Rural Affairs

Debate between John Hayes and Greg Smith

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

There are many issues I could raise in such an important debate on rural affairs, but in their Budget a couple of weeks ago, the Labour Government introduced a new threat on such a scale that it simply must be the topic on which I open my remarks. As I said in last week’s Budget debate, the changes to agricultural property relief are a threat to family farms and rural communities across the country, including in Mid Buckinghamshire. I cannot believe that Mid Buckinghamshire farmers are so different from the farmers found in Labour-held constituencies, but many of the farmers who have contacted me are absolutely petrified about what the change means for the future of their farm. They tell me that they may even have to sell up to a third of their farm to meet their inheritance tax bill. There is no way to sugar-coat this: it will be the end of British family farming if these changes are allowed to go through.

When I gave my maiden speech on Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament, the now Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, who was then a shadow Minister, kindly said in summing up that I was “every Cambridge leftie’s nightmare”, and I agree. I gently suggest that, if he does not talk to farmers, to the NFU and to the people who are petrified about what these changes will mean, he may well become the nightmare of every farmer in this country.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

It may be that I am being generous, but I think this is happening because Labour Members have a patchy understanding of the issue. It is easy for those who do not understand rural Britain or agriculture to assume that assets and income are the same thing, but my hon. Friend will know that many farmers with considerable paper wealth do not actually make that much money.

[Greg Smith]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that British farming does not operate on mega margins. Our farmers do not have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds in the bank. They operate on such tight margins that, even if we play devil’s advocate and accept the Government’s argument—which, for the record, I do not—most farmers in this position will struggle to pay a tax bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds over a 10-year period. The margins simply are not there. Of course, there are many things that we can and should do to increase the profitability of farming, but it is fanciful to pretend that a 10-year payback period would be anywhere near enough. It would symbolise the end of British farming.

Of course, that was not the only threat to British farming in the Budget. There was the attack on basic equipment such as pick-up trucks, whereby farmers face paying an extra £5,000 simply for having the audacity to want back seats for their children. Then there is the carbon tax, which will see the cost of fertiliser rise by between £50 and £75 a tonne, which will have a detrimental impact on either farmers’ margins or food prices, or potentially both. Across the country, either outcome would be devastating.

Other Members have spoken about rural crime, about which I too am incredibly frustrated. I intervened to ask the Secretary of State about this subject. After being lucky enough to come quite high in the 2022 private Member’s Bill ballot, I spent two and a half years promoting my Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which requires immobilisers on quad bikes and high-standard forensic marking, including GPS units, on agricultural equipment. It requires the passage of a statutory instrument that the then Policing Minister and now shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), said was ready to go when the general election was called, but it was thwarted by the Dissolution of Parliament.

The Act was passed with the Labour party’s support. Labour Members did not howl it down or attack it on Second Reading, in Committee or on Third Reading in either House. It is not as if the Act is in any way controversial. We just need the statutory instrument to be passed to give the police the powers they need. Police officers like Superintendent Andy Huddleston, who is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead on rural crime, say that these powers will make a huge difference.

I have raised this matter with the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House. I doubt that this simple SI would cause any controversy for any party or any Member of this House. Why can the Government not introduce the statutory instrument? I take their desire to tackle rural crime at face value, so why do they not get the ball rolling on passing this legislation? Every time I meet a police officer from Thames Valley Police or anywhere I go in the country, the first thing they ask is, “What is happening with your Act?” I cannot answer that question, because I just do not know the reason for the Government’s delay. I appeal to the Minister to work with his Home Office colleagues to find a way to get the Act functioning.

Finally, this Government’s approach to planning and energy is causing devastation across our rural communities. My constituency has been plagued by so many ground-mounted solar applications—the largest one is Rosefield in the Claydons. These projects take away agricultural land, take away the ability to produce food and in many cases displace farmers, including tenant farmers. And what for? It is an inefficient technology that requires thousands of acres of agricultural land, when other technologies, such as small modular reactors, which require the equivalent of just two football pitches, can produce far more energy. I urge the farming Minister or the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to go into battle with the Energy Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister on these planning changes, so that we can have a sensible approach to our countryside and keep it for what it is best at: the production of food.