Budget Resolutions

Aphra Brandreth Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

The Budget was a missed opportunity for our rural economy, which yet again this Government have failed to back. My message to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor is simple: stop saying that every postcode matters, and start showing it. In Chester South and Eddisbury, around our farms sit the contractors, vets, farm shops, pubs and family businesses that keep our villages alive.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing agriculture and the farming life to this debate. That is important, and I congratulate her on being the first person today to mention it. The family farm inheritance tax will have a destructive impact on farming in Northern Ireland. The Ulster Farmers’ Union—I declare an interest as a member—says that people will be forced into a tax bracket not because a family is wealthy, but because the value of the land and buildings has risen on paper. Hard-working families are asset rich but cash poor, and the family farms that I live among and represent in Northern Ireland will be those that feel the pain caused by this Government.

[Aphra Brandreth]

The hon. Gentleman is a champion for farmers in his community, and he is right—the Chancellor had the chance to repeal the vindictive family farms tax and family business tax, but he chose not to.

Nearly nine in 10 rural businesses have paused investment, and when investment stops, the consequences ripple through the whole rural economy. Conservatives would scrap those damaging taxes. The Government also had the chance to give small businesses some much-needed breathing space. They did not. Our rural businesses, particularly in hospitality and tourism, are being squeezed by rising costs, higher taxes and more regulation.

When businesses are struggling they stop investing, they stop expanding and, crucially, they stop taking on staff. These are the businesses that give so many young people their first step into work, and we should be making that easier, not harder. That is the difference between this Government and the Conservatives: we would halve the jobs tax for under-25s and create 100,000 new apprenticeships, because the best way to get young people into work is to back the businesses willing to employ them. This Budget did neither.

Then there is the cost of fuel. The fuel duty freeze is welcome, but the Conservatives kept it frozen for 14 years because we understand how much rural communities rely on their cars. This is not just about fuel for transport. On Saturday, I was out chatting to residents in Audlem, and so many of the people I spoke to are living off-grid. The price of heating oil has nearly doubled this year, and families are wondering whether they can afford to fill their tanks before winter.

Rural communities are being left out in the cold, quite literally, and the Budget offered them nothing. That is the real cost of this Budget in the countryside: investment on pause, young people not taken on, homes going cold, and family farms wondering whether they will survive. The contrast could not be clearer. The Conservatives would back our family farms, cut taxes on jobs, bring down energy bills through our cheap power plan, and get our rural economy growing again.

The president of the National Farmers’ Union described this Budget as

“tinkering while Rome is burning”,

and he was right. Our farmers, rural businesses and families do not need more promises, more consultations or more plans for the future. Rural Britain needs action now, and this Budget has failed to deliver it.