Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
In recent weeks, DEFRA’s quangos have made headlines: the Environment Agency is failing to prosecute waste criminals, instead going after virtuous volunteers who are cleaning up the rivers for it; Natural England is demanding more madcap fish schemes at Hinkley Point C, on top of its recommended £700 million fish disco policy, all of which will be paid for by our constituents; and Natural England’s threat to Dartmoor ponies was the quickest U-turn yet by this Government. Does the Secretary of State feel she has control over these quangos?
Emma Reynolds
That is some brass neck, given that the whole issue of the Dartmoor ponies was created under the right hon. Lady’s Government. They rejected several of the Fursdon review recommendations and put the future of the Dartmoor ponies in doubt. We are having to clear up their mess, so I shall take no lectures from the right hon. Lady.
Victoria Atkins
Oh dear. This may be the last time the Secretary of State gets to give such an inadequate answer to what is a reasonable question about her grip on her Department. But let us look at Labour’s wider chaos. After two years of record-breaking tax rises and the highest number of farm closures, the next version of a Labour Government are coming back for even more, with rumours of a brand-new tax on land value, which will target rural residents from their gardens to their farms. Has Labour learned nothing from its family farm tax fiasco, which every Labour Member voted for?
Emma Reynolds
The right hon. Lady lectures us about regulators. We have a tighter grip on our arms-length bodies than the Conservatives did when they were in Government. I issued strategic policy statements to all ALBs earlier this year, writing to the chairs of those organisations to tell them about the Government’s direction of travel. Under her Government, the reason we saw record levels of pollution in our waterways was that they took their foot off the gas and took a blind eye to water companies polluting rivers. And they introduced a system of self-monitoring that was equivalent to Ofsted not sending anybody out to do any inspections of schools.
Farming Road Map and Profitability Review
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement, and I repeat my sincere thanks to Baroness Batters for her thorough report.
The Secretary of State presents a document for farming for the next 25 years, but this Government will not last even 25 days. Instead of using their 14 years in opposition to create this document, they have dithered and delayed for the past two years, but they did not dither and delay in making life harder for rural businesses. One of the first acts of this Government, of which Labour Members are all so proud, was to target family farms and family businesses with their death tax. As Labour MPs and Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs voted repeatedly for the family farm and family business taxes, DEFRA Ministers shut down farming payments without notice, including the SFI.
Sadly, the record of this Government is rising food prices and a record number of farms closing. They broke the trust of farmers, and they have only themselves to blame. Yet the Secretary of State stands here today wanting to be thanked by rural communities for producing a document that could be shelved quietly by whoever comes next, just as the Government seem to have shelved the 10-year plan for the NHS. For all the talk—[Interruption.] Mark my words! For all the talk of the new SFI scheme and budgets, the fact is that they have cut the farming budget by £100 million.
In another leap from reality, the Government’s negotiations with the EU get barely a mention in this document, despite the enormous consequences they will have for farming businesses. CropLife UK has estimated that this EU reset could drain £810 million from UK farms and sacrifice almost 9,000 jobs from our rural constituencies. The Food and Drink Federation states that the wholesale handover of our food laws to the EU will lead to at least 400 regulations needing to be changed. So how will the Government ensure that UK farmers, including our tenant and upland farmers, can compete against heavily subsidised EU farmers? This matters because food security is critical in this increasingly volatile world. What reassurance can the Secretary of State provide that the next Cabinet will prioritise farming and food production?
We Conservatives view DEFRA as a vital economic Department, so we agree with its efforts to recalculate farming and food producers’ contributions to the economy. By the way, I note that Reform calls itself the farmer’s friend, yet there is not a single Reform MP in the Chamber.
Had the Secretary of State attended Cereals 2026 at Diddly Squat, she would have seen for herself that the sector is already driving innovation. The Government are therefore playing catch-up, but we hope that the intention to work with the Department for Business and Trade to deliver reductions in compliance costs and to focus on innovation and technology will actually happen. The plan to bring DEFRA farming services into one integrated service is much needed, and this reflects Conservative calls for quangos and the Department to be overhauled.
There are many questions still left unanswered in this report, and I hope that the Secretary of State will try to answer them rather than deflect, because that has been noticed. The plan looks to double the funding for Environment Agency inspections. Why are this Government focusing on bureaucracy rather than helping farmers survive? What does she say to the tenant farmer of a well-run dairy herd who has been told by the Environment Agency that they must invest up to £750,000 to guard against a “risk” that there “may” be a pollution event in 50 years’ time. As that tenant farmer said to me, there will not be a farm there in 50 years’ time, as they simply cannot afford that payment.
