Farming and Inheritance Tax

Joe Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

I commend the right hon. Lady’s commitment to honesty. She talks about giving Labour Members advance sight of the Opposition day motion, but when did the Labour Whips Office receive the title of the Opposition day debate? May I invite her to correct the record perhaps?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so sorry—in fairness, the hon. Gentleman was obviously speaking to farmers in his constituency on Sunday. Did I hear that there is a protest going on in his constituency at the moment? In any event, I actually made the announcement on national television on Sunday; perhaps he was not watching. Farmers at home will be wondering what on earth we are arguing over.

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[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

It is always a privilege to speak on behalf of my constituency, which is the largest in England and one of the most rural. I start by paying tribute to the farmers I have engaged with, both as a Labour candidate—I had my selection meeting at a Hexham farmers market—and since I have been elected, whether in London, on their individual farms, through the NFU or otherwise. have had genuinely balanced and informative conversations about them, and I have shared the outcomes of those conversations with Ministers and through the appropriate channels. What really strikes me is that this is an unserious motion brought by an unserious party; one that fails to understand the countryside and fails to understand why it lost seats that it had held—in the case of Hexham, for 100 years. The Conservative party undermined the confidence of young people to remain in the communities where they grew up, and it cried foul at any attempt to provide housing in my local community.

I spent this morning meeting with Hexham Community Partnership to talk about the appalling overcrowding in Hexham and the need for genuinely affordable housing. The problem is having a devastating effect, forcing people out of the towns they grew up in. The Conservatives had oversight of that in my part of the world for 100 years. They need to look in the mirror and genuinely consider why rural communities turned against them so much.

[Mr Cleverly]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Joe Morris]

I will. The vast expanse of green on the Opposition Benches reminds me of the British countryside.

[Mr Cleverly]

Does the hon. Member think that perhaps the reason the good people of Hexham voted for him is because they were promised explicitly that his Government would not do what they are currently doing?

[Joe Morris]

When we start a new job and find that the previous person in that job had not paid invoices for the previous year and deliberately withheld financial information, we have an honest conversation with the public about what is achievable. In any business, we have to be honest with people about deliverables. [Interruption.] Well, ultimately people in my constituency were sick of the chaos. They were sick of seeing Liz Truss plastered all over the newspapers.

When I speak to my farmers, I hear a real cry for security and genuine forward-planning from a DEFRA that listens and is not turned into a political football, as it was too often by the Conservatives. I know, having grown up in a rural community alongside the children of farmers, that they value roads that are not full of potholes, a stable economy and libraries that are not falling down—exactly the public services that every one of us expects.

[Dr Shastri-Hurst]

Will the hon. Gentleman set out how many farmers he has spoken to since the Budget and, of those, how many support the Government’s policy?

[Joe Morris]

The hon. Member is welcome to come and take a look at my diary at some point. On the Saturday after the Budget, I went to a farm. On the second Saturday after the Budget, I went to a farm. I then met with NFU members at my office in London. Believe me: Labour Members work their constituencies a lot harder than Tory Members.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I hope that my hon. Friend sees me as a fellow Labour MP who works his constituency hard and speaks to residents. Farmers tell me that they are concerned about rural crime. We can all agree that something that DEFRA has got right under the Labour Government is tackling rural crime, and the rural crime strategy in particular. Do farmers speak to him about that, as they do to me?

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[Joe Morris]

They absolutely do; my hon. Friend is right. What people—not just farmers—speak to me about is the need for that growing, stable economy. They are infuriated with the Conservative party for pretending to jump on a bandwagon after taking farmers for granted for 14 years while in government.

[Harriet Cross]

Before the Budget, the hon. Member will remember attending a Westminster Hall debate that I organised specifically on agricultural property relief and business property relief. Will he agree that the Conservatives have not jumped on that since the Budget? We have been speaking about it for a very long time.

[Joe Morris]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She and I must have a slightly different view of a very long time. A few weeks ago is not a very long time for me. I am talking about years in which local farming communities were ignored.

The botched Brexit deal that the Conservative party secured did not do any farmer any favours. Labour is the only party that is genuinely serious about countryside renewal. We cannot pack communities across Northumberland in aspic and pretend that they do not need houses or services. That is why the Conservatives lost. That is why I am here.

[Greg Smith]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Joe Morris]

I have taken plenty of interventions in a short time.

Ultimately, the Government will be judged on the success of our record and whether we can get the farming budget into the pockets of farmers. I have every faith that the Government and DEFRA will do that. I do not believe that the Conservative party could honestly say that it ever trusted its DEFRA Ministers to do the same.