrapped, and if Labour does not scrap it tomorrow, the party—and particularly its rural MPs—will not be forgiven at the ballot box. The land, sheds and machinery are needed to earn a living, and their value cannot simply be withdrawn from a bank account. If land has to be sold, the farm loses some of its ability to produce food and generate an income. For a business already operating on tight margins, that can make all the difference. It is not unreasonable for a farmer who has worked all their life to want their children to carry on that work. These are families who have gone without, borrowed, reinvested and spent years building something they hoped would outlast them.

More than a third of respondents to the UFU survey anticipated an inheritance tax bill of at least £100,000, and more than seven in 10 are less confident about passing on a financially viable business. Almost nine in 10 reported increased family stress or worry because of the changes. I ask the Minister to think about the conversations behind those figures—a father wondering what will happen when he is gone; a mother worried about the burden being left to her children; a young person who wants to farm but cannot see how the figures will stack up. There is enough worry in farming without the Government adding to it. Tomorrow, the Chancellor can lift some of that uncertainty, and I urge the Minister to make the case for restoring the historical reliefs and allowing working family farms to be passed on.

There are also decisions closer to home that are holding the industry back. In Northern Ireland, farmers are told to improve their buildings, reduce emissions and invest in better slurry management but when they try to do those things, they can find themselves caught in planning delays and environmental assessments with no clear way forward. In some cases, they cannot even get betterment through the planning system. A farmer may want to replace an old shed with a modern building, improve animal welfare and reduce emissions yet still struggle to secure approval. How does leaving the old building in place help anyone? I accept that applications must be properly assessed, but there must be a workable route for proposals that demonstrably improve the existing position.

Farmers are spending money on advice, reports and revised applications while the costs of proposed work continue to rise. Ministers at Stormont need to get to grips with this. Farmers cannot be expected to modernise if the system prevents them from doing so. The situation is exactly the same here in GB, and farmers are fed up with being made the fall guy in the pursuit of net zero. They are expected to produce affordable food, look after the countryside and pay for the changes demanded of them, often without any realistic explanation of how their business is supposed to bear the cost. Some of those making the demands would do well to spend a week on a working farm.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and raises many points that go far beyond Northern Ireland. She is talking about the need to improve farms and combat climate change, but how are farmers supposed to engage seriously in this process? My farmers in West Dorset are unable to apply for the sustainable farming incentive because the window is closing so quickly and it is not properly funded. That is leaving them drastically under-budget for the financial year ahead and wondering why they are continuing to meet all the demands being made by the Government when they are not getting a fair settlement.

[Carla Lockhart]

The hon. Member’s farmers will have heard his point very clearly. He is a real advocate for the farming community in his constituency, and he is absolutely right. Driving production overseas will not remove the need for food. It will leave us buying more of it from elsewhere, with less control over how it is produced and with further distances to transport it.

Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions

Debate between Edward Morello and Carla Lockhart

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this important debate.

I have been struck when listening to all the speeches so far by the fact that so often when we talk about planning, we speak in terms of bricks and mortar and targets, but we are actually talking about the neighbourhoods that we want to live in—the places where our children can be near their grandparents, where working families can afford a home, where older people can remain in the communities that they helped to build.

In West Dorset, the system too often delivers not the homes we need, but the ones that developers choose to build—homes that are almost empty, unaffordable or ill-suited to the needs of local communities. We are told that planning holds up development, but many sites already have planning permission and are sitting unused. Far too often, the problem is not the approval of homes but the delivery of what is already agreed.

I often joke when I am talking to residents that there are only two things in politics that everyone agrees on: that we need more homes and that we need them somewhere else. Let me be very clear: Dorset needs new homes, but they must be the right homes, in the right places, for the people who actually need them, supported by proper infrastructure, guided by good planning and with water management built in from the start.

Neighbourhood plans are a crucial part of the solution. They are developed by communities, who know their areas best and understand where homes can go and where they should not, what infrastructure is needed, what characteristics must be preserved and what kinds of homes are actually required.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Appropriate and adequate housing is key to the growth of any area. A lack of housing is a very real problem in Northern Ireland, particularly in my constituency. While we have a different planning system, our issues are the same. The hon. Member mentioned the lack of investment in water and sewerage infrastructure. Does he agree that, in the round of this planning discussion, we need to get the water services at the table to ensure that they are investing in areas so that the housing can be built when it is approved?

[Edward Morello]

I agree 100%. I will come on to the campaign that the Liberal Democrats have been running to make water companies statutory consultees, and the importance of their involvement.

In West Dorset, we need genuinely affordable social housing, affordable homes for key workers and smaller homes for older people who want to downsize but remain in their communities. In my constituency, nearly 80% of homes are under-occupied. Many residents, especially the half of the population over 55, are trapped in houses that are too large for their current needs, with no smaller suitable alternatives locally. Meanwhile, young families are priced out of the villages that they grew up in. Neighbourhood plans offer us a way forward, but they must be given real weight in planning decisions. Local voices must not be sidelined by arbitrary targets, and local planners must be given the tools and support to do the job properly and shape developments that fit our communities.

Planning should not just be about housing; it should be about protecting the natural environment and ensuring that the infrastructure is in place to support new developments. In West Dorset, more than 70% of our land is designated as a protected natural landscape. These landscapes are not only part of our heritage, but vital to our local economy; tourism brings in more than £320 million a year and supports more than 5,000 jobs. People come to Dorset for the natural beauty. If we lose that, we lose more than the countryside; we lose our livelihoods and our communities. That is why I believe that National Landscapes must be made a statutory consultee in the planning process and have a guaranteed seat at the table when decisions are made that could permanently alter the characteristics of our protected areas.

The same must be done with water companies, as mentioned. At present, they are not statutory consultees on new housing developments, despite the fact that every flush, every sink and every shower adds pressure to an already overstretched system. In 2024 alone, West Dorset saw more than 4,200 sewage spills, equating to a staggering 48,000 hours of sewage discharge. It is not just a planning issue; it is a public health crisis and an environmental disaster. When homes are built without the pipes and the run-off systems to support them, everyone pays the price. Water companies must be statutory consultees, so that new development does not simply add to the pollution burden and we can hold water companies accountable if the pollution continues. The planning system must build in environmental accountability from the start.

Neighbourhood plans should not just be maps of where homes go; they should be binding frameworks that connect housing with infrastructure, nature, transport and water. They must have teeth and they must be respected. We must also tackle the backlog of permissions already granted. Developers must not be allowed to sit on land when communities go without. “Use it or lose it” measures must be implemented to ensure that approved developments are built or planning permission is withdrawn.

Dorset will soon be consulting on its new local plan and I urge residents to get involved. Housing targets may be set by Whitehall, but homes are lived in by people, and people deserve a system that listens to local communities, delivers the right kind of housing and provides the infrastructure needed to make those homes liveable.