Family Businesses

Debate between Luke Evans and Mel Stride

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

As the party that increased the personal allowance, doubling it between 2010 and the present day, taking millions of people out of tax altogether, and that brought in the national living wage, we have done a great deal to support the lowest paid in our society in particular.

[Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)]

The point is about the culmination of all the changes the Labour Government have brought in. This Government have indeed raised national insurance, and may need to do so again in future. However, the key point is what the ramifications of all these changes will be—the living wage change, the cuts to business rate relief, the red tape being introduced with the Employment Rights Bill and the national insurance contributions going up. That toxic concoction will kill off growth. That is the problem. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not as if the Government were not warned about these issues. In its reports, the OBR made it extremely clear that while the headline figure to be raised through the national insurance contribution changes is £25 billion, the net figure will be far less because of the behavioural impacts that necessarily follow when jobs are taxed—one does not need to have spent a decade at the Bank of England to know that. National insurance increases lead to fewer jobs, lower wages and higher prices.

Of course, this Government are piling on the regulation with their Employment Rights Bill. We know that this will increase the risk of employing people at a time when the employment market itself is softening and putting an end to flexible working practices, which not only benefit many businesses but suit many people, particularly younger people and those who are more elderly. Given that, it is astonishing that the Chancellor has launched a tax raid on family businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is where the dearth of experience of entrepreneurship on the Government Front Bench really shows. We see this not just with BPR, but with agricultural property relief. Family farms will be broken up, with years and generations of people struggling and working hard, whatever the weather, to grow businesses and provide the food that we need torn asunder with a stroke of the Treasury’s pen.

[Dr Luke Evans]

In an interview, the Prime Minister said that the reason for doing this to farmers was to be able to give them the NHS that they might need. Only a week later, the £10 million fund that was there to support the mental health of farmers had been taken away. It must stick in the throat of farmers when they are told that they are not a priority, that food security is not a priority, and that they will now not have the health service in place, despite having to pay the tax that is about to come into force.

Finance Bill

Debate between Luke Evans and Mel Stride

2nd reading
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give the Finance Bill a Second Reading because it derives from the 2024 Autumn Budget which will lead to jobs being lost, curtailed investment and prices being raised; because the Finance Bill constitutes an assault on business by increasing taxes on investment; because it will reduce the competitiveness of the United Kingdom’s tax regime; because it levies the first ever tax on educational choice and will increase pressure on state schools; because it will drive up rents by increasing tax on homeownership; because it will substantially increase the size of the state without a sustainable plan to fund it; and because it will reduce living standards, increase borrowing and debt, drive up inflation and interest rates, with the result that the OBR growth forecast for the Autumn Budget is lower than that accompanying the Spring Budget of the last Government.”

This Finance Bill, this Budget, are a disgrace. They are a disgrace because they are built on a deceit—a deceit that was propagated by the Labour party during the last general election. It told the British people that they need not worry about taxes being raised left, right and centre, yet what have we discovered? The figures of the Office for Budget Responsibility clearly show that this country is now heading to its highest tax burden in the history of our nation.

During the general election, we were also told by the Labour party that it had no intention of increasing national insurance. In fact, it stated exactly that in the manifesto on which the now Government stood. It broke that commitment. Do not take my word for it; Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says exactly that.

[Dr Evans]

Is it not the case that the manifesto said that there would be no rise in national insurance, but when Ministers went to defend this policy, they said, “not on working people”, but then could not define working people? Now the language has slipped to “payslips”. Is the shadow Minister aware of this translation? I am pretty sure that the “payslip” was not mentioned in the manifesto.

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend makes an important and valid point. As he says, Labour is now claiming that there will be no incidence of this tax increase on working people, although it seems to have a problem defining exactly what a working person is. None the less, try telling that to those people who will see their wages depressed as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the 50,000 full-time equivalents who the OBR says will lose their jobs as a consequence of this measure. Try telling that to the young people up and down our country who, because it is not just an increase in the rate but also an approximate halving of the threshold, will be disproportionately affected.

Labour also reassured farmers. The then shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—the now Secretary of State—reassured farmers. He went to the National Farmers Union and said that nothing would be done on inheritance tax and the annual percentage rate. And on that basis, the NFU told its members that, at least on that measure, there was nothing to fear from a future Labour Government. How wrong it was. Only last week, we saw, tens of thousands of farmers, in their dignified way, coming up to the very gates of our democracy to ask a simple question of the Labour Government: “Why did you lie to us?” That is the nub of it. The measure will see the break-up of our farms and it will do nothing for food security.

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It demonstrates that this Government do not understand farming and do not understand the countryside. There are 100 Labour Members who represent rural constituencies. I will not guess how many there will be after the next general election, but some number fewer than 100, I suspect.

Perhaps the cruellest deception of all was of our pensioners, who were reassured that there would not be any means-testing of the winter fuel payment, yet what happened? 10 million pensioners are to face a cut. Before somebody on the Government Benches stands up and tells us that some of those pensioners can afford it, I say that many of them simply cannot. Of those under the poverty line, two thirds will actually lose these benefits.

[Dr Evans]

While the Prime Minister was out of the country on the 19th, something else was snuck out: a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions, explaining that, at the point of reaching its decision on this, it knew from its own internal analysis that it would impoverish 100,000 pensioners into relative poverty and 50,000 pensioners into absolute poverty. This information was asked for time and again in readiness for a debate in this House. Is it not right that information relevant to these measures should have been available in time for a debate?

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is disgraceful that Labour waited until the farmers were at the gates of Westminster to sneak out that impact assessment, which showed that, by 2027, 100,000 more pensioners would be in relative poverty, after housing costs, than is the case today. Indeed, the analysis by the Labour party back in 2017, when it was against this proposal, was that up to 4,000 pensioners would prematurely die in the cold as a consequence of this measure. Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you deal in deceit, you need a pretext for so doing. And a further deceit has been brought forward, and it was raised again at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, which is the £22 billion black hole. Where is it?