Agricultural and Business Property Relief Debate
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Esther McVey
Main Page: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)Department Debates - View all Esther McVey's debates with the HM Treasury
Agricultural and Business Property Relief
Esther McVey Excerpts(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is absolutely right: that is exactly what they will do. I am sure that it is not the Government’s intent to bolster the big international corporations and hurt the small player who is an embedded part of the community.
So many people I speak to genuinely try and run their farms to be supportive of nature and of local business. Once major corporations are involved, these will not care where they get their supplies from. They will not be focused on that.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this brutal change to inheritance tax—let us call it what it is, a family farm tax—will destroy family farms and farming in the UK as we know it? Does it not make nonsense of Labour’s claim to believe in food security for the UK? We need a U-turn straightaway.
The question I am now being asked by my farmers is: did this policy come about because the Government did not know what they were doing and through a lack of knowledge by the Labour party of the farming community? Or will we look back at this and see it for what it is: theft by the state of land from private owners?
Graham Stuart
I will come to that point later in my speech.
When that farmland is gone, it will take with it the livelihoods of families who have devoted generations to feeding our nation and will have a permanent negative impact on the nation’s food security.