Clause 1

Maya Ellis Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Commons Chamber

How on earth is it fair that a family business in my constituency has already been told that its BPR liability will be more than £800,000? It employs 250 people in Keighley, and the professional advice it has been given to mitigate that tax liability is either to dispose of assets, or to dispose of shares in the business. Either way, that family are losing the productivity of their business and potentially exposing a number of jobs, and they may have to give away the ownership of a business that has been in the family for four generations. This is bad policy by the Government. They may have raised the threshold, but it is quite clear to me and the many stakeholders I have spoken to that they have not done their homework when looking at the practicalities of the implementation. That is why Conservative Members will continue to take the narrative that the family farm tax and the family business tax must be axed in their entirety.

[Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)]

It is a delight to speak in this debate following what was possibly the best Christmas present that I have ever received: no shade to my parents or husband, but when we got the call from the Treasury on 23 December and heard about the raising of the threshold for agricultural property relief and business property relief, it was more than I had ever hoped for. I am grateful to the Chancellor, the Prime Minister and colleagues for navigating the genuinely tricky balance between ensuring that the farming industry is not used to avoid tax, that our family farms are protected and encouraged to thrive, and that food security is protected in increasingly turbulent times internationally.

Let me put on record my huge thanks to my colleagues in the Labour Rural Research Group, of which I am delighted to have become treasurer today as we regroup for our next plans. In pushing for the change to the thresholds, they have shown me the collegiate and constructive politics that I had always hoped was possible for this country, under the solid leadership of my impressive hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Jenny Riddell-Carpenter).

When I stood as an MP in a rural area, I was most excited to learn more about the land and the farming industry that had been all around me growing up. It was challenging to have to start those conversations among such heated debate, but I got into politics because I like a robust discussion. And you know what? The situation allowed us to move past the niceties quickly and to talk frankly from the beginning about what really mattered to farmers, farming communities and family businesses—and it has been a joy to hear about the passion, the history, the deep pride in this country and its traditions, and about what our land and close-knit communities provide for us, from the voices of families who are motivated to keep it going in a way that money alone could never inspire.

We have heard a lot of discussion in recent years about what it means to be British. A poll last year by More in Common found that of all the things that British people are proud of, the countryside came second, with only the NHS ahead of it. There are a lot of decisions to be made about the role of agriculture in British society. I am grateful to Minette Batters for producing in her farming profitability review a brave and system-wide approach to the future of farming in this country, and I hope that the Government are bold enough to take on all her recommendations. We also have trade deals to negotiate, which must uphold the same standards that we rightly hold our farmers to, and indeed that they want to uphold without being undercut from abroad.

We have also had a lot of discussions about ideas like 15-minute cities and sustainable economies. Most rural towns and villages are 15-minute cities, with everything in one place and everyone helping each other out. I know that globalisation favours agglomeration and the urban, but let us not forget who did circular economies first: our rural towns and villages. Let us learn from them now, as much as we ask them to learn from the things that we do in this place.

When we talk about what it means to be British in the light of this Finance Bill, which sets the tone for what we want British growth to be in the next decade, let us make sure that we protect what makes us want to be British. I do not want this country to be prosperous at any cost—I want us to be prosperous in a truly British way. Both myself and the public are clear that that includes the countryside, and our rural economies and communities, being at the very heart of who we are.

I thank the Government for their continued work on adapting the Bill through amendment 24, and looking more widely at how we improve and sustain support for farming in the long term. I have 829 farms in my Ribble Valley constituency—mainly dairy and cattle, and with a wide range of innovation and diversification. One farm I visited has a value of around £3 million, and the people I met there told me that they had slowly seen farm after farm close in their part of the constituency over the past 20 years. Today’s changes mean that they now have confidence that the farm can be passed on to a fifth generation, and they are also confident to invest in new calf housing, supported by other Government funding.

I question how many famers Opposition Members have spoken to in recent weeks, because most of my farmers are happy with these changes and want me to now focus on other critical issues. The farm I mentioned has seen a drop of 9.5p per litre in what it has been paid for milk since last October, so although I now welcome the tax policy in the Bill, I remind the Government that that there is still a huge amount of work to do to ensure that farms are sustainable and our food security is robust.

