Esther McVey

My hon. Friend speaks knowledgably and passionately about the business in her constituency, and she is right. A family business I spoke to said, “We are already working on small profit margins. We do not know how we will cope. The enormity of the changes will change the way we look at our business. What are we going to do? We might have to carve up the business or cut it down. We might end up selling up or we might look for foreign investment, whether we seek that out or they seek us out”. They say that their business will not survive and thrive, and there is no doubt that it will shrink or end. Another essential point, which other hon. Members have mentioned, is that family businesses are the breeding ground of entrepreneurs. Family members will work of a weekend, be trained up and go into the family business. People talk about love and passion—all those things—but it is that entrepreneurial spirit that this Government will kill, along with jobs in local communities, because family businesses have a special place in the heart of communities. This Chancellor said that the changes would only impact the wealthiest of businesses—have we not heard that before? The Government said that the farm tax would impact only the wealthiest of farms, that the removal of the winter fuel payment would impact only the wealthiest of pensioners, and that VAT on schools would impact only the wealthiest of people: that is utter nonsense. The Labour party is removed from reality, ideologically driven and blinded by jealousy. Labour’s raid on family businesses, worth about £500 million by 2030—that is the Treasury’s forecast—will actually lose billions of pounds more. These tax changes are ideologically driven and the Chancellor is killing the geese that lay the golden eggs. There is a vacuum of business know-how and business knowledge among those on the Government Benches. What they are doing to our country is an utter disgrace.