There is also no mention of closing the flag loophole on food packaging to help our constituents to buy genuinely British food and to back British farmers. Why not? The report says there will be no cut to food production, but it also says there will be a reduction of 9% in the land available to produce food. How can the Secretary of State guarantee that our food production will be protected when key tools, such as gene editing to develop drought-resistant crops, are at risk in the negotiations with the EU.
In her final act in this Department, will the Secretary of State please advise the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) that the first thing he must do is axe the family farm and family business taxes completely? Otherwise, sadly, this will be a road map to nowhere for struggling farmers and food producers.
Emma Reynolds
Oh, gosh, how do I follow that? Well, the first thing to say is that that the shadow Secretary of State is not in charge of reshuffles on the Government side of the House.
Let me outline where I do agree with the shadow Secretary of State. I agree that DEFRA is a really important economic Department of Government, and I have been focused on that since I was appointed to this role on 5 September. I also agree that Reform Members do not seem to care about agricultural farming, because they do not even bother turning up to such an important statement. So there are some things that she and I agree on, but that is probably where they end.
The shadow Secretary of State accuses us of dithering and delaying for two years, but her Government dithered and delayed for 14 years. We did not see any action such as this road map during the whole time that the Conservatives were in office. They sold farmers down the river with their Australia and New Zealand trade deals, and they could not be bothered to spend their own farming budget on the farmers who needed it, so I will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady.
The SFI scheme will reopen next week. I am proud that we have taken forward the recommendations in Baroness Batters’ review on reforms to SFI, including making it simpler and more cost-effective, and introducing a minimum hectarage requirement. We on this side of the House are serious about engaging with the farming sector, and we commissioned Baroness Batters, who has such great expertise—that was never done under the previous Government—to advise us on how to make the sector more profitable.
The shadow Secretary of State asks about the sanitary and phytosanitary deal, and I say to her that we are working very closely with the National Farmers’ Union and other farming stakeholders, because that deal is all about bringing down the barriers put up by the previous Government at the border that make it so much harder both to export raw ingredients and food, and to import.
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for what she said—this is one thing we do agree on—about both Baroness Batters and my saying that we must make sure the farming sector is more accurately measured. I think we need to reassess that, so that we do not just assess what is done on farm, but look at this from farm to fork, and therefore see the vital role of the farming sector in our economy.
The shadow Secretary of State asks about the Environment Agency. I will make no apologies for increasing the funding of the Environment Agency, which was so harshly cut under her Government. I will also make no apologies about having a plan, in this document and more broadly, for how we work with farmers to ensure that agricultural pollution is a problem we tackle together.
The shadow Secretary of State asks about gene editing and the SPS deal, and those negotiations are ongoing. However, we want to ensure that our farmers are able to use the best technology. We lead in agricultural technology in our country, and we want to make sure that it is harnessed by our sector. That is why there is such a big emphasis in the road map on the importance of innovation, and why we are dedicating Government funding to innovation, and on farmers sharing best practice so that they can become more profitable over time.
Thames Water
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
First, I echo the Secretary of State’s comments in remembrance of her dear colleague Jo Cox. Her loss was felt across the House and across party political lines, and I send all of our very best wishes to her loved ones and friends.
I thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and for a briefing call on this announcement. As you know, I have been trying for months to coax the Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box to explain major events within her portfolio, from the Government’s EU handover negotiations to their lack of support for farmers. Finally, she emerges into the light. We all assumed that it would be to announce progress towards resolving the many issues facing Thames Water and its customers; instead, it is to make a statement about a letter to the regulator. There is nothing new in this statement—no change in the situation of Thames Water, and still no certainty for billpayers.
Thames Water has repeatedly failed its customers and the environment with a record of pollution, leakage and chronic under-investment. The latest figures lay this bare. The company is responsible for around a third of the nation’s worst pollution incidents, even as billpayers face steep increases in their bills. These are not abstract failures; untreated sewage has been poured into the rivers and chalk streams that local communities cherish, while customers are asked to pay more for less. The priority now must be a financial arrangement that keeps the company afloat and protects billpayers and taxpayers. While the Secretary of State’s Government are in chaos, paralysed by the Prime Minister’s weakness and the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s leadership ambitions, Thames Water continues to fail. If no deal is reached, Thames Water could collapse—again, at enormous cost to taxpayers.