I hope that the Government will work with us to put increasing pressure on supermarket shareholders to play their part—supermarkets are companies that thrive from British custom—by working much harder to protect the lifeblood of our economy, as farmers are, as well as their pockets.

[Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)]

It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the Labour Rural Research Group and to see the difference it makes when we have serious conversations behind the scenes, talking to the Treasury and Ministers. In the last 12 months, I have met over 100 farmers from my constituency, who were all incredibly concerned about the changes that were proposed. We had serious conversations about what we needed to do and listened to them talk about their problems. While they were all incredibly pleased with the changes to those proposals, does my hon. Friend agree that our farmers and farming communities have struggled for decades? They might have farms worth lots of money, but it is more important that they are profitable. Does she agree that those are the changes that we need to make?

[Maya Ellis]

I completely agree. That is why it is disappointing that the Opposition are looking at certain details, when all the farmers that I speak to desperately want us to focus on the next stages of how we support those farms. We have done the thing that we needed to do to protect the smallest ones.

[Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member spoke about the Labour Rural Research Group. Will it stand with the Opposition in rejecting Ukrainian eggs coming into the UK and undercutting British farmers?

[Maya Ellis]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. We have spoken about that issue with Ministers; is an important conversation that we absolutely have to have.

Another of my farms belongs to a constituent who was one of the first to reach out to me and meet me in London. I have spoken about his farm in previous debates; it is a partnership between husband, wife and mother. Under the original plans, he would have faced a liability of £130,000 when the mother passed away in coming years, but thanks to Government amendment 24 the liability is completely removed, allowing them to focus on profitability.

I also have a significant number of family-owned businesses in my constituency, including Massey Feeds, which happens to supply the agricultural sector. Its people made a really strong point to me when I met them last year; if they had had to downscale to afford the original proposed changes to BPR, their main option would have been to sell one of their company’s three sites to a foreign-owned competitor. Although we welcome foreign investment in this country, it does nothing for our sovereignty, growth or innovation when the proceeds and hard work of British-built companies end up as profits in other countries. After the announcement in December, I was delighted to hear from the owner, Kynan Massey, who thanked this Government for listening and for adapting the BPR thresholds. He told me that the recent change means that the business has the confidence to continue to invest, including with a £2 million investment to grow the capacity of its site in my constituency.

Gazegill farm in my constituency has been in the same family for 500 years and has an estimated value of just over £4 million. It employs 39 full-time equivalents through its organic farm, its award-winning restaurant Eight at Gazegill—I recommend that everyone visiting Lancashire should try it out; it is the best farm-to-fork experience in the country—and its growing farm shop. Emma and Ian, who run Gazegill, are the perfect example of ambitious and innovative company owners, working hard to regenerate and bring new employment and tourism to parts of Lancashire that will really benefit from new investment. The new changes to APR will allow them to push ahead with that investment, including by building a new farm shop later this year.

If we are serious about supporting small businesses across our regions, about local sustainable economies and about improving the health of this country, farms like Gazegill are exactly the type of companies we should support to grow. I wholly support Government amendment 24 to ensure significant protection and support for business owners like Emma and Ian and all the incredible farms in Ribble Valley, which I am so proud to represent.

[Carla Lockhart]

I rise to speak about the changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief in clause 62 and schedule 12. I do so having stood shoulder to shoulder with farmers from my constituency of Upper Bann, from across Northern Ireland and from across this entire United Kingdom; they have lobbied, protested and spoken with one voice in defence of their livelihoods and their family farms since the tax grab was announced. It has been my greatest honour to come alongside and fight this battle with them. It is because of their persistence that we have seen any movement at all from this Government.

While I acknowledge that the increase in the inheritance tax threshold to £2.5 million represents a concession, it is a hard-won one. It was not offered freely; it was forced by the strength and unity of the farming community and by the courage of the minority on the Back Benches of the Labour party. Even so, it remains wholly insufficient and fails to address the fundamental unfairness that remains embedded in the Bill.

Ultimately, we on the DUP Benches—indeed, Members rights across the Ulster Benches—want to see this policy scrapped in totality. That is why I support amendment 3 and the linked amendments 4 to 23, which would delay the commencement of these changes to 1 March 2027. Farming families planned succession responsibly and in good faith under the rules as they stood; changing those rules mid-stream is unjust and destabilising, and it undermines confidence across the entire sector.