Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Thursday 22nd October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The issues around inheritance tax were dealt with by my predecessor. It was not a humiliating U-turn; it was the result of listening to what people were telling us. If the right hon. Lady wants change but describes a Government change as a humiliating U-turn, I am not quite sure whose side she is on.

[Victoria Atkins]

I can tell the Secretary of State now that I am not on the side of this Government. While Labour was complaining about black labradors and pubs at its party conference, the Conservatives were listening to rural business owners. They are being squeezed at every turn; the cost of energy, water, heating oil, petrol and diesel, as well as food prices, and the amount of red tape and taxes, are all up under this Government. The Secretary of State may have heard of two of them: Jeremy Clarkson and Cheerful Charlie—in fact, the Secretary of State has stood up Cheerful Charlie three times. They asked a question at our party conference that I hear in market towns and villages across the country under this Government: why would anyone start a business in this country right now?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Lady has some brass neck to stand up and say that. When she was in the Treasury, food inflation was at 19.1%. We know that some of the pressures on energy and power, which are in turn putting such pressure on everybody, across all aspects of our economy, are due to global instabilities and what is happening in the middle east. I met Cheerful Charlie, and he is a reasonable man. By the way, I did not stand him up three times; there were some holds in the diary that they put in. I spend my time listening to farming communities, and I will not take any lessons from the right hon. Lady.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[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—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Angela Eagle

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.