The Secretary of State has said that she does not want a scenario where customers
“pick up the bill for the company’s failures”,
but when the Conservatives tried to amend the Water (Special Measures) Act to prevent consumers from being on the hook in the event of a company going into special administration and tried to impose a lending ratio limit on water companies to prevent this situation from happening again, Labour voted it down. Why? I also remember that under the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), an investor pulled out of a previous rescue deal, partly due to political risk—in other words, the former Secretary of State had talked himself out of a deal. How is the current Secretary of State avoiding the failures of the now Secretary of State for Housing?
There are those who are urging nationalisation, a word that is thrown around carelessly by Labour Back Benchers and by Reform—in fact, I think I heard it just now. None of them ever explains that nationalisation would be extremely expensive, potentially costing the taxpayer up to £20 billion. For those who are wondering what that means, it is roughly equivalent to the defence funding shortfall we have heard so much about in recent days. However, there are reasonable concerns about how Thames Water’s failures will be managed during the Government’s restructuring of the sector and the abolition of Ofwat, so can the Secretary of State please confirm that the existing penalty regime will not be downgraded or diluted, which has been briefed to the newspapers? What safeguards will be put in place to ensure Thames Water remains fully responsible for its environmental and operational failures? How will the Government ensure that billpayers are not left bearing the cost of past mismanagement, and have they offered or begun any process to recommend an alternative deal? Ministers have still not explained how investment in the sector will actually be paid for. Indeed, the Secretary of State’s predecessor had to admit that so-called private water industry investment is in reality paid for by higher bills, and the Secretary of State has repeated that today. Families already struggling with the cost of living should not become the safety net for a company that rewarded its executives while letting its infrastructure crumble. This is an important moment for the Government to show that they can balance financial stability with strong regulatory oversight and put accountability and the interests of billpayers and the environment at the heart of water reform. The Government must now deliver on the big promises they made during the election for the water sector.
Public trust in the water industry is already at rock bottom.
Emma Reynolds
I am always happy to receive brownie points, Mr Speaker, so thank you for what you said.
The shadow Secretary of State rightly says that untreated sewage has poured into our waterways, and it did, in the long years that her party was in government. They cut the Environment Agency’s enforcement budget and moved to an approach where water companies marked their own homework—the so-called self-monitoring approach. She has some brass neck in lecturing us when we saw a series of failures under her Government.
We are here today, and we as a Government inherited record levels of pollution in our waterways, because of the failure by the Government of the right hon. Lady to see what was happening before their eyes. It was a failure of regulation, a failure of the regulators and a failure of the previous Government.
I am proud of what we have achieved in the two short years that we have been in power. I am proud of the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025. When did the Conservatives ever cap polluting water bosses’ bonuses? Never. The right hon. Lady lectures me about amendments to our Act. Our Act did more in less than a year than her party did in 14 years to ensure a fairer deal for customers and a better deal for the environment.
The right hon. Lady asks about nationalisation. I gently say that a special administration regime is not the same as nationalisation. [Interruption.] I am just clarifying for the House; I do not wish to have an exchange with her across the ballot box—sorry, the Dispatch Box—if I can possibly help it. The ballot box might be at some other point. There is a difference between nationalisation and a special administration regime. With nationalisation, the Government would be taking ownership of the company. With a special administration regime, the Government would finance a special administrator appointed by the courts to run the company.
The right hon. Lady talks about public trust in our water sector being at record lows. All I can say is that we are clearing up her party’s mess. [Interruption.] It was under her Government that Thames Water was plunged into unmanageable levels of debt.
Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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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.
Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Consumers and farmers believe that a Union Jack flag or a Made in Britain label should mean that the food was made or grown in the United Kingdom. We Conservatives, led by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), consulted on this flag loophole before the election—and we will close it when we are back in government. May I offer the Secretary of State some help? We have already helped her with her fly-tipping policies this week, and I am pleased to see that she has adopted some of our policies to tackle the problem. Will she now adopt another Conservative plan and close the flag loophole?
Emma Reynolds
The right hon. Lady had 14 years to do what she is talking about.
