Robbie Moore

I pleased that the right hon. Member, for whom I have great respect, has raised this point, but I will gently push back and say that we are two years into this Labour Government. He makes reference to a consultation that was started under the previous Conservative Administration, but we voted on the fertiliser tax this week, and it was predominantly Conservatives who voted against it. I have to say to the Liberal Democrats: where were you when we voted to stop the fertiliser tax? Not one Liberal Democrat MP voted to stop it. Yet again, the Liberal Democrats are all over the place. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) said in a debate that I attended last week: “We Liberal Democrats support the carbon border adjustment mechanism.”—[Official Report, Second Delegated Legislation Committee, 12 October 2026; c. 7.] However, in today’s motion, the Liberal Democrats propose that the House “notes that farmers are deeply concerned about surging input costs, the impact of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on fertiliser costs”, but they cannot bring themselves to be concerned enough to vote to stop it. Far from protecting our farmers in this House, the Liberal Democrats simply demonstrate that they are Labour enablers, helping those on the Government Benches bulldoze their plans through while outside this House, I suspect their leaflets will be portraying a very different message to their constituents to try to keep everybody happy, but we see through that. To conclude, the record of this Labour Government is clear for us all to see. They broke the SFI scheme and cut its budget. They taxed family farms and now are taxing fertilisers and assets. We have a Farming Minister who faints at the sight of meat. We have a countryside Minister who thinks that anyone who has a black Labrador and enjoys a warm pint in one of our rural pubs is far right. What an absolute nonsense. Farmers feed this nation—they deserve a Government on their side. It is clear that farmers can no longer afford another day of this Labour Government.