Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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

May I, too, wish Sir David Attenborough a belated happy 100th birthday and congratulate Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir on winning “Britain’s Got Talent”? They are both best in show.

After a year of dither, delay and record farm closures, the new sustainable farming incentive scheme will finally start at the end of this month. How much money has the Secretary of State budgeted for the June and September phases of her scheme?

[Emma Reynolds]

We will make that clear at the time of opening.

[Victoria Atkins]

Sorry—the Government have just published the documentation for a scheme that starts in the three weeks’ time, but the Secretary of State cannot tell us how much of her budget is being spent on it. Then again, we know that Labour is the party of

“Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?”.

From the family farm and the family business taxes to the fertiliser tax, business rates and national insurance hikes, why should hard-working farmers, pub landlords, rural businesses and communities be pushed to the brink to pay for Labour’s ballooning benefits bill?

[Emma Reynolds]

I will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady, given that the Conservatives could not even be bothered to spend their own farming budget. We have a record farming budget during this Parliament, and we have protected our farmers in trade deals, whereas they sold them down the river with their trade deals with New Zealand and Australia. We have simplified the SFI, in co-operation with the National Farmers Union, and farmers have welcomed that.