Victoria Atkins
And the Secretary of State has had this matter sitting on her desk for 18 months. Instead of dealing with it, we have had 18 months of damaging the rural economy, damaging rural businesses and hurting rural families under this Government. Indeed, only yesterday we saw yet another example: as fuel prices surge, Labour MPs voted to make the fuel in our cars even more expensive than it already is. We on the Conservative Benches know that rural families depend on their cars to live, so we ask why this Labour Government are targeting rural families with ever-higher taxes on their cars, their incomes and their businesses, making life harder for us all?
Emma Reynolds
Let me gently point out to the right hon. Lady that on Monday the Prime Minister announced a £53 million package to help rural communities that are reliant on heating oil. On waste crime, I will take no lectures from the right hon. Lady, because the Conservatives had 14 years in government to address waste crime. In 2018 they had a review on what to do about waste crime, and they did precisely nothing.
Dame Angela Eagle
In the comprehensive spending review, the Scottish Government received the largest real-terms increase in their funding since devolution. If they wish to support Scotland’s thriving fishing industry further, they have every right to do so.
Victoria Atkins
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State announced yet another supposedly significant policy this week—the land use framework—outside Parliament, and has not offered an oral statement so that Ministers may be scrutinised. This is the fifth time she has done this. The other four occasions were the Baroness Batters review, the animal welfare strategy, the family farm tax fiasco and the SFI scheme, which has attracted many questions today because colleagues need to know more details for their constituents. What can be done to encourage the Secretary of State to make a proper announcement in the House so that Members of Parliament can—
Mr Speaker
Order. You have put the point on the record. While I have got the Secretary of State here, I will ask her if she wishes to respond.
Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
The EU reset deal is predicted to slash around a third of the Government’s farming budget from farm profits in its first year, cause higher food prices and lower food production, and sink the UK fishing industry. As the Prime Minister’s authority seeps away, will the Secretary of State insist that this shoddy deal is renegotiated while she is still in post?
Emma Reynolds
Nice try! We are still negotiating the deal, and the whole purpose of it is to bring down the trade barriers that the right hon. Lady’s Government put up during their botched Brexit negotiations.
Victoria Atkins
For goodness’ sake, if the Government are still negotiating, the Secretary of State needs to deal with the matters I have raised. It is not just the farming sector that they are damaging; it is the entire rural economy. Rural and coastal businesses tell me that they simply cannot afford Labour’s high taxes, rates and costs, and they will not survive. In these desperate times, will the Government match the Conservatives’ plan to help rural and coastal businesses by scrapping business rates entirely for our high streets?
Emma Reynolds
I seem to remember that the Conservatives were in power for 14 years, and they did not do what the right hon. Lady has just set out. Her question is for the Treasury, not DEFRA. We are still in the process of negotiating a sanitary and phytosanitary deal, which will bring down trade barriers for farmers and food producers, helping both those who export to our largest market and those who import, and it will deliver better outcomes for consumers too. I make no apology for clearing up the mess that the Conservatives left us.
Water White Paper
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement. Indeed, I welcome the Secretary of State to the Chamber. It is not often that she puts in an appearance, from the publication of the Minette Batters report to the animal welfare strategy, which was published two days before Christmas eve, to the family farm tax fiasco, the Secretary of State has been noticeable by her absence. Indeed, she intervened on the South East Water crisis only seven days ago, months after Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead and other areas began suffering from the crisis.
The Secretary of State talks about this statement. Why does she have so little pride in her own water White Paper? She announced it to the press on Monday, and we were waiting and ready for a statement—there was no statement. The Government were, however, able to cancel their business on the public accountability legislation—that is ironic. We were waiting for a statement yesterday—there was no statement—and today she has finally given a statement on the White Paper because there was an urgent question. When it comes to scrutiny and accountability, I think the Secretary of State should be a little bit careful before she criticises others over their presence in the Chamber.
That being said, we do cautiously welcome elements of these proposals. Indeed, many of the Government’s measures on water match our plans from before the 2024 election. When we entered Government in 2010, only 7% of storm overflows were monitored by the previous Labour Government. Now that figure stands at 100%. The Water (Special Measures) Act last year repackaged Conservative regulatory proposals, such as banning unfair bonuses for water bosses, and we welcome that. The so-called private investment that the Secretary of State keeps referring to is in fact paid for by bill payers, so let us not pretend otherwise. This investment, although it is needed, is being paid for by all of our constituents through their bills.
