Dave Doogan

I cannot help but agree with the hon. Lady. At the very least, that is what the Government should do, and other hon. Members have suggested that too. To be fair, it cannot be easy to form a new Government—it certainly does not look easy. Any new Government must come in, make decisions and quietly think, “Och, I wish we had not done that.” I am certain that APR was put under the nose of a Minister by a civil servant, in the full expectation that the Minister would have the wit to say, “We are not going there—we are absolutely not doing that.” And blooming heck, they have gone and done it. I am sure that when the civil servants walked away they were saying, “Oh God, we never expected that.” And so it is with business property relief, because of the consequences. The cost-benefit relationship between what they are doing to enterprise and business and what they will accrue to the Treasury is out of all kilter. The damage is way in excess of the potential accrual, and that is before behavioural changes are brought into effect. I recently spoke to a large-scale potato farmer near Kirriemuir, in my constituency, who has massive cold storage, a vital element of potato production, so that farmers can keep the potatoes in tip-top condition and ensure that the supermarkets are supplied as and when, just in time. I sometimes think that the Government think that farmers are trotting around in their tractors, chewing on a bit of straw, but these are really switched-on businesses that are doing the utmost to keep food prices down. We have some of the lowest food prices in Europe, and that does not happen by not investing seriously massive sums in capital and equipment. At a stroke, the Government have catastrophically disincentivised the very behaviour that helps keep food prices down and is anti-inflationary. Look what is going to happen with that.