Family Farming in Northern Ireland

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Carla Lockhart

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Carla Lockhart]

I commend the Member for the stand he is taking and for encouraging the Minister in this way. We are not talking about millionaires; we are talking about hard-working family farmers who live modestly and work from dawn to dusk to feed us all. If these proposals proceed, we will inevitably see forced sales of land simply to pay the tax liability when a family member dies. That means the fragmentation of farms, the loss of viable holdings and the disappearance of many small-to-medium sized family farms.

The Government talk about a fair and balanced approach, but what about the 80-year-old who has not got time to plan? Did my brother think my dad would pass away at age 66? Absolutely not. Does a family think they are going to lose a son or a daughter at age 40, 41 or 42? They do not.

This will deter young farmers from taking on the responsibility of a business that leaves them saddled with debt before they have even begun. We cannot afford to drive the next generation away from farming. Once that chain of succession is broken, it is almost impossible to restore.

This debate is not just about fairness for rural families: it is about food security, which is a matter of national importance. We have learned through recent global shocks—the pandemic, supply-chain disruption and now inflationary pressures—that domestic food production is essential. To undermine family farming through ill-judged taxation would be a profound mistake that this Government will rue. Certainly, rural MPs will rue it in the days and weeks to come. It would make us more dependent on imports and less resilient to crisis, while sending a terrible message to those who feed our nation.

The policy is being advanced in the name of fairness, but there is nothing fair about it. Farming families have worked their land for generations, paid their taxes and cared for the countryside. They are not speculators; they are custodians. APR is not, as it is presented in public discourse, a loophole; it is a lifeline that allows farms to pass from parent to child without having to be broken apart. To impose a new tax burden at the point of bereavement is not reform; it is punishment for choosing to farm.

Let us be clear: the yield from this policy—even in Treasury terms—would be marginal compared to the cost it would impose on rural communities and the wider economy. In short, it is bad economics and bad morality. Across Northern Ireland, opposition to this proposal is widespread and heartfelt. From the Ulster Farmers’ Union, who are here today, the National Sheep Association and the Dairy Council to the agrifood processors, the message is the same—this change must be reconsidered.

At rallies and meetings across my constituency and beyond, farmers have told me they feel under siege, squeezed by rising costs, regulatory pressures and now this looming tax threat. They want the Government to work with them, and not against them, which is why I have described this policy as a “farm tax heist”. That is how it feels to those who have given their lives to feeding our people.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to understand that Northern Ireland represents around 3% of the population of the UK, but produces a multiple of that in terms of food produce for the rest of the United Kingdom? If that was recognised, there might be more recognition in terms of what she is trying to achieve through this debate.

[Carla Lockhart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and I wholeheartedly agree. I urge the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to pause, and engage in genuine consultation with the farming community. Sit with us and talk to us. They have refused every meeting request.

We need a review that recognises the unique structures of Northern Ireland farming, made up of predominantly family-run farms and regional variations. Many suggestions have been made that are worth exploration, including in the latest Centre for the Analysis of Taxation report, as has been noted. I am not saying that it is a silver bullet, but we should sit down, talk about it and start to engage in the conversation.

At its heart, this debate is about how we as a society value those who feed us. We speak often in this House about sustainability and food strategy, but sustainability begins with sustaining the people who produce our food. We cannot say we care about the environment and rural life on one hand and on the other make policies that threaten to strip families of the land they have cared for over generations. I say to the Exchequer Secretary, with the full force of rural Northern Ireland behind me: think again. Listen to the voices of those who know the land and who understand the realities of farming life. Do not create a policy that will devastate small family farms in pursuit of a marginal tax return. Agriculture is a national asset, not a target for revenue generation.

The changes to agriculture property relief are not reform. They are an attack on our family farming. They form part of a wider Labour agenda that is anti-rural, anti-farmer and anti-common sense. That is how it is seen out in rural Britain, and it is somewhat similar to the direction of travel of our own Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister in Northern Ireland. While our producers face rising costs and red tape, Labour’s response is more tax and more barriers. Their net zero plans are driving good farmland out of production and into solar panels and their planning rules are choking rural life and pushing young families off the land.

On national TV this week, the reality was laid bare. I can still see Charles Rees in my mind as he said

“if something doesn’t change by next April I’d probably top myself.”

If that does not send a shiver down every spine in this place today, we are not in touch with the public. I ask Labour to stop, halt, talk to us, engage, get it right. Do not go on this collision course. I urge the Government to scrap this farm tax and rethink.

British Nationality (Irish Citizens) Act 2024

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Carla Lockhart

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Indeed, of the passports that I held, the British one was mine. The other one was not—I can reassure him of that. I acquired it temporarily for the purpose of this debate; I will hand it back to its rightful owner. My hon. Friend is right: we have at long last seen an end to the delay, and I will come to that shortly.

