Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Pippa Heylings Excerpts
Tuesday 3rd December 2024

(2 days, 2 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rachel Reeves Portrait Rachel Reeves
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One of the current challenges, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is that agricultural property relief is often used for tax avoidance. People are buying farmland not because they are family farmers but because they do not want to pay any inheritance tax. That is why we are reforming the system to bring in much-needed money to fund our public services, and to have a fair system with a 50% discount to inheritance tax paid on agricultural property and a 10-year period to pay that inheritance tax, interest free.

Pippa Heylings Portrait Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
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Last week, I joined a biotech boot camp in South Cambridgeshire. Although the investors and entrepreneurs recognise and welcome the research and development budget announced in the Budget, they said it is a reduction from 2021. Does the Chancellor recognise that we need to increase investment in R&D to encourage long-term investment in our leading services?

Rachel Reeves Portrait Rachel Reeves
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We were really pleased to announce an R&D budget of more than £20 billion at the autumn Budget. This is important to funding and accelerating R&D not just in the hon. Lady’s constituency but across the country. Combined with the corporate tax road map, as well as the commitment to continuing funding for Horizon, our universities and great innovators can look to the future with confidence.