Talking about delay, in June and July last year Sir Jon Cunliffe and his team published their review of the water sector. That report contained 88 recommendations. How many of those 88 recommendations were accepted by the Government and included in the water White Paper? Given that the Secretary of State for Energy has just announced that £15 billion worth of taxpayers’ money is to be spent on heat pumps and solar bills—to put that in context, it is equivalent to most of the police funding for England and Wales—can the Secretary of State tell us how much taxpayer and bill payer money has been allocated to this White Paper and over what timeframe these taxes and bills will be used to pay for the work in the White Paper?
Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the Government will extend environmental permit regimes to cattle farmers? If so, how does she intend to ensure that the beef sector—which has already been hit by higher taxes under this Government, by the abrupt halt of farm funding, which has not been replaced, and by the family farm tax fiasco—is not sunk by thousands of pounds in extra costs each year? How will the Secretary of State make sure that infrastructure is upgraded to ensure that catastrophic failures, such as those seen under South East Water in the last two months, do not happen again? A glaring gap in the Government’s rhetoric on water is conserving and ensuring water security. That means improving supply. How and when will the Government improve water security?
Given Ministers’ habits of missing their own deadlines, will the Secretary of State give an iron-clad commitment that the transition plan will be published in parliamentary time this year? How long will the transition take? People expect change in the water sector and are beginning to tire of the sloth-like way in which this Government conduct themselves. The Opposition fully support efforts by the Government to hold water companies to account, building on the work of the last Conservative Government to improve water quality and deliver meaningful reform of the sector. We just need the Government to get on with it.
Emma Reynolds
Oh my gosh! Well, I say to the right hon. Lady that I will not take any lectures from the Conservative party. Not only can they not be bothered to turn up for the statement, which shows an absolute disregard for the concerns of the public about the levels of pollution in our waterways—[Interruption.] I will answer her questions. We have done more in 18 months than the Conservatives did in 14 years, so I will not take any lectures from her. I am proud of our water White Paper and that my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), commissioned somebody of the stature of Sir Jon Cunliffe and appointed the Independent Water Commission to do the most fundamental review of our water system since privatisation—a privatisation that happened under their Thatcher Government.
The shadow Secretary of State asked how many recommendations we are taking forward. It is the vast majority and more, because we are also looking at agricultural pollution, which we did not ask Sir Jon to look at. The water White Paper talks about tackling that kind of pollution and I will not shy away from that. We are working in partnership with farmers, the National Farmers Union and others because that it is an important source of water pollution.
Again, I will not take lectures from the right hon. Lady about the environmental land management programme when the Conservatives underspent the farming budget. They could not even be bothered to get the money out of the door. She asked about infrastructure upgrades. The White Paper introduces a system that moves away from water companies marking their own homework to a regulator with teeth that gets a grip on the delivery of the £104 billion infrastructure investment. Under the Conservative Government, the pipes and pumps were left in a shocking state of disrepair because there was not the regulation nor the strong regulator that we need. That is what this water White Paper and the upcoming water Bill will deliver.
The right hon. Lady talks about improving water supply. It is absolutely correct—maybe we can agree on something—that we have seen very poor performance from South East Water in recent weeks, and I was in the area last week to meet constituents of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin)—[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady asked whether I should have gone earlier. Did she bother to go? [Interruption.] Listen, this is a privatised industry because of decisions made in 1989. I called on the regulator Ofwat to examine the licence conditions and whether they had been breached by South East Water. I do not remember her saying any such thing. I have also hauled in the chair of South East Water to ask for an urgent investigation into what happened last week and the week before, as well as for two weeks before Christmas.
This water White Paper is the most ambitious reform in a generation to our water system. It is severely needed because of the blind eye that the Conservatives turned when they were in government and the record levels of pollution in our waterways.
Rural Communities
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that the Government’s policies have resulted in taxes forecast to rise to the highest proportion of GDP on record, record closures of agriculture, forestry and fishing businesses in the last 12 months, the closure of two pubs or restaurants every day and falling levels of business investment; further regrets the Government’s changes to funding for rural areas; also regrets the Government’s plans to build more energy infrastructure in the countryside to meet its net zero targets; believes that these changes are likely to affect the rural way of life; additionally regrets the Government’s chaotic approach to its plans to change Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief; and calls on the Government to scrap all its planned changes to those reliefs.
