Graham Stuart

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and follow the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours), who is rare, as a Member on the Labour Benches, in feeling such commitment to maintaining and fulfilling the promises he made, not least to his farmers. I will begin by focusing on the farming issue. Too often we look at it in an overall, structural way and make comparisons with other types of inheritance, rather than looking at the specifics of the farming industry. A third of farmers do not make any profit at all, and those who do make profit make very little. Although we do not have exact data, it would appear that well over half of farmers make a 1% return on capital employed or less. Even if Treasury Ministers do not have any business experience—sadly, Labour Treasury Ministers typically do not—they should at least practice numeracy. If they are numerate, they can work out that if someone makes just 1% return annually on the capital value of their business, it would take 20 years of earnings to pay a 20% tax—and a third of farmers do not make anything at all. How is someone who makes 1% profit going to pay a 20% tax? This is not some freak thing that has just happened; it is consistent. The Government, to be fair to them, seem to have woken up in one sense. They said, “We must have a new initiative”—I forget what it is called—“to increase the profitability of farmers”. Well, yippidy-doo, well done for that. But should they not increase the profitability of farmers before imposing a tax that, mathematically, arithmetically—whatever other word you want to use—they cannot pay? The truth is that farmers cannot pay it. More than half of farmers literally do not have the profits to allow them to pay that tax. That simple truth sits at the heart of this. These businesses are prepared to do it because of their lifestyle, personal commitment and love of farming. They do it in order to put food on our plates that is among the highest quality in the world and at costs that are among the lowest in Europe. The Government could think about this from a public policy point of view too. There are businesses that are prepared to do that—unlike any other business sector I can think of or have ever experienced, or would certainly ever have entertained being part of myself. There are businesses that would take such low returns, work all the hours God gives and bring brilliant food to the tables of people up and down this country at low cost. Why on earth would the Government want to drive the people running those businesses out so that the people they say they want to attack—namely, huge billionaires and vast trust-based businesses—can gobble up those very farms, which are currently run by decent people in our communities who do all that good and ask for very little in return?