Agricultural Property Relief Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateSeamus Logan
Main Page: Seamus Logan (Scottish National Party - Aberdeenshire North and Moray East)Department Debates - View all Seamus Logan's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days, 23 hours ago)
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It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) for securing this important debate. I agree with her and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) about emotional attachment; I urge hon. Members to watch “The Field” with Richard Harris—his Oscar-winning performance.
I want to return to the point that I have made in previous debates and which has already been made by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. The key issue is that food security is national security; we as MPs have a duty to ensure that and to deliver jobs for communities across the country and low prices for consumers. Yet the Government behave as if they think food appears magically on the shelves at supermarkets.
My constituency of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East holds some of the best agricultural farmland in the country, and it will be disproportionately impacted by this change. Three quarters of the land in my constituency is used for agriculture, and the people who work that land are incredibly worried. Personally, I would have sympathy with a policy that targeted wealthy individuals who purchase agricultural land as a means of avoiding inheritance tax. However, that will not be the sole consequence of this legislation—that is the crucial point.
After the Chancellor delivered her Budget speech last year, the NFU and the National Farmers Union Scotland immediately cast doubt on the revenue that the policy would actually raise; they were ignored and dismissed. Now, even the Office for Budget Responsibility—Labour appear quick to mention it, but then ignore when it suits—has cast doubt on the revenue that the policy would raise. It states that the Treasury figure of £500 million is now highly uncertain. The justification for the policy is falling apart.
Since we last met on this issue, almost every major supermarket chain in the UK has publicly backed farmers, urging the Government to halt their plans and carry out a consultation. Ashwin Prasad, Tesco’s chief commercial officer, said there must be a pause in the Government’s implementation of the Budget measures, while a full consultation is carried out.
Farmers recognise Labour’s APR change as a bad decision; now the UK’s leading supermarkets have confirmed it. We must not forget that Labour brought in this change after explicitly ruling it out. Long-term clarity is needed when it comes to planning the future of family farms and the UK Government have failed farmers on that point. Listening to the NFUS and the NFU on this issue would have saved a lot of hurt for farmers, rural communities and shoppers across the country.
I have heard time and again from the Government that this policy was necessary to tackle the difficult financial situation that they inherited from the previous Government. I do not see how a bad inheritance justifies an objectively bad policy for consumers and farmers. If the necessity was so, why did the Chancellor rush to Davos to offer tax reliefs to non-doms, why is she not tackling widespread tax evasion by prominent individuals, as was reported recently by the BBC, and why is she not considering a wealth tax?
It seems ironic that the Labour Government complain about their dire inheritance while ignoring the dire inheritance that they are inflicting on family farms throughout the UK. It is not too late for the UK Government to reassess this damaging policy and make the necessary changes to protect farmers across these islands and in my constituency. It is a bad policy, Minister, and it is time to rethink it.