Rural people feel betrayed by this Labour Government of the urban elite. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised that a Labour party under his leadership would form a
“new relationship with the countryside…based on respect”,
yet after a year and a half, his Government have shown nothing but contempt, arrogance and, on occasion, cruelty to rural people. It is a great pity that the Secretary of State is missing in action from this debate, but she does not seem to like scrutiny.
The Government’s decisions have resulted in a cost of living crisis; we have rising food prices, rising unemployment and the highest taxes on record, while business investment and confidence have plummeted, and growth has flatlined. The consequences can be seen and felt in the very fabric of our rural communities. Shops, pubs, hairdressers and post offices in market towns are closing because employers cannot afford Labour’s hikes to national insurance, the minimum wage and business rates. Agricultural suppliers are disappearing as farming investment plummets, and a record number of farms have closed in the last 12 months, with more to follow, because Labour’s chaotic farming decisions and its failure to launch a new sustainable farming incentive scheme have undermined people’s livelihoods at every turn.
These businesses are not just buildings or land. They used to employ people, giving young people their first job, bringing mothers back into the workforce after maternity leave, enabling people to have good careers near their families, encouraging others to start their own businesses, and bringing prosperity and vibrancy to our market towns and villages. However, as a direct result of Labour’s taxes and business cost rises, these jobs are going. As a successful small business owner in one of my market towns said to me before Christmas, “Reeves has cost me an extra £12,000 this year, which I simply don’t have. My business will not survive this Government.”
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is quite rightly talking about what really matters in the countryside, namely the family farm tax. Does it say much about the priorities of this Government that they think it is really important to waste Parliament’s time by banning people from getting on a horse and chasing after a rag soaked in linseed oil?
Victoria Atkins
My right hon. Friend and county neighbour of course understands all the challenges facing our rural communities, and I think we are all wondering why, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, when very worrying events are happening overseas, food prices for all our constituents are continuing to rise, and jobs are being lost in all our constituencies because of the policies of this Government, they appear to be prioritising a lawful hobby, but I will come on to that in a minute.
In the midst of all this socialist misery, Labour is killing off pubs with their business rate hikes of up to 78%. [Laughter.] Labour Members may laugh, but they are not getting a drink out of this, are they? Two pubs and restaurants are closing every single day under this Government, so Members should support our pubs and pop into their local for a drink. The good news is that they will not meet a Labour MP there, as they have all been barred. [Interruption.] They don’t like it up ’em!
In contrast, the Conservatives have fully costed plans to scrap business rates entirely for a quarter of a million high-street businesses and pubs, paid for by welfare reforms that the Prime Minister is too weak to push through. We Conservatives care, we get it, and we have people’s backs.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Does that not speak to a wider point? I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that the shocking statistics out this week on just how few young people are able to get Saturday jobs show that if we cut business rates and allow businesses to employ people, we stand a much better chance of keeping them off welfare in the first place.
Victoria Atkins
That is exactly right, and the difference is that Conservative Members are used to running businesses and working in the private sector, whereas Labour Members have no idea and no clue.
It is not just our market towns and villages that are being hurt by this Government; our public services are, too. Labour has scrapped the rural services delivery grant. They have imposed a local government finance settlement that delivers a three-year punishment beating to shire districts, while their urban counterparts do better, and they have made cynical changes to funding formulas so that rural areas lose out. These choices will have a real impact on the delivery of public services—from health and social care to schools, vital infrastructure and transport. Scrapping the £2 bus fare has increased the cost of living for rural residents, and increased fuel duty will take even more money from our pockets later this year.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Victoria Atkins
I will make some progress, because I know how popular this debate is.
Labour’s choices will scar our landscapes and nature forever. The Government are reversing our bold commitments to nature with another U-turn on biodiversity net gains. The chief executive officer of the London Wildlife Trust has said of this U-turn:
“It’s a farce, a disgrace. It’s desperate.”
Well, that is Labour party policy for you. That U-turn has particular poignancy because of the industrialisation of our countryside, where pylons, substations, solar estates and wind turbines are set up, though local opinion is against them—all to meet the unachievable net zero targets set by the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. My constituents are the victims of that in Lincolnshire, where Labour’s plans will destroy people’s homes, our cherished landscape and nature, as well as prime agricultural land that feeds the nation. We will fight those plans.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a salient point. When local people face the impositions that she mentions, it is prime land that is taken out of production, compromising our food security, making us less economically resilient, and costing jobs and livelihoods in the countryside.
