Family Farming in Northern Ireland

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Carla Lockhart]

I agree with the hon. Member. I thank him for using his intervention to speak up for Northern Ireland farmers, because they will be hard hit because of the land values.

When a farmer dies, there is not the liquid cash available to meet a large inheritance tax bill. That is precisely why successive Governments introduced and retained APR, so that farms would not have to be sold off bit by bit, just to pay the tax man. It was a recognition that the nation needs farms to continue and not be broken up at the point of succession. The change is being dressed up as modernisation or rebalancing, but in reality it is an attack on the very concept of family farming. I am pleased to say that colleagues from every party in Northern Ireland have been absolutely united in our opposition to the policy.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although the Government say that the effect of the inheritance tax on farms will be pro-growth, it will actually be anti-growth? In order to prepare for the day when a huge tax bill will have to be met, rather than investing in growing their enterprise, farmers are holding back so that they can hopefully make some contribution towards the exorbitant demands that are made upon death.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carla Lockhart]

I agree with the hon. Member. I need to give way to the leader of my party at this point.

[Gavin Robinson]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. It is quite right that she took the last two interventions because she was talking about cross-party support for Northern Ireland farms. She is blessed to have a constituency with some of the most fertile and therefore valuable agricultural land in Northern Ireland, with an average of around £30,000 per acre. Although there may be a policy intention in relation to the industrialisation of farms or people shielding their wealth through farms, would she like the Government to recognise that that is not the case in Northern Ireland, and even a small family holding of 30 acres could get caught by the policy change?

[Carla Lockhart]

Absolutely. It does not take much arithmetic to work out the facts of that scenario.

In a recent joint letter to the Chancellor, signed by all MPs and peers from Northern Ireland, we set out a clear position:

“Agriculture is not simply an economic sector; it is a way of life. The removal or restriction of Agricultural Property Relief will place an unfair and unsustainable burden on family farms, jeopardising their ability to pass on their farms to the next generation and threatening the future of family farming.”

Those are not my words alone. They are the voices of rural Northern Ireland, speaking in unison in the House today.

Spending Review 2025

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

My right hon. Friend is right. We are backing innovation, skills and infrastructure, because we are backing British business. We are also cutting red tape, as we did yesterday, when we took the Planning and Infrastructure Bill through the House, making it easier to get things built in Britain again. As we make the investments, we want those jobs to come to Britain, including in the energy sector, whether it is investment in small modular reactors, Sizewell C, carbon capture and storage or floating offshore wind. We will set out the industrial strategy in the next couple of weeks, in which we will have more to say about energy costs for business.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I thank the Chancellor for engaging productively in the discussions about sustainable budgets for Northern Ireland, for the willingness to negotiate further and for the recognition that our need levels should be met. I thank her for that engagement and for the allocations to Northern Ireland for specific community projects that have been advanced by us. She has chosen through this allocation to make a budget available for the redevelopment of Casement Park. She will know about the political nature of some of the concerns around that redevelopment, and that in all previous agreements in the Executive, these things have been advanced in a balanced and non-partisan way. This Government have chosen to step into this issue in an unbalanced and partisan way. As such, in making financial transactions capital available—£50 million over the course of the next spending period—I ask the Chancellor to ensure that where there is a need for investment in football, as there is, she returns to the Executive’s agreement of 2011 in a balanced and non-partisan way. I hope that she will not be found wanting.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and the way in which he has put it. I was pleased to be able to announce the settlement for Northern Ireland in today’s spending review, but also money through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He mentions Casement Park, and we have put £50 million in through this spending review. I will arrange for the right hon. Gentleman to meet either the Northern Ireland Secretary or a Minister from my Department to talk through what he wants to see.

Defence Sector Financing

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) on securing this debate. I also thank the Chair of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for their contributions.

I am going to embarrass a few people now. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge), who is one of my successors in a seat I represented between 2010 and 2019. It was great to hear about the success of Collins Aerospace, which is in that constituency. I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) and for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq), as well as the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), for their interventions.

Today’s discussion and the fantastic speech from my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer have highlighted the complexities and challenges we face in ensuring that our defence sector is robust enough to protect our national security and support our growth mission, which is the No. 1 mission of this Government. In recent years, the world has been reshaped by global geopolitical instability, including Russia’s aggression and its illegal invasion of Ukraine—a war on our continent—as well as increasing threats from malign actors. This, combined with the challenging economic and fiscal context, makes it essential that we address the barriers to finance in the defence sector, so I thank my hon. Friend again for securing this debate in Westminster Hall.

