Mr Alistair Carmichael

I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I want to start with a comment that some may see as controversial—uncharacteristically so, I hope. I want this Government to succeed. I think it is in the national interest; everyone should want our Government to succeed. I worry that continued economic stagnation poses an increasing threat to social cohesion, and that is why I agree so strongly with their growth mission and why I think it is so important. If that growth is to be meaningful, though, it has to be available, felt and understood in every part of the United Kingdom. It should not just be growth in the cities and towns; it has to be felt and understood in rural communities, coastal communities and, of course, our island communities. It is for that reason that I feel so strongly about the dangers of what the Government are doing on the removal of agricultural property relief. We have already seen the effect that the prospect of that has had on agricultural businesses, and of course agricultural businesses underpin so much of what happens in rural communities. Forty-nine per cent of farm businesses have already paused or cancelled planned investment, 10% have downsized the scale of their operations and a further 21% intend to do so before next April. The truth of the matter is that these changes to APR have absolutely killed the sense of growth in the rural community. I welcome what the Minister said today about changes to the spousal transfer. I was inspired by the shadow Chancellor’s references to Shakespeare. I offer my own from A. A. Milne—maybe not quite so high-falutin’. As you well know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am a bear of very little brain, but I am pretty sure that what we heard from the Dispatch Box is more or less what the Government were telling us last year was going to be the case any way. If that is a concession, it does not seem to be much of a concession to me. It may have escaped the attention of the Treasury Front Bench that not every farmer is married and, indeed, a lot of farmers—like everybody else these days —get married and some then get divorced. Is the message from the Government to the farming community really, “If you want to hold on to the farm for the next generation, then get on to Tinder now, because that is your best chance of holding on”?