Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics
Debate between Ben Lake and Steve Reed(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Steve Reed
We will respond in detail to each of the 17 recommendations, including the one that my hon. Friend references. However, he is absolutely right: we can and should learn from best practice in other democracies to make our democracy as robust and safe as it can be.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
I, too, welcome Sir Philip Rycroft’s work and the Secretary of State’s announcement today. I strongly support the idea of applying the donations cap and the moratorium on cryptocurrency donations to the devolved elections. Will the Secretary of State just clarify, to reassure me, that for those changes to take effect for the upcoming elections, we will not have to have a legislative consent motion from the devolved legislatures before the elections because, as others have mentioned, there is very little time for that to happen?
Steve Reed
No; to reassure the hon. Gentleman, the provisions I have announced today apply to the entire United Kingdom, with immediate effect.
Rural Affairs
Debate between Ben Lake and Steve Reed(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Steve Reed
They are from the Treasury and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
Under the previous system, 40% of the value of agricultural property relief went to just 7% of claimants. That is not fair and it is not sustainable. Our reforms will put a stop to wealthy individuals buying up agricultural land to avoid inheritance tax and, in the process of doing that, pricing younger farmers out of buying land for themselves and for their families. As a Farmers Weekly correspondent pointed out,
“prices have been artificially inflated by non-agricultural buyers purchasing land for inheritance tax purposes”,
thereby making it hard for young farmers to set up a family farm. That is correct.
The reforms will protect family farms by closing the loopholes, but they will also help to provide funding for the public services on which families in rural and farming communities rely just as much as anyone else. When Opposition Members say that they would go back to the unfair old system, they also need to tell us which part of the new NHS investment they would cut to pay for it. Like everyone else, farmers and rural communities need a better NHS, affordable housing, good local schools and reliable public transport.
The last Government’s economic failure left Britain with a flatlining economy, broken public services and the worst decade for wage growth since the great depression of the 1930s. Poor public transport meant that people could not get to work, the GP or the hospital when they needed to. Home ownership was out of reach for too many in rural areas. Too few new homes were built, and even fewer that were genuinely affordable. Digital connectivity in rural areas lags behind connectivity in urban areas.
We have to kick-start the economy to build the public services that rural communities need, and to help with that we have secured the biggest budget for sustainable farming and nature in our country’s history. It will help to change farming practices so that we can clean up our rivers, lakes and seas, which the last Government left in such a filthy, polluted state.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
The Secretary of State mentioned the new set-up for the funding of agriculture and fisheries across the UK. He may be aware of the concern expressed by the Farmers’ Union of Wales, which fears that processing the extra funds through the Barnett formula—as opposed to the previous arrangement, which was a ringfenced addition for the devolved Governments—might bring about a severe reduction in agricultural funding in Wales. Will the Secretary of State please give some reassurance that that is not the case?
Steve Reed
As I have said, the consequentials will work in the way in which they always work. Devolved Administrations have some discretion as to how they will spend the money that is made available to them, but of course I, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, am more than happy to engage with, for instance, the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to discuss those points.
The huge investment we have secured in the sustainable farming budget will also help us to move to a zero-waste economy, as we end the throwaway society and reuse materials rather than sending them to landfill.