Victoria Atkins
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend and county neighbour. What Labour does not seem to understand is that rural areas are not against building more homes and infrastructure. They just want them in the right places, and for them to go with the grain of the community, not against it. At least the Prime Minister is being consistent in this one instance. In the election campaign, he said that he was happy to make enemies of the people who oppose his plans. Well, that is a rare example of an election promise that he has kept. Just as Ministers do not understand business because none of them has ever run one, they do not understand the quintessential quality of rural life—that sense of belonging, of being part of a community. It is about people coming together, be it at the parish church, the local riding stables or our local pubs.
Rural sports, which were mentioned, are an example. They are a key part of the rural way of life for participants and non-participants alike. They are responsible for 26,000 full-time equivalent jobs, and perform vital conservation work across the countryside. Wander down a rural high street and you will see shops selling clothing and equipment for rural sports, as well as farriers, gun makers and saddlers, and there are others dotted around the countryside. A careless policy on rural sports will have wide-reaching impacts across our rural communities.
We rightly have some of the strongest gun laws in the world. The intent to strengthen those safeguards further is understandable, but we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community on their serious concerns that current proposals will have grave and unintended consequences, including causing further delays in vital medical assessments for licence holders.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
Is the shadow Secretary of State aware of the great concern in Shropshire among the rural community, in particular farmers, that the Government are conflating lethal firearms with shotguns? Of course, shotguns should be controlled, but they are already strictly controlled, and they are a vital part of rural life, especially for farmers controlling vermin, or those undertaking other rural pursuits. I appeal, through the shadow Secretary of State, to the Minister to look again and disregard the consultation. The changes have not been called for and are unnecessary.
Victoria Atkins
As I say, we urge the Government to pause and work with the shooting community. We all understand the intent behind the proposals, but the Government have to get them right, because they could have grave ramifications.
Trail hunting, which we will hear about this afternoon, is long-established, and was specifically permitted by the previous Labour Government under the Hunting Act 2004 as a humane alternative to fox hunting. It is rightly a criminal offence to break the terms of the Hunting Act, and any such criminal offences should be enforced rigorously. Indeed, there have been 416 convictions in the past 15 years. Labour MPs need to be able to say why they propose imposing a blanket ban instead of tackling those who actually break the law. If there is to be intellectual consistency, do they advocate banning driving, on the basis that some people speed? Of course not. There should be effective enforcement of the criminal law brought in by their predecessor Labour Government. I wish, for example, that the Government would prioritise stopping the egregious crime of hare coursing, which we suffer from very badly in Lincolnshire, or organised rural crime or fly-tipping—all terrible crimes that seem to be increasing. Under this Government, sadly, police numbers are falling, including in rural areas. Rather than tackle the issues of policing and enforcement, the Government want to impose a blanket ban. Let us be clear-eyed as to why they are doing this: their Prime Minister is weak, his Cabinet is circling and his Back Benchers are revolting. [Laughter.] The Government need to throw them some red meat, so they are coming after lawful rural sports.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for giving way from her humorous speech. She has just listed a series of changes that she would like this Labour Government to make. Can she tell the House whether, in a 15th year of Conservative Government, those changes would have been made?
Victoria Atkins
Very much so. If the hon. Gentleman comes to the county of Lincolnshire, he will see the superb operation that Lincolnshire police did throughout that time to tackle hare coursing, with the support of Home Office Ministers. We have to be clear-eyed about the impact of organised rural crime, because theft of high-value farm machinery is having a terrible impact across farms. In short, this Government cannot let people live and let live.
The final example I will give is the Government’s arrogance and contempt over the infamous family farm and family business tax fiasco—what a complete and utter mess by the Secretary of State, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. I have some advice for the next Labour Prime Minister, later this year: this is a textbook example of how not to govern. The Government betrayed at the first opportunity an election promise not to touch agricultural property relief and business property relief, and spent 14 months marching junior Ministers and Back Benchers up the hill to defend their policy, telling the rural community that they were wrong and that Ministers knew better; they recommitted to this tax at the Budget on 26 November and at oral questions to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 18 December, and then they had a mystical revelation. Five days later, they U-turned on their hated tax. It was a Christmas miracle—and it is an absolute miracle that any Minister can look at themselves in the mirror after this chaotic and shameful episode.
