Gareth Davies

I completely agree. We would not be doing this, and we should not be here, but clearly the policy has been executed without a plan—without serious thought, analysis or engagement. I would welcome anything that the Government can do to make this less painful for those affected and to get the numbers right. The Minister explained that the Government expect to raise around £300 million even with the U-turn, but the initial costing was labelled in the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook as “highly uncertain”. For those not familiar with this, there are different categories of uncertainty in the EFO, and “highly uncertain” is the most uncertain that one can be about a figure. Surely this new figure of £300 million is uncertain, just as the £500 million was. What assurance can the Minister provide that the Exchequer will not in fact lose out overall, despite the pain that the Government are determined to inflict? How confident is he in these numbers? Secondly, since the Chancellor’s first Budget, family businesses and farmers have had to make many difficult decisions. Family Business UK and Make UK say that 55% of BPR-affected and 49% of APR-affected businesses have paused or cancelled investments. Family-run farms are putting off the purchase of new, more efficient machinery and family-run shops no longer see the point of expanding to an additional site or another high street, or of taking on more staff. It comes back to the questionable figures I talked about and the CBI’s analysis of the impact on the wider economy. Finally, we should have no confidence in the practicality of the measures before us. The Chartered Institute of Taxation has warned that extending 10 annual interest-free instalments to APR and BPR property does not solve the problem; those instalments will still be a significant burden. In practice, it is unlikely that many families will be able to pay the tax without selling up.