Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is doing his review at the moment to decide the correct amount by which to uprate benefits. If the hon. Gentleman looks at this Government’s record, he will see that we took the decision a year ago to uprate benefits by inflation, and we committed to £94 billion of measures to help families get through the cost of living crisis.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Food inflation will only get worse if our self-sufficiency in food production drops. Will my right hon. Friend consider fiscal measures to discourage the transfer of food-producing land to other uses such as solar industrial installations?

[Jeremy Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right to say that our food industry is very important to food security. We need to keep the priorities constantly under review. Nature is a very important part of that, but so too is food production.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend seek to fix the anomaly that sees man-made fully synthetic fuels taxed at the same rate as their fossil equivalents?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I shall be happy to look into that issue in detail and get back to my hon. Friend.