The Government’s mess of a partial U-turn will raise only enough money to pay for an afternoon in the NHS, yet, as the Country Land and Business Association points out, it will condemn the families operating on the slimmest of margins—who have invested in expensive machinery or who live in expensive parts of the country—to selling the family farm to pay this vindictive tax. That is why the tax must be axed.
We Conservatives have forced four votes on this issue in the past 14 months. Labour MPs toed the party line until the Budget vote in December, and that made the difference. They have the chance tonight to axe the family farm and family business tax completely, and their constituents will be watching.
This year we Conservatives will continue to fight for rural communities, for the shops, pubs and small businesses that are the backbone of the rural economy, for better funding for our vital public services, for rural people and sports to have the freedom to live and let live and, of course, for our farmers to thrive, not just survive. We Conservatives care about our market towns, our villages, our neighbours and our families. I say to them: we get it, and we have your backs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
On Monday, the Prime Minister admitted that farmers are considering taking their own lives for fear of the family farm tax—a tax that he described as a “sensible reform”. The next day, I was given a letter for the Prime Minister from 90-year-old farmer and grandmother Mrs Denton. It contains one chilling question that I expect the farming Minister to be able to answer. Mrs Denton asks:
“My husband and I now need to know as soon as possible the date we need to die by to avoid the totally unfair inheritance tax that will be forcibly put on our offspring to have to sell or split up a food-producing farm—and do what?”
Dame Angela Eagle
This is a highly sensitive issue. The reasons for someone contemplating taking their own life are often very complex. My heart goes out to every family who is devastated by such events. I understand the pressures that farmers are under, but I have to say that the right hon. Lady’s way of making her point is very distasteful indeed.
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
May I wish you, Mr Speaker, the House staff and Members across the House a very merry Christmas? I thank the farmers, the food producers, and the pubs, restaurants, hotels and others that will look after us all and ensure that we enjoy a very merry Christmas.
We are in a food and farming emergency, with rising food prices, record farm closures and two pubs or restaurants closing every single day. A month ago, the Conservatives held an emergency summit to ask farmers, fishermen and food producers for the urgent solutions they need to survive the next 12 months. Those included launching their sustainable farming incentive scheme, rolling over the fruit and veg scheme, and setting up a scheme to ensure that livestock farmers can afford to feed their animals over winter, as well as axing the family farm tax. I sent those solutions to the Secretary of State hoping that she would do something, but I have still heard nothing back a month later. There has been no action or response from her to that letter.
Mr Speaker
Order. [Interruption.] One of us is going to sit down, and it is not going to me, is it? We are in topical questions, and I have let the session run a little bit to get everybody in. We must have short questions. If you are going to come in on topicals, your question has to be short; it cannot be a long list. Please finish your question now.
Victoria Atkins
This is a quick question. Does the Secretary of State think that she is capable of organising a knees-up in a brewery this Christmas?
Oral Answers to Questions
Victoria Atkins Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
I welcome the right hon. Lady and the Minister with responsibility for farming to their new roles. We Conservative Members genuinely wish them well in this food and farming emergency. The seriousness of that emergency was made clear to me last night by the agricultural chaplain of Suffolk. He told me about the devastating impact that he sees the family farm tax having: the father of two small children who took his life because of fears about the tax, the 92-year-old grandmother who has told her family calmly that she will not be here in April because she wants to beat the tax deadline, and the teenager who walked in to find his father’s body. The chaplain said to me, “This tax will live with that poor boy for the rest of his life.” All that has happened since the Secretary of State took office, and it is happening across the country. Why does she support this tax?
Emma Reynolds
This is a highly sensitive issue. The reasons for somebody taking their life are often very complex, and my heart goes out to every family devastated by these events. I am not willing to make political points on this issue.
Victoria Atkins
I am not making political points; I am telling the right hon. Lady the reality of her policy. Farmers will have heard no answer, no reason and no understanding. It is shameful. With 13 days to go until the Budget, let me point out that there are enormous economic costs, too. Millions of advisers, businesses and constituents, the 10 largest supermarket chains, multiple food manufacturers, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee think that this is a bad tax, badly done. The Conservatives will axe this tax. Given that the Secretary of State has admitted this week that Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have “made mistakes” this year, will she finally admit that the family farm and family business taxes are some of those mistakes?