Income Tax (Charge)

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

This is a Budget of broken promises. Some 88% of my constituency is agricultural land. The reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief will effectively be the end of the family farm. On Back British Farming Day two months ago, Labour Members proudly stood by the Massey Ferguson outside the Palace, but farming is more than a photo opportunity. Careful environmental stewardship that comes from long-term family ownership is put at risk by this policy. The impact also extends to tenant farmers. If the availability of land to rent is reduced as a result of carving up all our small farms, new entrant farmers who will begin their careers on let holdings are denied their opportunity to start, just at the point when we should be encouraging them for the future. I urge hon. and right hon. Members, as well as anyone else watching this debate, to join the thousands of others who are signing our petition to stop this.

The village pub is another core pillar of my rural constituency. I spoke recently in Westminster Hall about the essential importance of these institutions to the rural way of life, and about how this Government should continue the 75% business rate relief, so I am very disappointed to see that this rate will be cut to 40%, particularly at a time when many rural pubs are struggling to remain viable.

And all of this is while the Chancellor increases employer national insurance contributions, causing great distress in the hospitality industry. This tax hike will result in jobs lost, small and medium-sized businesses squeezed, and enterprise damaged. The Chancellor appears to be punch-drunk on Labour’s election victory, but the British public are going to suffer the ultimate hangover.

Can I also stress one point for caution? As the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on investment fraud and fairer financial services, I appreciate that the Chancellor wants to ensure that everyone pays what they owe and in a timely fashion, but I urge the Government to ensure that any victims of historical pension and investment fraud are protected. Enforcement action against victims should be suspended and HMRC should be instructed to use its wide discretion in debt forgiveness. HMRC should focus on pursuing those who orchestrated the schemes and on recovering stolen funds from the fraudsters, rather than targeting the victims.

The markets dislike this Budget and my constituents will be penalised by this Budget, so who wants this Budget? Is this really what Labour Members wanted? I ask the many Labour Members who now represent rural constituencies: did they stand for election to end the family farm? Did those who owe their seats to the pensioners who showed up in huge numbers at the polling stations stand for election to make them cold this winter? We on this side will not relent in our opposition to this catalogue of broken promises.