In July 2005, immediately after the non-reply that I got in June 2005, I attempted to drill down and ask about the distinction between those who had been born in the Republic and those born in Northern Ireland. The answer came from the then Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office—now Mayor of Greater Manchester, no less—Mr Andy Burnham. He again indicated that the full fee had to be paid in order for someone who had been born in the Republic but moved to live in Northern Ireland in the past 60-odd years to acquire a British passport. That answer was given 20 years ago this month.

I should add at this stage that I live very close to the border—I was born there. I can walk to the Irish Republic. It is within five miles, so on a good, nice day, I can walk there in an hour or an hour and a half, depending on how quickly I walk. There are 280 crossing points along this uncloseable border, which we have debated in other contexts. The relationship between people who live in the Republic, but close to the border, and those who live in Northern Ireland is intense, because there is much that we share. Those who moved from the Republic to Northern Ireland cherish the fact that their Britishness is enshrined deeply within their family, their generations of service in the military and their loyalty to the Crown—to Her Majesty previously and His Majesty now—so they took great offence at having to go through this expensive process to get what they thought would be their right.

After July 2005, when I seemed to be getting nowhere, I succeeded in November 2005 in getting a private Member’s Bill, which ran into the ground, as most of them do. I then embarked upon a whole series of questions. I will not bore Members with them, but I asked a written parliamentary question in November 2006 and I raised the matter in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in 2008—from memory, Dr Murrison, you served with me on the Committee when we looked at this issue—in the Chamber in May 2008, in the Northern Ireland Assembly in June 2011, again in the House of Commons in June 2013, July 2013, March 2014, January 2015, March 2018, November 2018 and February 2019, and again in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in October 2019. We were struggling to get through the undergrowth of problems and bureaucracy in sections of the Home Office, to try to convince it that these people were entitled to a British passport.

Then we came to the 2020s. I raised the matter in September 2020, October 2022 and June 2023, and then my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) managed to secure a private Member’s Bill in April 2024, which brought us to where we are today. Thankfully, that got Government support and became law.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The timeline that my hon. Friend has outlined certainly highlights the number of years that he has been in this place. However, the Act must strengthen and not complicate the process. Does he agree that, currently, the practical outworking of the Act is complicating the process, particularly on the financial side?

[Mr Campbell]

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which I am just coming to. Even after my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East secured parliamentary support for his Bill, there appeared to be a delay. I raised matter again last September, and in January and May of this year. That brings us to today.

As I understand it, from next week, thankfully, we will have reached the point where people who qualify can apply to obtain a British passport, but the problem is the inequitable nature of the application.

Horticulture Trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Carla Lockhart

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Campbell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is just further evidence of the ongoing problems. I suppose the problem is that we have potential solutions in the making but they seem interminably long. The establishment of Intertrade UK offers us the prospect of further progress, but it needs to be given adequate support not only to identify the problems, some of which we have identified here today, but to try to provide the solutions. The EU must be persuaded of the miniscule impact. In the grand scheme of things, Northern Ireland is 3% of the population of the United Kingdom, so any thought that this will jeopardise or provide unforeseen problems to the EU internal market is ludicrous.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this morning’s debate. I believe the biggest problem that we face is the fact that Northern Ireland has basically been left outside the UK’s plant health area, which means that NI businesses have to comply with EU rules over British ones. Many native British trees are not available in Northern Ireland, and the Woodland Trust free school packs are not available in Northern Ireland for that very reason. Decade-old trading arrangements have been undermined, and there is bureaucracy. The protocol and the Windsor framework are failing horticultural society, and we need our Government to step up and intervene for this sector, or it will fail.

[Mr Campbell]

My hon. Friend is right. I will conclude with this important point: this is not a political issue in the Northern Ireland sense of Unionists complaining about the protocol. Plants, seeds and business affect people of every community. This is not a Unionist problem; it is a problem of unfairness to everybody in Northern Ireland who wants to do business—every firm, no matter their background, and every customer, no matter their background or political persuasion. It is a problem that needs to be resolved.

There will not be any checks. I recently raised with the Home Office the issue of electronic travel authorisations in terms of visitors to the Republic coming to Northern Ireland, and the point I made was that there will not be any checks because there cannot be. There are 300 crossing points on a 300-mile land border. There are not going to be any checks for ETAs for travellers, just as there are not going to be any checks in terms of people taking seeds across by plane or by ferry, or a boat from Cairnryan to Larne.

We need to get it resolved. Burying our heads in the sand will not make the problem go away. The problem will not be dealt with by politicos simply complaining about it, which is what we have seen and heard about over the past few years. I have been exceptionally critical of those politicos who complain but do not offer a diligent, effective representation to try to get a resolution. I hope the Minister will be able to contribute and give us some examples and indications of the significant progress that will be made in the next few months.