Victoria Atkins

I promise that I will give way in a moment. As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness and my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) have both said, the sense of betrayal is palpable. As a fifth-generation farmer put it to me this morning, “Would you want to work somewhere that you knew over your lifetime was going to be taken away bit by bit?” Another has urged us to “fight this vindictive, illogical and ideologically driven tax”. Just before I began my speech, in response to the Secretary of State’s speech, I received this message from another farmer: “So long as mum dies before March 2026, we’re okay”. Yet the farming Minister and the Secretary of State seem to think that these worries are exaggerated. Indeed, the farming Minister got a ripe old reaction when he said words to that effect at today’s poultry conference. When we warned in June that a Labour Government would do this, the Secretary of State said that such warnings were “desperate nonsense” and accused us of lying. This followed the assurances he gave in December that Labour would not change this policy. So that is a broken promise. He is doing the exact opposite of what he said. How can rural communities trust him in the future? The Secretary of State has given some helpful advice to farmers, however. He has told them that they will have to “learn to do more with less”. Labour has not said the same to train drivers, resident doctors or their other union friends. Indeed, pensioners and family businesses will be the ones paying for these public sector pay rises.