Electricity Infrastructure: Rural Communities
Debate between John Lamont and Ann Davies(5 days, 1 hour ago)
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John Lamont
I share the hon. Member’s concerns, and I will come on to nuclear a little later.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
In my constituency, pylon proposals are causing huge distress among our rural communities. They will not bring any real benefit to those communities. In fact, developers often bypass the rights of landowners, and the proposed developments will ruin our beautiful landscape. Does the hon. Member agree that electricity infrastructure anywhere must be done with communities, not to them?
John Lamont
The hon. Member makes an excellent point about taking communities with us. We all accept, I believe, the need to invest in our electricity infrastructure, but it must be done in a coherent way that takes local communities with us.
Agricultural Property Relief
Debate between John Lamont and Ann Davies(8 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Ann Davies
Of the clients that Eirian mentioned, five of them will not come under the tax liability because they have very small farms with off-farm income, they have transferred their farms following ill health, or they have significant debt that offsets the value of their farms.
It is clear that the assessments of the impact of the changes on working farms across the UK, on the wider economy and on the wider food supply chain are inadequate. The data that we have is deficient; it includes smallholdings and non-working farms. Data based on the basic payment scheme or on agricultural output would provide a fairer representation of the situation for genuine farmers.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The hon. Lady is speaking remarkably well about the challenges that this Government policy will create for farmers in Wales, in Scotland and across the UK. Research by Scottish Land and Estates shows that the average UK farm size is 217 acres and the average agricultural land value in Great Britain is £8,200 per acre, which means that the average working farm in the UK is worth about £1.8 million. Does that not show the flaw in the Government’s argument? This policy is not attacking the richest landowners; it is attacking working farms the length and breadth of the UK.
Ann Davies
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I totally agree. Indeed, I will give further details about that issue later in my speech.
It is also clear that industry experts were not consulted on the changes prior to the announcement, even though consultation could have led to a fairer and more appropriate solution that is not detrimental to family farms or the wider industry.