Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Josh Fenton-Glynn

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

Staffordshire is the largest dairy-producing county in the midlands and across the county we have 9,600 people working on farms. Four hundred and thirty-two of those farms are in my constituency, and they are an incredibly important part of the fabric of the area. So many of my constituents who listened to the Budget were genuinely shocked. They were shocked because they took it at face value when the Labour party said that there would not be any changes in inheritance tax for agricultural land. They listened and they believed.

I know—I always like to believe the very best of people—that the Ministers on the Front Bench from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would have fought for that position, but this policy was a diktat from the Treasury. In my experience, there is a tendency for the Treasury to do that to many Departments. That diktat has meant a change in position, and one that has a severe impact on many people’s lives. If there were a factory in Staffordshire employing 9,600 people and its future viability was in jeopardy, Ministers would be rallying to its support. Members across the House would be saying, “Let us do something to save these jobs and save these livelihoods.” But that is not the case here.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I will, of course, give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to burnish his potential to be that Parliamentary Private Secretary in DEFRA that I know he is so desperate for on any occasion.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Why is the right hon. Member so dismissive of DEFRA, which is a fine Department whose work those of us who believe in the countryside value? I wonder why he was not so loud when 875 agribusinesses in his region closed in the last 14 years.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

All the while I have been a Member of Parliament, I have fought for my farmers, and I will continue to do so.

I invite the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs to the next Staffordshire agricultural show as my guest. I will happily take him around, and he can look for farmers who are in favour of the Government’s policy. He can talk to my farmers. There are 446 farmers in the Stafford constituency, which neighbours my own, who I imagine will have a very similar view to that of farmers in my constituency: that this policy will put them out of business. If I take the Minister around the Staffordshire agricultural show, he might meet some of the 351 farmers from the neighbouring Lichfield constituency. Let him see how many of them believe that his policy will help them to grow their businesses.

A family business, whether it is a farm or a manufacturing business, invests not just for five years but for a generation and more. The Government’s policy will drive large financial institutions to own much more of our land—not local farmers who are invested in the community and care about the villages and towns that serve them. This policy is already having an impact. Many businesses that supply farmers are already seeing a significant drop-off in orders, whether it is people who supply agricultural machinery, people who supply seed or many more. I urge the Minister, who I believe comes to this House with a good heart, to look at the wider impact that the policy will have on our countryside, and at how it can be changed and improved.

The Labour party says that it wants to capture the large landowners—the James Dysons. I have a great deal of confidence that such people will be able to find different arrangements that mean that their wealth will never be touched, but many small farmers, who have worked hard all their lives to build something that they can hand on to their children, will be impacted. I fear for them, and I urge the Government to put the dogma of party politics to one side and really think of the impact that the policy will have on the lives of so many farmers who are trying to do the right thing for this country and our countryside.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Josh Fenton-Glynn

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I am more than happy to do so. More Conservative Members voted in favour of that legislation, and it collapsed not through lack of support on Conservative Benches or Liberal Democrat Benches but because Her Majesty’s official Opposition at that time were going to vote against it, which meant that the numbers were not going to stack up. The decision by the Labour party and its leadership to collapse that piece of legislation meant that a significant body of reform did not happen.

I turn to the Labour party manifesto. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) has had a glance at this, but possibly not. It says on page 108 that Labour would introduce

“legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords.”

The subsequent paragraph says:

“Labour will ensure all peers meet the high standards the public expect of them, and…will introduce a new participation requirement as well as strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed.”

Those are perfectly sound points of policy, which the party stood on at the last general election, but now it chooses to ignore them.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I appreciate that Labour Members wish to earn brownie points, and I will let another earn his brownie points and edge that little bit closer to the allure of a junior parliamentary private secretaryship.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Will the right hon. Member remind me how long a parliamentary term is and therefore how long we have to implement our manifesto?

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means]

Order. I remind Members that they should be in for the duration of the debate, or make an effort to be in for a considerable duration, before making interventions.