Andrew Griffith

I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to cut public spending in order to abolish Inheritance Tax on family homes, farms and businesses. There is a divide the size of Manchester’s Etihad arena in British politics today: between those who want to tax family farms, and those who do not; between those who want to tax family businesses, and those who do not; and now, between those who want to tax family homes, and those who do not. Not content with the highest tax burden in peacetime history, in their first Budget the Government chose to impose inheritance tax on farmers and family businesses. The Conservatives would scrap the family farm tax and the family business tax, and we would abolish inheritance tax on the family home. That is because we believe that people who work hard and save hard should keep the rewards, rather than seeing them sold and snaffled up to pay a taxman who refuses to make hard choices and to cut welfare. We will hear later from the shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins); she has been a stalwart defender of Britain’s farmers, who this Government have attacked. I will speak briefly to the family businesses that this Government are also attacking. Many of them are small businesses: people who get up every day and take on the responsibility of hiring—often hiring young people—of making payroll and of creating growth in this country.