Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Reed and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I wish His Majesty the King a very happy birthday.

The Chancellor, the Secretary of State and the Food Minister claim that their family farm tax will affect only a quarter of farms, yet after informed questioning by the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association, the Tenant Farmers Association and Conservative Members, the Minister has now admitted that the Government need to check their figures. Should the cost of the family farm tax to farming families not have been checked before the Budget?

[Steve Reed]

The data from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is crystal clear: three quarters of farmers will pay nothing as a result of the changes. Family farming will continue into future generations, as it should.

[Victoria Atkins]

The Secretary of State perhaps needs to ask his Food Minister why he said at the Agricultural Industries Confederation conference that the Government are checking the figures. Let me help the Secretary of State out. He can explain the veracity and accuracy of his figures next week, when thousands of farmers come to Westminster to rally against the family farm tax, the delinking of payments, the hike in national insurance and other tax hikes on working farms in the Budget. Will he come?

[Steve Reed]

It is very important that the Government listen to farmers, and of course we will do so, but I know that farmers are reasonable people. They will want to look at the facts and, like everybody else, if they drill into the HMRC data they will see that three quarters of them will end up paying no more under the new system than they do today.