Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

Conservative — Solihull West and Shirley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 14 October 2026

Debate

Inheritance Tax

Contribution

One of the liberating elements of speaking at this stage of the debate is that many excellent and eminently sensible points have already been made, so I can do an assorted highlights of the best bits that have come out of it. But it has made me reflect that perhaps if we all took a stroll down to Clapham, got on the omnibus, and spoke to the man and woman who had boarded it, I suspect that their vision of this country would not be the same as the purported utopia that we have heard from those on the Government Benches today. I suspect that if we asked people what they want to see from the tax system, they would want to see something that is not unnecessarily detrimental to a single group and not punitive in its intent. Fundamentally, it should not be something that disincentivises those who have done the right thing. Looking at the tax landscape in this country, it has become far too complicated and burdensome—we are now at more than 20,000 pages of tax codes, whereas in 1997 there were fewer than 5,000.

More from Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

For Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst's full parliamentary record including voting history, expenses and all other contributions, see the Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst report card.