National security is the first duty of the Government, as highlighted in our plan for change. We have demonstrated our commitment in recent announcements, such as the Prime Minister committing to reach defence spending of 2.5% of GDP from April 2027. As he said at Prime Minister’s questions today, the last time the UK reached that level of spending was under the last Labour Government. Our ambition is to reach 3% of GDP in the next Parliament, as economic and fiscal conditions allow.

Given that uplift in defence spending and the challenging fiscal and economic context we find ourselves in, this Government want to ensure that the defence sector contributes to achieving our No. 1 mission of economic growth. The Chancellor reiterated that message at the spring statement, when she announced a package of defence and growth-focused measures. That included the creation of a new organisation, UK Defence Innovation, with the explicit aim of supporting the scale-up of SMEs, start-ups and non-traditional defence suppliers, enabling them to grow and thrive, fostering an innovative defence tech ecosystem and crowding in private capital.

As has been discussed in this excellent debate, we have been made aware of a number of financing issues in the defence sector, and I will come on to them shortly. I will first respond to the final part of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, on the proposals for a multilateral defence bank. I thank him for drawing our attention to these proposals, and I thank Rob Murray, the founder of the multilateral Defence, Security and Resilience bank, who has been liaising with the Government and championing this proposal. We recognise the issues that my hon. Friend raised today. We are looking carefully at the proposals and actively discussing with our allies a range of multilateral options.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate mentioned the EU, and I should say that we are looking forward to the UK-EU leaders’ summit on 19 May. We welcome the EU’s efforts to bolster Europe’s defence, including the ambitions set out in the ReArm Europe package and the defence White Paper. We have been clear that we are keen to work with EU allies on common challenges to our shared security. The Chancellor discussed this with counterparts at the G20 in February, and we are discussing the shared challenges with our European partners. I cannot comment in detail on those discussions at this time, but we will continue to work together with our European allies on this incredibly important issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer talked about some of the spillover effects, and I assure him that the Treasury and the MOD are keen to maximise spillovers and synergies between the civil and military sectors for both economic growth and military reasons. We are considering how to maximise these benefits as we develop the defence industrial strategy.

My hon. Friend mentioned a number of issues to do with defence companies’ access to finance, and I welcome the recent meeting he held with our hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker) at Guildhall in the City. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry was present at that meeting, as were representatives of the defence sector and a number of trade associations representing the City and financial services.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer brings to this House a great wealth of experience in financial services, from both a firm and a regulatory perspective, so he will know that decisions regarding the provision of financial services to businesses are a commercial matter; banks and insurers need to make an assessment of the relevant risks and conduct appropriate due diligence. However, we are very clear that no company should be denied access to financial services purely on the basis that it works in defence. I encourage all defence firms to read the very helpful guidance published by UK Finance and ADA Group. It is excellent to see the trade associations coming together, working from the different perspectives of the defence sector and finance, to produce that guidance.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The proposal for a multilateral bank is a fascinating, but part of this debate has been to focus on some of the inhibitors on providing private finance and investment in the United Kingdom. The situation is getting worse with large-scale pension funds. My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned the parliamentary pension fund, but it pales into insignificance when we consider that Aviva, Royal London and the National Employment Savings Trust are all divesting from defence in our own country. That contrasts with the efforts that this Government and previous Governments have made to invest in this space.

Will the Minister consider—perhaps through FCA guidance—strengthening the fiduciary duty that the trustees of these funds have to increase the coffers and increase growth? That would show that Government are prepared to do more than just issue guidance, but that they will challenge and encourage investment in this vital sector in our country.

[Emma Reynolds]

We have been clear that there is no contradiction between ESG considerations and investment in defence, and that investing in our defence industry is a way to protect our democracy and borders, and to work in solidarity with our European neighbours. I will write to the hon. Gentleman about the specifics, but I know that various accusations have been levelled at some of the companies he mentions and others. We need to be very careful about that.

I heard what the hon. Member for Strangford said about our own pension funds. There is huge potential in our pensions industry. We should ensure that that industry is in a position to leverage the great returns that can come from defence companies, but there is a lot of muddying the waters around certain firms and what they are doing. I do not want to name particular companies, but I am happy to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman in detail after the debate. Aspersions have been cast against certain companies managing pension funds that are not absolutely accurate when it comes to ESG. A lot of things are piled under the ESG banner. We are very keen that opaque ESG ratings should not impede the attractiveness of the defence sector.

I am running out of time. I believe that the Member who moved the motion replies?