Rural Communities

Debate between John Hayes and Victoria Atkins

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I will make some progress, because I know how popular this debate is.

Labour’s choices will scar our landscapes and nature forever. The Government are reversing our bold commitments to nature with another U-turn on biodiversity net gains. The chief executive officer of the London Wildlife Trust has said of this U-turn:

“It’s a farce, a disgrace. It’s desperate.”

Well, that is Labour party policy for you. That U-turn has particular poignancy because of the industrialisation of our countryside, where pylons, substations, solar estates and wind turbines are set up, though local opinion is against them—all to meet the unachievable net zero targets set by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. My constituents are the victims of that in Lincolnshire, where Labour’s plans will destroy people’s homes, our cherished landscape and nature, as well as prime agricultural land that feeds the nation. We will fight those plans.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a salient point. When local people face the impositions that she mentions, it is prime land that is taken out of production, compromising our food security, making us less economically resilient, and costing jobs and livelihoods in the countryside.

[Victoria Atkins]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend and county neighbour. What Labour does not seem to understand is that rural areas are not against building more homes and infrastructure. They just want them in the right places, and for them to go with the grain of the community, not against it. At least the Prime Minister is being consistent in this one instance. In the election campaign, he said that he was happy to make enemies of the people who oppose his plans. Well, that is a rare example of an election promise that he has kept. Just as Ministers do not understand business because none of them has ever run one, they do not understand the quintessential quality of rural life—that sense of belonging, of being part of a community. It is about people coming together, be it at the parish church, the local riding stables or our local pubs.

Rural sports, which were mentioned, are an example. They are a key part of the rural way of life for participants and non-participants alike. They are responsible for 26,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and perform vital conservation work across the countryside. Wander down a rural high street and you will see shops selling clothing and equipment for rural sports, as well as farriers, gun makers and saddlers, and there are others dotted around the countryside. A careless policy on rural sports will have wide-reaching impacts across our rural communities.

We rightly have some of the strongest gun laws in the world. The intent to strengthen those safeguards further is understandable, but we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community on their serious concerns that current proposals will have grave and unintended consequences, including causing further delays in vital medical assessments for licence holders.

Farming and Inheritance Tax

Debate between John Hayes and Victoria Atkins

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend, who has a wonderful way with words, asks a question that many members of rural communities up and down the United Kingdom are asking themselves. In fact, when the Prime Minister did regional media a couple of weeks ago, Sean Dunderdale, the wonderful presenter on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, asked him what he had got against the people of Lincolnshire. I might ask: what have this Labour Government got against the countryside?

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

rose—

[Victoria Atkins]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend and neighbour and then I will make some progress.

[Sir John Hayes]

As my right hon. Friend has said, the word “betrayal” is fitting because, long before the election, pledges were given, by both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, that these changes would not be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

Mr Speaker, I know that you, as a man of integrity and honour, will be as disappointed as I am that the Government should promise one thing and then do the exact opposite.

[Victoria Atkins]

It is a great pleasure to have the right hon. Gentleman not just as a friend but as my Lincolnshire neighbour. He has put his finger on the point—genuinely, it is the next paragraph in my speech.

Some Labour MPs must be haunted by the phrasing from the Secretary of State during the general election campaign—because I suspect that they repeated it up and down the market towns and villages in their constituencies—when he described fears that Labour would impose this family farm tax as “desperate nonsense”. Labour candidates will have repeated that line and assured the farming families in their constituencies that Labour would never treat rural communities in that way, yet within weeks the Chancellor was planning to do exactly that.

Since then, families across the country have been trying to work out how to pick up the pieces after Labour’s family farm tax bomb. They will not forget. A farmer from Derbyshire emailed me this week to say:

“Our hard work and investment as a family has been wiped away in the stroke of a pen.”

They went on to say:

“My 60 year old husband had a bleed on the brain in June and thankfully has made a full recovery but I’ve never seen him so stressed. He doesn’t know what to do”.

Hon. Members representing seats in Derbyshire may wish to reflect on how they will respond to that. A farmer from Northumberland has written to me as follows:

“We had to talk about which one of my parents are going to die first, in front of them.”

He said that Labour is

“destroying people’s lives with this policy. Many of us are worried about the mental state of many within agriculture and are concerned that it may be the final straw for some.”

In fairness, the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is in his place, has voiced concerns about whether his Government are listening to ordinary people about this. Will he vote for his farmers or will he toe the party line?